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Matua Kahurangi
Just a bloke sharing thoughts on New Zealand and the world beyond. No fluff, just honest takes.
In a recent video shared by the ACT Party, a revealing exchange unfolded between ACT MP Karen Chhour and Te Pāti Māori MP Mariameno Kapa-Kingi. During a recent discussion, Kapa-Kingi insisted the focus remain solely on Māori children, stating, “You’re assuming that they’re the same as everyone else, and we’re not.”
She’s not wrong. Māori children are different, and not in the way her party likes to celebrate. They are the ones disproportionately suffering. They are the ones more likely to be raised in homes plagued by addiction, violence and neglect. They are the ones being buried at shocking rates, victims of abuse and murder, often at the hands of their own whānau.
What’s troubling is not Kapa-Kingi’s desire to focus on Māori tamariki. It’s the selective lens through which she chooses to do so. There’s an eagerness to blame colonisation, systemic racism or government policy. Where is the same energy when it comes to confronting the hard truth? Many of these children are being hurt and killed by her own people.
If Kapa-Kingi truly cared about Māori children, her outrage would not only flare up during political debates. It would show up in the communities where children are being failed every day. Yet we never hear her speak about the epidemic of abuse within Māori households.
Yes, Māori children are different. They are overrepresented in child homicide statistics. They are failed by their own families who would rather spend their benefits on meth and piss. The silence from politicians like Kapa-Kingi may be politically convenient, but it is a betrayal to the very Māori child she claims to advocate for.
Real leadership means facing uncomfortable truths, even when it means turning the mirror on your own.
This article was originally published on the author’s Substack.
