Bryce Edwards
Illegal and corrupt practices are alleged to have occurred in the way that Te Pati Maori has been running election campaigns, abusing their use of state-funded processes. Allegations revealed Saturday 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 Maori’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 Maori’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 Maori 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 Pati Maori president John Tamihere runs the social services charity and is chief executive of Whanau Ora, and denies this.
- They believe that information was then used to target Maori electorate voters in the Tamaki 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 Maori 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 Maori 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 Maori voters to switch from the general role to the Maori 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 Maori
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 Maori 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 hangi, 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 Pati Maori 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 Pati Maori 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 Maori
John Tamihere is central to Te Pati Maori, 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 Maori, 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 Pati Maori’s 2020 election campaign.
