Iwi Whakamahu draws a crowd smaller than a family group chat
The other day I wrote a fairly balanced piece about the Iwi Whakamahu Heal the Nation tour. It was billed as a movement to heal the country, bring people together, and spark real change. I was sceptical from the start, but I kept an open mind. I even said I would be surprised how many people actually turned up.
In the words of Scribe, the answer was simple. Not many, if any.
To be fair, I acknowledged in my last article that people have jobs. Rent still needs to be paid. Kids still need feeding. Not everyone can just take weeks off work to follow a tour around the country. But when something is sold as a movement that will “heal the nation”, the expectation is momentum. Numbers matter. Energy matters. Right now, both appear to be missing.
What we are seeing instead is a slow realisation that this might not be a movement at all. It looks more like a loosely organised road trip with lofty slogans attached.
Yes, a tree was planted. Good on them. But anyone can plant a tree. That alone is not nation healing. It is basic environmental box ticking, not a breakthrough moment.
Then there is Parliament.
The footage coming out of Wellington is whākn’ embarrassing. From the videos circulating on X, attendance appears to be under 30 people. For something meant to represent a groundswell of national support, that is not just underwhelming, it is damning.
Video source: @magnoliakiwi on X
One video uploaded by Shubz showed someone donating a 500 gram bag of Milo and a few cups. The clip ended with a plea to his 51,000 TikTok followers for more donations. That image alone says more than any critic ever could. A movement that claims to be changing the country should not be surviving on Milo tins and goodwill handouts.
Another video showed the group walking down a street with people in high vis acting as “security”, although it was unclear what they were securing. Traffic was not managed properly. People were wandering down the middle of the road. It looked disorganised, amateur, and unserious.
And that is really the problem here.
This has been marketed as something profound, something transformational. Instead, it feels performative. Symbol over substance. Optics over outcomes.
It must be nice to not have to work and to travel the country for three weeks talking about healing the nation. For most New Zealanders, that is not reality. We clock in. We grind. We keep the lights on. Someone has to.
Anyway, I should get back to it. Food does not put itself on the table, and rum is not getting any cheaper.
Video source: @magnoliakiwi on X
