Te Pati Māori’s integrity under scrutiny

Illegal and corrupt practices are alleged to have occurred in the way that Te Pati Māori has been running election campaigns, abusing their use of state-funded processes. Allegations revealed today about the way the party colluded with a South Auckland marae and John Tamihere’s Waipareira Trust are being looked into by various government agencies, but now require a larger investigation, possibly by the Serious Fraud Office or Office of the Auditor-General.

There have long been serious allegations about the relationship between Te Pati Māori’s president, John Tamihere’s Waipareira Trust charity, and politics. More recently, this has extended to how the South Auckland Manurewa Marae has allegedly helped the party in elections by giving inducements to voters to help the candidate, Takutai Tarsh Kemp, successfully win the seat of Tamaki Makaurau.

Part of the problem is that Kemp was both the party’s candidate in the election and also the Chief Executive of the Manurewa Marae, which various government agencies contracted to deliver services, including as a site for voting in the general election.

The latest allegations are reported in today’s Sunday Star-Times by Andrea Vance, who says that staff employed by Manurewa Marae to help with the government census combined that activity with the campaign to get Te Pati Māori’s candidate elected. This included using the private information collected in the census to help the party campaign. The article is a must-read: Stats NZ investigating potential misuse of Māori census data

Here’s the key list of allegations in Vance’s article:

• “Hundreds of census forms collected by marae staff were photocopied and retained; and data from the forms such as personal contact details, household occupancy and birth dates was entered into an online database and sent to the Waiparera Trust. Te Pāti Māori president John Tamihere runs the social services charity and is chief executive of Whānau Ora, and denies this.

• They believe that information was then used to target Māori electorate voters in the Tāmaki Makaurau electorate.

• They also allege that Marae staff who delivered census forms also included enrolment forms for voters to change from the general to the Māori roll.

• Participants were given $100 supermarket vouchers, wellness packs or food parcels to induce them to complete the forms.

• Visitors to the marae last year were also given $100 supermarket vouchers when they completed the forms to switch rolls.

• Attempts were made to alert Stats NZ and MSD, but neither agency acted.”

These allegations have come from former Marae staff, who appear to be taking legal action against their former employer based on employment law. One has also contacted the Ministry of Social Development as a whistleblower. As a result, MSD, Statistics NZ and the Police are now investigating.

John Tamihere, an election candidate for Te Pati Māori at the last election, continues to be the party’s president and is CEO of Wairapareia Trust, is denying the allegations. He says the former employees are motivated by their employment gripes.

He also explained that the Marae chose to try to get Māori voters to switch from the general role to the Māori role of Tamaki Makaurau while canvassing for the government census. He is quoted: “It would be pretty stupid not to put both together, wouldn't it? Well, that’s what occurred… Our civic duty to our people is to alert them to both.”

In terms of allegations that the Marae was giving out inducements, such as food and vouchers, to voters, Tamihere is reported today as giving a cultural justification: “When we do relationships with our people and they come to our maraes, we either provide kai or kai manaaki packaging. You call it an inducement, we call it maanaaki.” He told Andrea Vance, “You practise your culture, our marae will and must provide our culture.” He also said he wouldn’t allow MP Takutai Tarsh Kemp to be interviewed about any of the allegations.

Allegations in February about the Manurewa Marae helping Te Pati Māori

Takutai Tarsh Kemp is now the MP for Tamaki Makaurau, having beaten Labour’s Peeni Henare by only 42 votes. Part of her successful campaign was won at the Manurewa Marae, which the Electoral Commission used as a voting booth. Controversially, this occurred while the candidate was also the Chief Executive of the Marae.

Journalist Andrea Vance also investigated this in February, reporting on how the Marae allegedly helped their CE and Te Pati Māori win extra votes through unethical and potentially illegal voter inducements – see her article from then: Deleted social media posts raise further questions about 'treating' at a marae polling booth (paywalled)

Here’s the critical part: “the Sunday Star-Times can reveal that during the period where advance votes could be cast, the marae's social media accounts promoted a ticketing system where voters could collect free hāngī, doughnuts, hot chocolate and coffee on providing proof of voting. The first 300 voters on a given day would get freebies. The account also posted a live video which included footage of Kemp's campaign vehicle, branded with Te Pāti Māori livery, and invited people to vote at the marae where an event that day would include free food. Documents, released after an Official Information Act request, reveal the commission was first made aware of the videos in the fortnight before election day on October 14, but they remained up for the duration of voting.”

Tamihere responded to the reports, calling them “fake news”. But details in the story raise serious issues of potential electoral fraud that call into question the validity and fairness of how Te Pāti Māori won the electorate and party votes in general.

The Labour, National, and Vision NZ parties subsequently made complaints to the Electoral Commission, but after an investigation, the Commission decided not to refer the matter to the Police.

John Tamihere’s Waipareira Trust political finance connections to Te Pati Māori

John Tamihere is central to Te Pati Māori, including as the party president. He’s also been a major financial backer of the party in recent years as the Chief Executive of the Waipareira Trust charity, which contracts to provide government services in South Auckland.

There are ongoing concerns about how much the two organisations overlap and, therefore, to what extent the charity is another wing of Te Pati Māori, albeit funded by the state.

There has been a long-running saga in which Tamihere has fought with the government regulator of charities, Charities Services, over the legality of donations made by the Waipareira Trust to various election campaigns he has run. In particular, they have focused on large financial donations to his 2019 Auckland Mayoral campaign and Te Pāti Māori’s 2020 election campaign.

Two years ago, Herald investigative reporter Matt Nippert uncovered the problems in which Tamihere and his trust allegedly broke the rule charities are not allowed to side with political parties or donate to election campaigns. This means they are given tax-free status, saving them vast amounts of money.

Nippert reported: “Charities connected to Te Pāti Māori president John Tamihere are under investigation after financial reports showed nearly $500,000 in charitable funds had been used to bankroll his mayoral and general election campaigns” – see: Charities regulator probes John Tamihere campaign funding (paywalled)

At the time, the University of Auckland’s Peter Davis, a long-time Labour Party activist, also commented this week on Tamihere and Te Whānau o Waipareira: “He has always run the trust as a bit of a personal fiefdom and this has not been transparent until now.

The trust then claimed that their donation to Tamihere was merely an interest-free loan rather than a donation. Therefore, Charity Services, the regulator, forced the Trust to recoup the loan.

According to Waipareira’s 2024 annual report, the money was eventually repaid by Tamihere. However, at the same time, the CE appears to have been given a substantial salary increase. Although it's not clear how much Tamihere is paid, the annual report shows that the average salary of the thirteen senior managers at the Trust, of which Tamihere is at the top, is, on average, $510,679 per annum. Tamihere has refused to answer questions about the loans and salary, accusing the Herald of running an “anti Maori Pogrom”. You can read about this in Matt Nippert’s article from February this year: Waipareira’s controversial campaign loan repaid, executive salaries skyrocket (paywalled)

Tamihere is inclined to say such scrutiny is “racist” and that the rules about donations and political integrity are culturally biased. Yet there now seems to be enough evidence of a problem that an independent and trusted investigator needs to look into everything involving the finances and electoral practices of John Tamihere. The leading candidates should be the Serious Fraud Office or Office of the Auditor-General.

Dr Bryce Edwards

Political Analyst in Residence, Director of the Democracy Project, School of Government, Victoria University of Wellington

This article can be republished for free under a Creative Commons copyright-free license. Attributions should include a link to the Democracy Project (https://democracyproject.nz)