  We investigate the evolution and stability of a decaying magnetohydrodynamic
(MHD) Taylor-Green flow. The chosen flow has been shown to result in a steep
total energy spectrum with power law behaviour $k^{-2}$. We investigate the
symmetry breaking of this flow by exciting perturbations of different
amplitudes. It is shown that for any finite amplitude perturbation there is a
high enough Reynolds number for which the perturbation will grow enough at the
peak of dissipation rate resulting to a non-linear feedback in the flow and
subsequently break the Taylor-Green symmetries. In particular, we show that
symmetry breaking at large scales occurs if the amplitude of the perturbation
is $\rho_{crit} \sim Re^{-1}$ and at small scales occurs if $\rho_{crit} \sim
Re^{-3/2}$. This symmetry breaking modifies the scaling laws of the energy
spectra at the peak of dissipation rate away from the $k^{-2}$ scaling and
towards the classical $k^{-5/3}$ and $k^{-3/2}$ power laws.
