Ferris opens door to National after accusing coalition of attacks on Māori

Summarised by Centrist

Independent MP Tākuta Ferris has left the door open to working with a National-led government, despite previously accusing the coalition of attacking Māori identity and rights.

Ferris has confirmed he will defend Te Tai Tonga as an independent after being expelled from Te Pāti Māori last year.

He said independence would allow him to advocate for local solutions and “leverage better outcomes for our people from any government”.

“To work with anyone who is willing to work for our people,” Ferris said.

Ferris won Te Tai Tonga in 2023 with 12,828 votes, defeating Labour’s Rino Tirikatene by more than 2,000. This year he faces Labour’s electorate-only candidate Mananui Ramsden, who is also his cousin, and Te Pāti Māori candidate Lisa Marie Murch.

Ferris now says kaupapa should come before party politics and that an independent MP would be accountable only to the people of Te Tai Tonga.

Editor’s note: The wording does not commit Ferris to supporting National, ACT or New Zealand First on confidence and supply. However, by referring to “any government” and “anyone”, he has conspicuously declined to rule out working with the right bloc.

That position sits uneasily with some of his previous rhetoric. In 2024, Ferris accused the government and National’s leadership of enabling “anti-Māori rhetoric” through their policies. He later described the coalition’s treatment of Whakaata Māori as an “insidious attack” on all things Māori and accused the government of a “deliberate reassertion of white dominance” over its foreshore and seabed reforms.

In 2025, he characterised the Luxon Government’s Waitangi Tribunal review as a continuation of “colonial violence” and called its Treaty Principles Bill “racist”.

If the election produces a closely divided Parliament, retaining the electorate could potentially give him leverage with either bloc.

Read more at Stuff and The  NZ Herald

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