15/02/2026
Sir Pita Sharples 🌿 A Life of Service to Te Ao Māori
Sir Pita Russell Sharples was born Peter Russell Sharples in 1941 in Waipawa, Hawke’s Bay of Ngāti Kahungunu, Ngāi Te Kikiri o te Rangi and Ngāti Pāhauwera descent ❤️ He grew up in whenua shaped by his tūpuna, reo and tikanga 🤍 but also by the realities of a world that still questioned the place of Māori identity and authority 🌿
From a young age, Pita showed a hunger for knowledge 😌 he walked between worlds 🤍 carrying Māori values at home while navigating Pākehā schooling in the outside world ✨ and carried both with a quiet confidence that would define his life 🤍 At Te Aute College he learned leadership, language, history and discipline 🌿 and later at the University of Auckland he took that hunger deeper, earning an MA in anthropology with first class honours, then a PhD in anthropology and linguistics ✨ His academic work wasn’t locked away in books ❤️ it was the groundwork for restoring Māori voice and identity 🖤
But Sharples didn’t keep knowledge in libraries ✨ he carried it into his communities 🌿 In the 1960s and 70s he led Te Roopū Manutaki, a kapa haka collective in Tāmaki Makaurau 😌 a group that became a bedrock of Māori performing arts, identity and pride 🤍 He didn’t just teach performance, he revived cultural expression on Māori terms 🌿
In Hoani Waititi Marae he was instrumental and deeply involved with the development of this urban marae where Māori living away from home could gather, speak reo, hold hui and stand strong in Te Ao Māori values ❤️ This was not just a physical marae, it was a symbol of reclamation 😌 This helped support spaces like kōhanga reo, kura kaupapa Māori and later wharekura ✨
He didn’t just build schools 🌿 he built worlds where Māori could survive and thrive. That work wove culture into education and helped lift Māori identity out of colonial silence
In 1983 Sharples established the National School of Māori Weaponry 🖤 Here he helped revive mau rākau, taiaha and ancestral fighting arts for Māori ✨ it was not a spectacle, but mātauranga reborn
His cultural leadership had momentum, but history soon called him to politics 🤍 In the early 2000s, Crown policies like the foreshore and seabed threatened Māori rights and rangatiratanga. Pita Sharples stood with Tariana Turia and said “Enough” 😌 In 2004 they founded the Māori Party ❤️ not as a protest, but as a representation of people who had been ignored and spoken over for too long
In 2005, Sharples won the Tāmaki Makaurau seat ✨ an urban electorate with deep Māori roots 🤍 His voice wasn’t just loud, it was grounded in whakapapa, in lived experience, in strategy 🖤 In 2008, he became Minister of Māori Affairs, Associate Minister of Education and Corrections
He pushed systems to serve whānau, not bury them 🌿 Sharples strengthened Māori education pathways, supporting Te Kura Kaupapa Māori, wharekura, and tertiary training 🤍 He advocated for Māori language and rights on national and international stages ✨ his work helped build the Māori voice and momentum that contributed to Aotearoa endorsing the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples in 2010
Sharples wasn’t a politician who forgot his roots. He was a leader who elevated culture inside the system ✨ He served on boards, tribunals, councils and festivals 🌿 and as a life member of Te Matatini, he supported kapa haka not as performance, but as living mātauranga
In 2015, his lifetime of service was recognised at the highest level with the Knight Companion of the New Zealand Order of Merit ✨ for services to Māori, education, politics and community
Sir Pita Sharples wasn’t just an MP 😌 He was a cultural architect, A reviver of reo and tikanga, A political bridge between worlds 🖤A rangatira whose work still breathes in kōhanga reo, kura kaupapa, marae and Māori voice in Parliament
He didn’t just separate politics and culture 🤍 he united them. Today, he continues to stand as a kaumātua, still guiding the kaupapa forward for his people 🌿
