William Wakatere Jackson[1] (born 1961) is a New Zealand politician and former unionist, broadcaster and Urban Māori leader.

[4] Although Bob spoke te reo Māori as his first language, he did not pass it on to his children and Willie Jackson learned it as an adult through immersion classes.

[5] Willie Jackson has both Māori and Pākehā ancestry and grew up in Porirua until the age of 10, when the family moved to Māngere.

[17] With John Tamihere of the West Auckland urban Māori trust Te Whanau o Waipareira, he brought an unsuccessful court case to stop the allocations going ahead in 1997/98.

One of my aims during this term is to assist Māori to engage in long-term strategic planning for economic and cultural survival.

[28][29] In 2001, Jackson successfully challenged Mana Motuhake leader Sandra Lee for the leadership of the party within the Alliance.

[30] When the Alliance began to collapse in 2002, Jackson sided with the faction led by Laila Harré and Matt McCarten, and remained with the party when Jim Anderton established his breakaway group.

He became general manager of Radio Waatea, and later the chief executive of Urban Māori Broadcasting,[34][35] and was the host of two television current affairs programmes.

[38] A hosting partnership between Jackson and John Tamihere began in 2006 with an afternoon talkback programme on Radio Live; this ran until it was ended by the Roast Busters scandal in 2013.

[33] A bid to become Mayor of Manukau City in 2007 was unsuccessful, with Jackson placing fourth in a crowded field that also included Len Brown, Dick Quax, and Arthur Anae.

[40][50][51][52] As Māori campaign manager, Jackson called for the Green Party to withdraw some of its candidates so that Labour would have a stronger chance of winning its own races, but was rebuffed by his own leader.

[26] After Jackson was re-elected in the 2020 general election, he was elevated to the Cabinet as Minister for Māori Development and given the associate portfolios for the Accident Compensation Corporation (ACC) and justice.

Jackson had made these remarks during a debate on a bill to include two Ngāi Tahu representatives on the Canterbury Regional Council after the 2022 New Zealand local elections.

[66] During the 2023 New Zealand general election held on 14 October, Jackson was re-elected to Parliament on the Labour party list.

[71][72][73] In early November 2023, Jackson stated that Māori people would "go to war" if the incoming Sixth National Government proceeded with an ACT campaign promise to hold a referendum on redefining the principles of the Treaty of Waitangi.

[75] On 5 December 2023, Jackson was granted retention of the title The Honourable, in recognition of his term as a member of the Executive Council.

[77] In November 2024, Jackson was again ejected from the New Zealand Parliament debating chamber, after calling ACT Party Leader David Seymour a liar during the first reading of the Treaty Principles Bill.