John McLean: John Tamihere's Maori Paty machinations

Māori Mafiosi hoodwinks the Hīkoi-ites

John Tamihere is a complex man who conducts tricky business. He’s Suzerain of his complicated extended family, the Waipareira Trust and Māori Party. He and his operatives and acolytes do a self-servicing disservice to the majority of Māori, and generally give Māori a bad name.

Don’t Do!…what exactly?

The Hīkoi mō te Tiriti (10-19 November 2024 "March for the Treaty") was ostensibly a protest against David Seymour’s Treaty Principles Bill. But things are not always as they seem.

The Hīkoi Marchers’ protest was mainly civilized. And there was good reason for their civility - there was nothing for them to protest against. The two other parties in the current Coalition Government, National and New Zealand First, have committed to voting against the Treaty Principles Bill after the current Select Committee stage, so the Bill is dead in the water. No protesters I’ve heard could coherently say why they were protesting. Some said dead Māori ancestors had summoned them to protest. Others simply relished collectively labelling David Seymour a Racist Nazi.

Rather than an informed protest against the Treaty Principles Bill, the Hīkoi was in fact a Māori Party recruitment drive and promotion, orchestrated by John Tamihere. I hope, but doubt, Team Tamihere paid for protesters’ petrol.

The Māori Party recruitment drive appears to have worked, with thousands shifting from the general roll to the Māori electoral roll. The increase in the Māori electoral roll could translate into another Māori electorate. In the 2023 general election, the Māori Party won six of the seven Māori electorates.

The Hīkoi Hustlers

On-the-ground Hīkoi leader was Eru Kapa-Kingi. Eru is a paid Māori Party staffer and son of Mariameno Kapa-Kingi, current Māori Party Member of Parliament. In May 2024, Mum Mariameno accused the current Government of a "mission to exterminate Māori". If Mariameno is correct, then the Government missed a golden opportunity to exterminate Māori en masse because, by the time the Hīkoi hit Wellington, it had swelled to about 40,000 mainly Māori protesters.

Māori Party co-leader Rawhiri Waititi was naturally at the heart of the Hīkoi. Rawhiri is married to John Tamihere’s hate-filled, deranged daughter, Kiri Tamihere-Waititi.

John Tamihere’s wife is Awerangi, daughter of Sir Mason Durie. Sir Mason is a patron of Whānau Ora, a Waipareira Trust/Government-funded inexhaustible slush fund “focused” on improving the welfare of people with Māori ancestors by obsessing on their ancestry. Fellow Whānau Ora patrons include John Tamihere (of course) and Lady Tureiti Moxon, an unladylike woman who devotes most of her time to labelling as racists many others with Māori ancestry (including Winston Peters, Shane Jones, David Seymour and Health Minister Dr Shane Reti), as well as non-Māori who don’t wear Māori-themed pendants.

Hysterical Hana

One of the new Māori Party MPs to enter Parliament at the 2023 election was Hana-Rāwhiti Maipi-Clarke. H-R M-C defeated Nanaia (“Denier”) Mahuta in the Hauraki Waikato Māori electorate. She’s a poster girl for radical Māori separatism. Before the Hīkoi hit Wellington, Hana-Rāwhiti tore up a copy of the Bill and led a pre-arranged haka protest in Parliament against Seymour’s Treaty Principles Bill. Labour and Greens MPs joined in, along with people in the Gallery. It was all nicely orchestrated.

For those scared by Māori activism, Hana-Rāwhiti Maipi-Clarke is a Dark Angel of separatist racial radicalism. But she’s really just another pitiable pawn and dupe of John Tamihere. Tamihere’s Māori Party Mafiosi put Hana-Rāwhiti up to the Parliament Haka Stunt, just as they cajoled her to lie that she’d suffered multiple racially motivated home invasions in the lead up to the 2023 election. When the Police rightly did nothing in response to Hana-Rāwhiti’s false complaints, puppet master John Tamihere spouted:

“That’s why the police are not widely trusted in our communities. We can only tell [the Police] what happened. They can then listen to what the white male said and they prefer the white male story of events.”

