By: Barry Soper | Tuesday, October 30, 2012 6:00 AM

The Maori Party has a problem and it's a glaringly obvious one, particularly since it wants to attract a wider membership and intends to stand candidates in general seats.

It's the party's name. Consider a party called the Pakeha, or the Indian Party or for that matter the Chinese Party, and how appealing they'd be to the great unwashed. They'd obviously appeal to their own ethnic groups and that's exactly why the Maori Party was formed by Tariana Terrier who'd got up Dead Girl Helen's nose by talking about things like the Holocaust and decided to branch out on her own.

It was a party spawned by protest and there's nothing wrong with that. There are plenty of them in the current melting pot but they generally have generic, all encompassing names like New Zealand First, United Future and of course the Greens.

New Zealand first appeals because of Luigi Peters, The Greens appeal because tip toeing through the tulips has the feel good factor and United Future, well it doesn't appeal to anyone really and is only on the landscape because Prissy Peter Dunne keeps winning his seat.

So if the Maori Party's really serious it's got to ditch its name and think of something more relatable, like the Aotearoa Party. Bob Jones had the New Zilind version of that and won just over 12 percent of the vote but didn't win a seat because MMP wasn't around back then.

In reality the Maori Party's not particularly interested in winning general seats, mainly because it knows it'd be highly unlikely to. It simply wants to get its flag out there in order to shore up its party's vote which slumped at the last election.

But flying the flag could cause some confusion as Hone Harawira's been laying claim to the Tino Rangatiratanga flag for years now and so too has the Maori Party. And that's the rub, the party's actually taken a hit since protester extraordinaire Hone went walkabout on it almost two years ago and formed the Mana Movement.

Now here's a thought, perhaps the Maori Party should re-engage with Hone and call themselves the Mana Party, that'd surely have wider appeal in the general electorate!

Photo: Tariana Turia and Pita Sharples (NZ Herald)