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Matua Kahurangi
Just a bloke sharing thoughts on New Zealand and the world beyond. No fluff, just honest takes.
As you would have seen in the lead-up to Christmas, as soon as my annual holidays started I was largely absent from both Substack and X. I deliberately switched off my RSS feeds, stepped away from politics, and spent my time learning AI video production. For once, I stopped watching the circus.
If it were not for Katrina Biggs, better known online as A B’old Woman, I would still believe that Waipareira Trust had finally been deregistered as a charity.
After I published an article on the vast fraud uncovered in Minnesota involving taxpayer-funded daycare and autism centres, Katrina sent me a link I had missed. A decision released by Charities Services on 17 December.
The decision was staggering.
Despite months of scrutiny and a formal preliminary deregistration notice, the Charities Registration Board ruled not to deregister Waipareira Trust under section 55D of the Charities Act 2005. CC31649 lives to see another funding round.
Why? Because the board decided the trust had ‘addressed’ its governance failures at a level sufficient to retain charitable status. Not because wrongdoing was disproven. Not because the public interest had been restored. But because paperwork had been updated.
The trust admitted it misunderstood its statutory obligations. It sought professional advice only after intervention. It began restructuring to ‘clearly distinguish’ charitable and non-charitable activity.
Most revealingly, it created a separate legal entity that shares governance but not funding. In other words, the same people remain in control, while money flows through newly sanitised channels.
Remuneration was adjusted. Conflict-of-interest policies were introduced. Loans and bonus payments that should never have existed were quietly reversed. None of this answers the core question. It merely avoids it.
In 2023, Waipareira Trust’s senior management averaged over $510,000 each, across just 13.3 senior staff. That includes Chief Executive John Tamihere and Chief Operating Officer Awerangi Tamihere. A family-run leadership structure, funded by the public, operating under the moral shield of charity. When there’s money to be made, nepotism is never far behind. In some so-called Māori charities, it’s practically part of the business model.
Māori poverty pays very well if you run the trustMatua Kahurangi 30 December 2025
This is where the hypocrisy becomes impossible to ignore.
Waipareira Trust presents itself as a kaupapa Māori organisation, grounded in Māori values, Māori leadership, and Māori outcomes. That identity is central to its funding narrative, political leverage, and public legitimacy.
However, a glance at the trust’s own leadership structure shows senior roles occupied by individuals of Chinese background, including its chief financial officer and other high-ranking executives. Which is smart, I’ll give them that, because Māori are whūkn’ terrible at handling large sums of money.
If Waipareira is a modern, multicultural organisation, it should say so openly.
If it is a Māori organisation deserving of special treatment, funding pathways, and political deference, then that claim deserves scrutiny.
This article was originally published on the author’s Substack.
