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Mauri Pacific (literally meaning "spirit of the Pacific") was a short-lived political party in New Zealand. It was formed in 1998 by five former members of the New Zealand First party. It has often been described as a Maori party, but officially, Mauri Pacific was merely a multiculturalist party, welcoming anyone who supported racial and cultural harmony - three of its five MPs were Maori, and two were pakeha.
The party only contested one election, and failed to retain any of its five seats in Parliament. The party disbanded shortly afterwards.
Origins
Mauri Pacific had its origins in New Zealand First, a populist party led by former National Party minister Winston Peters. After the 1996 election, New Zealand First held the balance of power in Parliament, and eventually went into coalition with the conservative National Party. Gradually, however, the relationship between New Zealand First and the National Party deteriorated. In August 1998, the coalition collapsed. Many New Zealand First MPs were not willing to follow their party back into Opposition, however. Eight of the party's sixteen MPs defected, establishing themselves as independents. These MPs supported the National Party government, enabling it to keep a slim majority in Parliament.
Some time later, five of the newly independent MPs gathered together to establish Mauri Pacific. They were led by Tau Henare, who served as Minister of Maori Affairs (a position he had been allowed to keep in exchange for supporting the government). The other MPs were Tuku Morgan, Rana Waitai, Jack Elder, and Ann Batten.
Henare, Morgan, and Waitai were previously members of the so-called "tight five", New Zealand First's group of Maori MPs. (The other two members of the "tight five", Tu Wyllie and Tuariki Delamere, were not involved with Mauri Pacific - Wyllie had remained with New Zealand First, and Delamere eventually joined the small Te Tawharau party.) Because it was led by these three MPs, Mauri Pacific was considered by many to be a Maori party. Its policies were generally favourable towards Maori, such as its proposal to give customary Maori law equal status to modern Western law, but the party portrayed this as multiculturalism rather than merely Maori advocacy. The party made a particular attempt to gather support from Pacific Islanders, although was not particularly successful.
Fate
Mauri Pacific was not well received by the general public. The behaviour of its members (particularly, the behaviour of Tuku Morgan) had been criticised even before the splintering of New Zealand First, and the perception that these MPs had "betrayed" their former party was strong. Many voters believed that Mauri Pacific had been born out of political opportunism, not out of firmly-held principle. In addition, the party's policies were criticised as vague and inspecific.
In the 1999 elections, Mauri Pacific stood candidates in twenty electorates. It also put forward a party list of twenty-two people. However, the party gained only 4,008 list votes (0.19% of the total), putting it in thirteenth place. None of Mauri Pacific's sitting MPs were re-elected, or even managed to win second place. Shortly after the election, Mauri Pacific disbanded.
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