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- Twelve days ago, I broke this story on my podcast, exposing Willie Jackson’s alleged bullying, union-busting, cronyism and cover-up to shield his wife Tania Rangiheuea, CEO of the Manukau Urban Māori Authority (MUMA).
- Leaked documents prove an independent review in early 2025 found serious bullying and misconduct by Rangiheuea and recommended her removal, yet Jackson allegedly orchestrated a board coup, sacked the chair, stacked it with Labour loyalists and buried the report.
- Jackson issued trespass notices against union legend Matt McCarten and One Union reps to block collective bargaining, despite his own history as a workers’ champion and former employment minister.
- Staff at MUMA endure a toxic culture of fear, intimidation, wage theft and retaliation, with workers reduced to tears and scared to speak out.
- Legacy media, including NZ Herald, Stuff and RNZ, remain completely silent despite having the same documents (and, in Tova O’Brien’s case, a massive head start), while independent outlets keep digging.
- Matt McCarten has gone public, leaking bombshell letters sent to Chris Hipkins and the Speaker, yet Labour does nothing and the press snoozes.
It has been 12 days since I first dropped this bombshell on the podcast, laying out how senior Labour MP Willie Jackson has been accused of trampling workers’ rights at MUMA to protect his wife from serious bullying allegations. Since then, Good Oil News has published multiple exclusives with leaked documents that back it all up and Ani O’Brien has provided a solid timeline on her Substack pulling the threads together. Yet here we are, with the legacy media still buried in silence.
The facts are straightforward and damning. Back in February 2025 an independent review by former Jackson staffers Deborah Mahuta-Coyle and Mike Tukaki uncovered multiple cases of bullying, toxic leadership and misconduct by Tania Rangiheuea. They recommended she be removed as CEO. When board chair Mike Hinton pushed to act on it, Jackson stepped in as his wife’s ‘employment advocate’, allegedly threatened Hinton with losing his stipend and position, orchestrated a coup to sack him, cut off his email and phone and installed three new board members: his own electorate agent Kiri Skipworth, senior Labour figure Jerome Mika and Dr Ella Henry. No proper process, just pure cronyism.
Staff conditions worsened, with reports of yelling, belittling, favouritism, wage theft and an outright culture of fear. Workers joined Matt McCarten’s One Union for protection. Jackson’s response? As chair of the marae that owns the land, he slapped trespass notices on McCarten and all union reps, claiming breaches of tikanga to block their legal right to enter and bargain. Classic union-busting from a man who built his career pretending to fight for workers.
McCarten fired off detailed letters to the MUMA board, Hipkins and even Speaker Gerry Brownlee, outlining the abuse and Jackson’s interference. No response from Labour – no action. And, when whistleblowers spoke up, staff got threats of dismissal if they dared talked to media.
Legacy media love to bang on about holding truth to power, but the reality is they are now part of the power structure and meek as lambs. They have had all the same documents I do. Tova O’Brien at Stuff was digging more than a month ago, emailing staff and the CEO for comment but nothing ever appeared. Audrey Young, Thomas Coughlan, and Barry Soper at the Herald have seen the leaks too. Silence. Even after Jim Grenon took a run at NZME to ‘improve’ their news, nothing has changed. They are as bent and slanted as ever.
As Peter Williams notes on his Substack, the mainstream lot whine about the demise of investigative journalism; yet here it is, being done by a citizen journalist whom they studiously ignore. Why? Because it is me breaking it? If that is the case, then the workers at MUMA can be damned for daring to speak to me and Willie Jackson walks scot-free.
Media silence makes them complicit in the torment these workers have suffered at the hands of Māori elites and politicians who boast about their pro-worker heritage. It hands the mantle of real truth-telling to independent and citizen media. As Elon Musk keeps saying: we are the media now.
Who would have thought Matt McCarten and I would ever end up in the trenches together, doing the work proper journalists should be doing? Yet here we are, exposing what the big outlets refuse to touch.
We have not been threatened with legal action – we have not been sued. There is a reason for that: it is all true, backed by documents and whistleblowers.
Legacy media need to grow some balls and start reporting this. But they will not, so we will keep going. There are many more legs to this story and I will outline them in the coming weeks in what I am calling the MUMA Chronicles.
Could we do more? Absolutely, but it comes down to resources: serious resources to dig deeper, chase leads and expand the team. Good Oil News is member-funded, and that is what keeps us independent and fearless. If you are already a long-time supporter, you know we deliver the stories no one else will touch.
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