Lady Tureiti Moxon is a long-time Māori health advocate, Waitangi Tribunal claimant and co-claimant in the Wai 2575 health inquiry, who is challenging Labour to clarify its commitment to Māori health self-determination following comments that cast doubt on reinstating Te Aka Whai Ora.
Labour’s Willie Jackson is facing a growing political backlash following a bruising television interview on Māori policy, with Winston Peters seizing on the debate over co-governance while prominent Māori voices question whether Labour has clearly articulated what it stands for heading into Election 2026.
Jackson, Labour’s Māori campaign chair and co-chair of its Māori caucus, appeared on TVNZ’s Q+A as Labour launched its campaign to recapture the Māori electorates it lost to Te Pāti Māori in 2023. The interview traversed Māori health, employment, education, Te Tiriti, co-governance and Labour’s strategy for winning Māori voters back.
But instead of giving Labour a clean platform to reset its Māori campaign, the appearance has ignited a much wider argument about the party’s direction.
Peters launches attack over co-governance
New Zealand First leader Winston Peters has responded by targeting Jackson over co-governance.
Peters says Jackson suggested that because the term co-governance frightens some voters, it could potentially be given another name.
Peters responded by offering his own descriptions of co-governance, using the politically explosive terms separatist, racist and apartheid, before reiterating New Zealand First’s opposition to the model and its long-standing one-law-for-all position.
The language is consistent with Peters’ established campaigning against co-governance. He has previously characterised co-governance as incompatible with democracy and repeatedly framed the issue in terms of separatism, race and equal citizenship.
The intervention ensures the debate will not remain confined to Labour’s Māori campaign.
It has instead reopened one of the most divisive political arguments of recent years: what partnership and shared decision-making under Te Tiriti should look like in practice.
Māori Health Authority answer opens another front
Jackson’s position on Te Aka Whai Ora, the former Māori Health Authority, has also attracted significant attention.
When repeatedly questioned about whether Labour would restore the authority if it returned to government, Jackson eventually confirmed that his personal preference was not to recreate the former structure.
His argument was that Māori health providers have emphasised the need for greater funding, resources and devolution, and that those outcomes could potentially be achieved without rebuilding Te Aka Whai Ora in precisely its previous form.
That is potentially a significant shift.
Te Aka Whai Ora was one of the former Labour Government’s flagship Māori health reforms before being abolished by the National-led coalition.
Jackson’s comments therefore leave Labour facing an obvious question: if Te Aka Whai Ora is not coming back, what will replace it?
Greater direct commissioning and devolved funding to Māori health providers may be one answer, but Labour will need to explain where Māori authority over decision-making sits within any replacement model.
Labour trying to change the conversation
The controversy also exposes a broader strategic repositioning by Labour.
Jackson has been emphasising jobs, health and homes as the foundation of Labour’s Māori election campaign.
Reporting following Labour’s Māori campaign launch suggests Jackson wants economic and social issues placed ahead of making Te Tiriti the centrepiece of the campaign, while maintaining that Labour continues to support Treaty-related kaupapa.
There is a clear political calculation behind that strategy.
Māori households are dealing with housing pressure, unemployment, health inequities and the cost of living. Labour appears determined to argue that delivering tangible improvements in those areas should be the test of its Māori policy.
But that creates another challenge.
For many Māori, Te Tiriti, rangatiratanga and economic and social outcomes are not separate issues.
The debate over Māori health commissioning, for example, is simultaneously a debate about health outcomes and who gets to make decisions about Māori health.
Māori reaction adds to Labour’s headache
The response within Māori political and media circles has also been sharp.
Former Cabinet Minister Nanaia Mahuta has publicly engaged with criticism of the interview, while Lady Tureiti Moxon has also weighed into the debate.
Waatea has reviewed dozens of public comments responding to the interview and spoken with Māori leaders across the motu. A recurring criticism has been that the appearance was unhelpful to Labour’s Māori campaign, with some describing it as a political disaster.
Those reactions are perspectives rather than a scientific measure of Māori public opinion, but they demonstrate the immediate political difficulty Labour now faces.
Instead of discussing the policies it wanted to campaign on, the party is being forced to explain what it means by co-governance, whether Te Aka Whai Ora should return and how strongly Te Tiriti will feature in its programme for government.
Peters sees an electoral opening
For Peters, the controversy provides an opportunity to return to political territory New Zealand First knows well.
The party has campaigned against co-governance for years, and Peters was again describing the previous Labour Government’s approach as racist co-governance during an election speech only days ago.
His latest intervention is therefore not simply an attack on Jackson.
It is an attempt to frame the election choice itself.
New Zealand First wants voters to see co-governance as race-based political separation. Supporters of Māori-Crown partnership models instead argue that recognising tangata whenua rights and Te Tiriti obligations is fundamentally different from racial separation.
Those competing interpretations are likely to collide repeatedly before polling day.
The bigger problem for Labour
Labour lost six of the seven Māori electorates in 2023 and is now campaigning to win them back. Jackson is leading that effort.
That makes clarity particularly important.
Labour is attempting to persuade Māori voters that it remains the best vehicle for improving Māori lives while simultaneously distinguishing itself from Te Pāti Māori and convincing the wider electorate that its previous Māori policy agenda will not simply be recreated.
That is a difficult political balancing act.
There is nothing inherently contradictory about reviewing whether an institution such as Te Aka Whai Ora was the best mechanism for delivering Māori health outcomes.
Nor is there anything unusual about a political party reassessing policies after losing an election.
But if Labour intends to change the structures while retaining the objectives, it will need to explain that distinction clearly.
Otherwise its opponents will define the change for it.
Election 2026: Who defines the Māori-Crown relationship?
The political fight sparked by Jackson’s interview ultimately reaches beyond one television appearance.
It asks what co-governance actually means, whether the terminology has become politically toxic, what Labour now believes about Māori decision-making, and whether greater devolution to Māori providers can deliver rangatiratanga without recreating institutions such as Te Aka Whai Ora.
Peters has already supplied New Zealand First’s answer.
Te Pāti Māori has a substantially different one, including proposals to strengthen the constitutional position of Te Tiriti and make Waitangi Tribunal recommendations binding on the Crown. Jackson has previously said Labour would not support the latter proposal.
Now Labour needs to make its own position unmistakable.
Because with Māori electorates firmly in play and Election 2026 approaching, the argument is rapidly becoming about much more than terminology.
It is becoming an argument about who holds power, how Māori exercise rangatiratanga, and what the relationship between Māori and the Crown should look like under the next Government.
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