OPINION: National's whakapapa roots grew from the first-ever governing party, Liberal.
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Carmen Parahi with her grandfather, Kāte Parahi in 1997.
When someone you know is acting strangely or saying weird s***, you’re going to intervene and ask them: “Bro, are you okay? Do you need help?”
It’s the same feeling I have watching National in Government with its two right-wing coalition partners and the second failed leadership coup: “Is National
okay? Does it need an intervention?”
To find answers, I first phoned a National insider, but they’re no longer in the party. *Alex has resigned from their role within National and decided against renewing their membership.
“It’s an expression of protest,” Alex said. “They’re not the National Party I’ve always supported.”
“National has always represented business, led and managed strong economic positions. But it also had a social conscience, which has become invisible.”
But what are National’s values? I took a dive into the party’s past to understand what’s happening now.
Personally, I wanted to better understand why my late koroua (grandfather), Kāte Parahi, stood for National in the Southern Māori seat in 1972.
National’s whakapapa roots grew from the first-ever governing party, Liberal, formed in 1891. Liberal tried to cater for everyone from socialists to libertarians until the more conservative Reform Party began in 1909, and various socialist iterations became Labour in 1916. Liberal was ended by the United Party in 1928. A year after Labour was first elected in 1935, Reform and United joined to become National.
Those two parties were its forefathers. Liberal introduced the first pension in 1898, and United initiated the first unemployment benefit in 1930. National traditionally centre-right, Labour centre-left. When either were in Government, they often provided overlapping socialist and conservative policies. For example, Labour Prime Minister David Lange introduced neoliberal economic reforms during the 1980s and when National Prime Minister Sir John Key won the 2008 election, he invited the then Māori Party into a confidence and supply agreement, leading to Whānau Ora, which still exists today.
Like Key, other National leaders, such as Jim Bolger, also positioned the party in the centre right. After a binding referendum, Bolger changed the electoral system to MMP, controversially reformed social welfare with Ruth Richardson and progressed Te Tiriti o Waitangi settlements with Sir Doug Graham.
But traditionally, National has always been centre right, a mix of free-market liberals and social conservatives. Lately, it seems to have forgotten some of that social conscience.
For example, under Labour’s Helen Clark and then with Key, Māori Party leader Tariana Turia chipped away at Māori health inequities, leading to decades of evidence-based research and outcomes across Governments. But the current National-led coalition ended initiatives such as Te Aka Whai Ora, the Māori Health Authority, and stepped in to remove Māori and Pacific criteria from a revised service that offered free doctors visits for 14- to 24-year-olds in Hawke’s Bay.
Former National minister Chris Finlayson was scathing of the party in his Cross Party Lines podcast with former Labour minister and leader Phil Goff. Finlayson called the party’s leadership “two-bit careerists” and “traitors” for destroying National’s bipartisan traditions and the grave hurt caused to the Māori-Crown relationship, such as amending references to Te Tiriti o Waitangi and tighter criteria changes to the Marine and Coastal Area Act.
Many women would have shared the sentiments of former National Party president Sue Wood, who was infuriated with the coalition Government’s Equal Pay Amendment Act, passed under urgency in May 2025.
Christopher Luxon remains at the helm for now but after two leadership coups this year, the latest following his seemingly out-of-touch comments about small businesses and captain’s call on an MMP referendum, there are serious doubts about his capacity to confidently lead a Government with two unruly coalition partners.
Similarly to its forefathers Liberal and United, could National eventually also be subsumed by another party, like New Zealand First or Act? Or will the Opportunity Party sweep in to occupy the centre right by default, rather than through a substantive identity or policies?
Labour is still identifiably centre left, offering election lollies like a $20 public transport fare cap, three free doctor’s visits a year and the removal of $5 prescriptions. But its Future Fund initiative, if commercialised further, could sit comfortably in a centre-right Government. The point is, it’s remaining centrist.
National Party leader Christopher Luxon pictured at a public meeting at Addington Racecourse. Photo / Anna Heath
During this term, the Green Party has struggled with its identity, from leadership changes to controversial MPs. But this year, it has returned to core environmental values with policies such as its climate-resilient marae fund and call for a one-year nationwide pause on consenting new artificial intelligence (AI) data centres. The party has raised concerns about the water use and massive energy demands of the centres.
Te Pāti Māori isn’t campaigning for the party vote and is focused only on its electorate candidates. It’s a move that reflects strong individual identities but a weakened party, after it imploded from public internal spats that ended in court and two of its MPs becoming independents.
Before my grandfather passed away in 2004, I asked him why he chose to stand for National.
I had always thought he was a union man and according to my Dad, James Parahi, he was. Nanny Pop, our nickname for him, was a member of the Shearers’ Union. He ran shearing gangs across Hawke’s Bay for decades. In 1972, my Dad and grandmother Kara carried on the whānau shearing gang while Nanny Pop campaigned for National.
He was hardly likely to win because Labour had held the Southern Māori seat since 1938. Nanny Pop knew that, but when I spoke with him, he just chuckled with the usual twinkle in his eye and said he liked National. It was the party of Sir Āpirana Ngata and many other prominent Māori leaders of the past and, like them, he believed it stood for the progress of our people.
I wonder what he would make of National now?
*Alex is a pseudonym.
Carmen Parahi is the owner of Tō Waha Media consultancy, a commentator and award-winning journalist.
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