Mariameno Kapa-Kingi says close to 200 people have signed up as financial backers of her new Te Tai Tokerau Party within 24 hours of its launch.
The MP for the Te Tai Tokerau electorate announced yesterday she was breaking away from Te Pāti Māori to form her own party, and at a media conference today said the move was long overdue.
Kapa-Kingi said the response she had received so far had been "phenomenal" and expressed confidence when asked how she would fund the party.
A party needs 500 paying members to be registered.
"It's amazing what we can do with nearly nothing," she said.
"We do amazing things. We come up with all types of resources to fund something. I think Māori have some of the strongest cultural capability, cultural capital even.
"It is the generosity and the kindness of people who will put their time and effort in.
"Already on our membership, we've got a rising number of people registered, signing up as financial members and volunteering."
Te Tai Tokerau Party will contest the election on "kaupapa grounded in tino rangatiratanga, local decision-making and mana mokopuna". (Source: 1News)
She had not yet decided whether to stand candidates beyond Te Tai Tokerau, saying no formal decisions had been made but "it is something we're thinking about". She added she hadn't shoulder-tapped anyone to join the party.
Asked whether there was any party in Parliament she would refuse to work with, Kapa-Kingi would not rule anyone out, suggesting she would let the people of Te Tai Tokerau guide her.
She added wahine leadership helped to set her apart from previous party breakaways.
"I'm a woman, after all, and we get things done in a very different way," Kapa-Kingi said.
"I've got backbone and experience and maturity. And I just won a court case."
Kapa-Kingi also acknowledged the recent experiences of Māori women in public life, including in the Waitangi Tribunal mana wāhine hearings.
"What is new is the māia and the backbone and grunt of women to speak into it. I don't think it's been any less in days gone by. It has been as much, and I think it's rising."
Asked about her greatest achievement as an MP, Kapa-Kingi said "showing up" carried weight as the first Māori woman to win the Te Tai Tokerau electorate seat.
The High Court determined that Kapa-Kingi should be reinstated into the party. (Source: 1News)
She said the real work in Parliament happened outside the debating chamber, through select committees and relationships with other MPs, describing her approach as "a very relational model of politics".
Meanwhile, former Te Pāti Māori co-leader Te Ururoa Flavell told Breakfast the split between Kapa-Kingi and the party he used to lead had an "element of inevitability" about it, but warned history was against breakaway Māori parties.
"If you go out by yourself, your chances are very, very slim," he said.
Flavell said he was disheartened by the turmoil.
"I was at the heart of the Māori Party when we first started, and it's been hugely disappointing to see where things have landed," he said.
He suggested Te Pāti Māori was unlikely to return six MPs at the election.
The Northland iwi was snubbed by the political party after it sought a meeting over a sacked MP. (Source: 1News)
But he raised the prospect of one or two independent Māori MPs becoming kingmakers if the result proved tight, as had happened during his time when the Māori Party helped National form a government.
"There's still a chance that there could be an independent who sits in the middle and becomes the kingmaker at the next election."
Kapa-Kingi appeared open to that prospect.
She said yesterday she would take a call from Prime Minister Luxon if he needed her support to form a government. "Imagine having Te Tai Tokerau at that table," she said.
She announced yesterday she was breaking away from Te Pāti Māori after months of bitter conflict. She had been expelled from the party last year before the High Court ruled the move unlawful in March, but said a reinstatement process had stalled.
In Te Tai Tokerau, Kapa-Kingi will face Labour's Willow-Jean Prime and the Greens' Hūhana Lyndon. Te Pāti Māori has confirmed it will also stand a candidate in the seat.
Te Pāti Māori co-leader Rawiri Waititi told 1News on Monday he wished Kapa-Kingi well but said his biggest frustration was the distraction from the party's goal of making the coalition a one-term government.
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