Tariana Turia

Dame Tariana Turia 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.