Mainstream media coverage of the Treaty of Waitangi is a shroud of lies. There’s something about the Treaty that deranges otherwise sane people into shrieking that black is white. Thus, when David Seymour genuinely praises the Treaty of Waitangi as New Zealand’s founding document, Victoria University researcher and columnist Max Rashbrooke bitterly referred, in the 30 November 2024 edition of The Post, to “David Seymour’s attempt to rip up the Treaty of Waitangi”.

Naturally, Hana-Rāwhiti’s father, self-described “Māori media specialist” Potaka Maipi, covered the Hīkoi in glowing terms.

Trust not the Waipareira Trust

Funding much of this Māori Party political activism is the Waipareira Trust, with John Tamihere as Chief Executive and his wife Awerangi as Chief Operating Officer. The average salary paid to each of the 16 person Waipareira Executive Team exceeds $500,000. The Trust currently receives about $20 million in Government funding per annum (in the year ended 30 June 2022, the Trust also received over $10 million in COVID Government funding). The Trust owns about $120 million in assets.

But the truly mystifying aspect of the Waipareira Trust is how it continues to enjoy tax-exempt charitable status. This is because a charity is only permitted to have political purposes to the extent they contribute to general public benefit. And funding a political party (the Māori Party) dedicated to ending New Zealand as a nation state can’t possibly be for the general benefit of New Zealanders.

I’ve covered the New Zealand’s Charities Commission’s politically biases and general uselessness in an earlier Substack:

NEW ZEALAND’S RIGGED CHARITIES LOTTERY
John McLean
·
November 11, 2023

Let’s kick off by deploying a brace of vogue phrases.
Read full story

The Tamihere Deflection

On top of being a Māori Party promotion and recruitment drive, Kingpin John Tamihere employed the Hīkoi, and its downstream media coverage, to deflect and distract from ongoing investigations into his nefarious skullduggery. For Teflon Tamihere could still find himself in a spot of bother for systematically subverting New Zealand’s electoral, charities and privacy laws. Courageous broadcaster and journalist Christ Lynch has covered the investigations, in his inimitably thorough and brave manner:

Growing Investigations into John Tamihere and Te Pāti Māori Spark Calls for Comprehensive Inquiry - Chris Lynch Media

But don’t hold your breath. Our institutions and state agencies have a long way to go to re-earn our trust they can uphold the rule of law and principles of openness and honesty in public service. Take, just for example, Gwendoline Keel, Chair of New Zealand’s Charities Registration Board and Labour Party candidate. Gwendoline’s bio, on the Charities website, reads:

Gwen is…presently General Counsel within the post-settlement governance entity for the Waikato iwi, commonly known as Waikato-Tainui…Gwen has a particular interest in the economic development of kaupapa Maaori charities.

What are the odds of Gwen taking credible action against the Waipareira Trust’s gross breaches of its charitable status?

Or of Electoral Commission chief executive officer Karl Le Quesne taking action against the Māori Party. Yesterday 3 December 2024, trying to plead guilty to a lesser “crime”, Karl admitted to a perceived conflict of interest in him personally allowing a marae run by a successful Māori Party candidate and current MP - Takutai Tarsh Kemp - to be used as a voting booth in the last election.)

Or of Statistics NZ taking action, with executive team member Rhonda Paku (Kaihautū, Tāngata Te Tiriti Learning Capability) in charge (according to the website) of:

“the business group that advocates for and champions the data needs and interests of our Tiriti partner, while building capability in cultural transformation for Stats NZ to ensure our meaningful engagement in the Māori-Crown relationship – ultimately to deliver far greater outcomes for Māori through data so that Māori can thrive”.

Gwen & Karl & Rhonda & their Ilk are not the full quid, and should be relieved of their posts.

Unfortunately, New Public Service Commissioner Sir Brian Roche will be doing his darnedest to swiftly brush under the carpet the results of his Commission’s “inquiry” into Tamihere’s Trickery.

What have we become? Will the worm ever turn?

John McLean is a citizen typist and enthusiastic amateur who blogs at John's Substack where this article was sourced.