With an estimated one billion online views and counting, Hana-Rawhiti Maipi-Clarke's parliamentary haka was undoubtedly the moment of the New Zealand's last term.
Ms Maipi-Clarke, who became youngest MP to ever take their seat in New Zealand when she was elected in 2023 at 21 years old, became the face of resistance to Chris Luxon's coalition government.
The Māori Party MP ripped up a copy of controversial law which would redefine the legal status of the Treaty of Waitangi, New Zealand's foundational document.
She then began a haka, the traditional Māori war dance synonymous with the All Blacks, which drew the participation of other MPs.
Celebrated online, the act of rebellion drew harsh punishment in the legislature, including the longest suspensions in the parliament's history for its co-leaders.
If her Māori Party is elected as part of a left-wing government at the November 7 election, she wants future acts of that kind to be embraced, rather than sanctioned.
"We'll take it to the standing orders committee where you can alter the the rule books," she told AAP.
Officially, a three-week ban was served up for an "intimidatory act" during a vote, but Ms Maipi-Clarke believes the tough treatment was dished out because of the haka's vitality.
"We have regularly done different haka and waiata (song)," she said, referring to less-noticed Māori celebrations at meaningful votes or speeches.
"But because of the attraction it got, it became a huge political football ... it was like 'if you do this type of rhetoric and you get this level of engagement', we're going to give you some of the the harshest punishment."
On the campaign trail in Te Rapa, north of Hamilton, this week, Ms Maipi-Clarke told AAP she was unprepared for the level of interest her protest evoked.
In the following months, she was named by the BBC and Time as a future leader to watch, building on an earlier prize as the global young politician of the year.
Her pushback was one part of a broader movement which included a 50,000-strong march to parliament: one of New Zealand's biggest mass movements.
She said she was following her gut and her family lineage, which includes a long line of activists and politicians.
"As the youngest MP in the country, all of that combined together, me just being in there causes a lot of ruckus," she said.
"The system was really not designed for people like me, and it's about advocating for that in different ways."
To the right, Ms Maipi-Clarke is seen as an inveterate trouble-maker, with a rap sheet that also includes skipping parliament and the occasional mistruth.
Undeterred, Ms Maipi-Clarke is eyeing not only cultural change in parliament, but greater policy shifts.
She names a "fairer" tax system and a healthier Waikato River as policy goals, but in interview kept coming back to one key purpose.
"I actually came in here because I wanted to implement Māori environmental education systems into our school," she said.
"I'd love to be an associate education minister."
Whether she gets the chance will depend on the overall shakedown of the election, the closest in a generation.
Little separates the two major parties, National and Labour, and their two likely coalition partners: ACT and NZ First on the right, and the Greens and the Māori Party on the left.
Ms Maipi-Clarke is seen as a certainty to hold on in her seat, the Māori electorate of Hauraki-Waikato centred around Hamilton.
The Māori-only electorates are a peculiarity of New Zealand's system dating back to the 1860s, and come with a chequered past.
"Their creation is quite contested, in terms of whether they were tokenism ... and rewarded loyalists," Victoria University of Wellington associate professor Lara Greaves told AAP.
"But they were also a quite liberal invention for a time before women got the vote and other indigenous people around the world didn't have a level of representation."
Colonial governments first gave the vote to Māori who fought by their side in the New Zealand wars, but hobbled their impact by granting just a few.
Today, Māori are allowed to choose whether they sit on the general roll, which elects 64 MPs, or the Māori roll, which elects seven, in roughly proportional manner.
This century, the seats are dominated by the left - won by only Labour, the Māori Party or splinter parties - with right-leaning parties typically not standing candidates, or even calling for their abolition as an anachronism.
"People both Māori and non-Māori have become more supportive of the electorates over time ... they mean a lot to Māori," Dr Greaves said.
The seven seats include fascinating races in 2026, particularly given Māori Party infighting has led to two of their MPs walking away.
Labour, which held six seats to 2023, when the Māori Party won six itself, believes it will win at least two, while the Māori Party is seen as likely to hold four.
That includes Ms Maipi-Clarke who caused a mighty boilover in 2023 by turfing long-serving Labour veteran Nanaia Mahuta.
Dr Greaves said Ms Maipi-Clarke was an critical figure for an under-represented group in parliament: young indigenous women.
"A lot of younger people now see themselves in politics when they hadn't previously," she said.
"She talks like what we would call a 'kohanga kid', or like someone who's been through the te reo Māori (language) schooling system.
"A million people take selfies of her because they know her from the haka video that went viral."
Australian Associated Press
