Tariana Turia

Dame Tariana Turia (née Woon; 8 April 1944 – 3 January 2025) was a New Zealand Māori rights activist and politician. She was first elected to Parliament in 1996 as a representative of the Labour Party. She won the Te Tai Hauāuru electorate in 2002 and broke from Labour in 2004, resigning from Parliament during the foreshore and seabed controversy. Turia returned to Parliament in the resulting by-election as the first representative of the newly formed Māori Party, which she led for the next decade. Turia held ministerial offices across two governments. From 1999 to 2004 she was a junior minister in the health, housing and social development portfolios and the Minister for the Community and Voluntary Sector in the Fifth Labour Government. In the Fifth National Government, she was Minister for Whānau Ora, a health programme she initiated under a confidence and supply agreement between the National and Māori parties, and Minister for Disability Issues. Turia retired as Māori Party co-leader and a member of Parliament at the general election in September 2014.