They called her "the Foxy Lady," and just a few weeks after entering Parliament, Masterton mother-of-nine Marama Fox almost brought down her party's government.

"They called her 'the Foxy Lady.'" - Morgan Godfery, host of Matangireia

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Former Māori Party co-leader and list MP Marama Fox was never one to do things in half-measures.

In 2014, only a few weeks after entering Parliament, the Masterton mother-of-nine almost brought down her party's government, accidentally opposing a confidence motion in the incoming government her party was a part of, after receiving the wrong advice from an official.

The opposition benches were in raptures.

"I could see all these cameras going click, click, click, click, click, so I quickly sent out a tweet and said, 'I just about brought down the government. Oops,'" she told Morgan Godfery.

Moments later, Fox stood to make a point of order, correcting her vote and casting two votes against the no-confidence motion.

The government had the numbers, and from 2014 to 2017, Fox was closely involved in key reforms going "down to the wire" over reforms to the old Child, Youth and Family agency.

It was Fox and her co-leader colleague Te Ururoa Flavell who helped ensure that "Vulnerable" was removed from the new agency's name.

But perhaps the most intense pressure came during negotiations to amend the Resource Management Act, a process that took the National government almost eight years to see through.

In 2017, National were keen to move and put their reforms to a vote in the House, but Fox wouldn't guarantee her party's support until iwi were given a greater say in the consent process.

"Tuku was going, 'Marama, sign it,'" Fox said.

"I'm on the back of my horse, in the middle of the paddock, getting phone calls for nine hours from everybody trying to get me to sign it. I said, 'I won't.'"

Fox's tenacity helped the party secure the changes it wanted, and they eventually voted in favour of the reform bill.

Fox credits her mother, an early childhood educator, for "politicising" her. Growing up in Christchurch, the MP-to-be "went to some of the flashest schools" in town.

She recalls one the early lessons her mother taught her.

"I needed to be better than my best. literally sat me down and said, 'Marama, you're Māori, you're a young woman, and you're at the bottom of every statistic in this country.''…

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Tau Henare retired from politics in 2014 - but could there be a comeback? Asked if he misses Parliament, Tau doesn't hesitate. "Hell yes!" he exclaims.

"Tau Henare comes from a long line of political leaders." - Morgan Godfery, host of Matangireia

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His great-grandfather, Taurekareka Henare, was an MP from 1914 to 1938. His grandfather, Sir James Henare, once a candidate for Governor-General, was also a prominent community leader and the Māori Battalion commanding officer at the end of World War II.

Henare's roots are as illustrious as they come. Did that mean pressure to be "political"?

Not from his parents, Henare told Morgan Godfery, but as he got older, he wanted to "emulate" his grandfather.

"I always wanted to be like him. I suppose the terrible thing is I wanted to be famous like him."

Henare won the Northern Māori seat at the 1993 election as a New Zealand First candidate.

It was an unconventional choice for the former union organiser.

"The rules are there to be broken," Henare says.

He made it back again in 1996, and was at Peter's side in the first MMP coalition negotiations, acting as a go-between for Labour, National, and New Zealand First.

In Henare's words, it was a close-run thing, and in the final days, he put through a call to Labour leader Helen Clark, asking in his typical style, "Is there a job for the old man?" - meaning the treasurer's job for Winston.

Clark said no.

If she had said yes, "we would've gone with her," said Henare.

In the incoming National-New Zealand First coalition, Henare was made Minister of Māori Affairs, helping to secure new money for te reo Māori learning initiatives, new money for the forerunner to Māori Television, and, significantly, the return of koiwi (human remains) from foreign museums.

"Sometimes you do things and they don't amount to much. Or they're incremental. Building blocks. And although the repatriation of our tupuna didn't give anybody a job, didn't cut down the employment rate, I'll tell you what, I'd do it again one hundred times. And shit yes, I brought them back first-class."

It was one of Henare's crowning achievements. But after one term, his government was turfed out. Henare, though, doesn't play by the rules. In 2005, he was back - this time as a National list MP serving as Māori Affairs Select Committee chair, until 2014.

Does he miss Parliament?

"Hell yes. I'd swap this for that at the snap of the fingers."

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Sandra Lee is a history-maker: the first Māori woman to win a general electorate seat, and the first person to lead a kaupapa Māori party (Mana Motuhake) into Parliament.

"Sandra Lee is a history-maker" - Morgan Godfery, host of Matangireia

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Sandra Lee was the first Māori woman to win a general electorate seat, and the first person to lead a kaupapa Māori party (Mana Motuhake) into Parliament.

But did the young mum from Arahura Pā, on the South Island's west coast, who ended up serving as Minister for Conservation in the Labour-Alliance Coalition from 1999 to 2002, ever get the feeling she was making history?

As it turns out, she was never expecting to win in the "rabid" election campaign in 1993.

"Even though our polling showed I was going to win , at the back of mind, I couldn't see myself winning," she told Morgan Godfery.

"On the afternoon of the election, I went out to Piha, on the west coast of , and called down to my tupuna Tuhuru on the west coast of the South Island. I asked him to give me the mana to take the long walk when I conceded defeat to Richard Prebble.

"Fortunately, it was a long walk I didn't have to take."The win set Lee on her path.

One year later, her mentor, the legendary former Labour MP Matiu Rata, stood down from the Mana Motuhake party's leadership, with Lee taking up the reins.And in 1999, Lee took up a ministerial warrant in the incoming Labour-

Alliance coalition, taking up the Conservation and Local Government portfolios as well as Associate Māori Affairs.

It was "like getting let loose in the lolly shop," Lee jokes.

"No more marching with a banner. No more writing submissions with Forest and Bird."

As a Minister, Lee made headlines for putting a stop to an application to log 130,000ha of rainforest on her native west coast. As Local Government Minister, she made history rewriting an "antiquated" Local Government Act and introducing the Treaty of Waitangi to it for the first time.

It was the culmination of a political journey that began on Waiheke Island in 1979.

"When Matiu Rata resigned from Parliament, I sent him a telegram from the Rocky Bay General Store and I said, "Right behind you - Sandra Lee, Ngāi Tahu'."

"Within an hour, he sent me back a telegram that read: 'Please organise a meeting of our people on the Island. I want to explain to them why I'm leaving Labour.'"

That meeting went ahead, and the rest is history.

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