The New Zealand Herald article was a tale of woe in which Te Pāti Māori President John Tamihere and co-leader Debbie Ngarewa-Packer spun a yarn alleging discrimination and terrible impacts on Māori.
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The truth is that Whānau Ora is not being dismantled. The contracts simply went through a tendering process and the existing organisations that are closely linked to Te Pāti Māori through John Tamihere were not successful. Those that did win the contracts are also Māori so Ngarewa-Packer’s comments are at best ill-informed. Iwi Ngāti Toa and Ngāi Tahu have confirmed that they won contracts.
Te Pāti Māori are angry because this diminishes their power base and their affiliate organisations will now miss out on some $155 million of taxpayers funds. In most developed democracies, organisations with such intimate ties with a political party would never have been eligible for such contracts in the first place. There are simply too many conflicts of interest.
Tendering processes are vital to governments demonstrating transparency as to who receives lucrative contracts and that the processes by which they are chosen are fair and best value. It is arrogant in the extreme and shows a disregard for government processes for Te Pāti Māori to think that organisations connected to them should be exempt from this.
There have also been plenty of reasons why the Government might look elsewhere for these contracts. The scandals and allegations surrounding Manurewa Marae and John Tamihere-led organisations involving census data breaches and election tampering have eroded public trust in these organisations and government agencies.
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Debbie Ngarewa-Packer said Whānau Ora was being “dismantled” and that the changes were “a political attack on the very existence of Māori-led solutions”.
“Whānau Ora has consistently outperformed government agencies. It has shown that when Māori lead, Māori thrive. That success should have been recognised and expanded, not gutted.”
The truth is that Whānau Ora is not being dismantled. The contracts simply went through a tendering process and the existing organisations that are closely linked to Te Pāti Māori through John Tamihere were not successful. Those that did win the contracts are also Māori so Ngarewa-Packer’s comments are at best ill-informed. Iwi Ngāti Toa and Ngāi Tahu have confirmed that they won contracts.
Te Pāti Māori are angry because this diminishes their power base and their affiliate organisations will now miss out on some $155 million of taxpayers funds. In most developed democracies, organisations with such intimate ties with a political party would never have been eligible for such contracts in the first place. There are simply too many conflicts of interest.
Tendering processes are vital to governments demonstrating transparency as to who receives lucrative contracts and that the processes by which they are chosen are fair and best value. It is arrogant in the extreme and shows a disregard for government processes for Te Pāti Māori to think that organisations connected to them should be exempt from this.
There have also been plenty of reasons why the Government might look elsewhere for these contracts. The scandals and allegations surrounding Manurewa Marae and John Tamihere-led organisations involving census data breaches and election tampering have eroded public trust in these organisations and government agencies.
The Public Service Commission says its inquiry into alleged misuse of private information, gained through the Census and Covid-19 vaccination campaigns, shows issues requiring further investigation by “other authorities”.
The Commission started its inquiry in June, after a number of concerns were raised about Manurewa Marae, Te Whānau o Waipareira Trust and the Whānau Ora Commissioning Agency.
Those three organisations had contracts with Government departments such as Stats NZ and the Ministry of Health, which gave them access to personal information and contact details.
The three charities also have close links to Te Pāti Māori.1
Stuff, January 28 2025
John Tamihere and Te Pāti Māori have pursued a strategy of crying ‘racist’ in response to virtually any criticism. This approach has been so audacious that even the hard-left SpinOff have called them out on it:
“John Tamihere, Waipareira Trust and Te Pāti Māori have faced scrutiny over financial dealings and political entanglements – but dismissing all criticism as racism risks damaging the credibility of kaupapa Māori governance…
…Being criticised for receiving hundreds of thousands of dollars in interest-free loans from a charitable trust to sponsor your own political aspirations? Racist. An inquiry being launched into Manurewa Marae and the potential misuse of census data by Te Pāti Māori? Racist. Giving other potential Whānau Ora commissioning agencies a chance to pitch for funding? Racist. Te Pāti Māori being told to file a financial statement, as required under law and already done by every other political party? Racist.”2
It is beyond frustrating that despite all the completely reasonable justifications Te Puni Kōkiri (Ministry of Māori Development) have for giving the contracts to other Māori-led groups, reporting on the matter has been slanted so heavily toward John Tamihere’s interests. Some of the articles and opinion pieces published are outright false. Complete lies in some cases.
For example, the Herald is running a feature opinion piece that declares that Whānau Ora is effectively dead. This is not true. It is written by Helen Leahy who is Pou Ārahi of Ngā Waihua o Paerangi Trust.
She claims that Whānau Ora is being dismantled. She alleges there was a decision by Minister Tama Potaka and Te Puni Kōkiri “to demolish the building blocks from which transformation has occurred is against all evidence reported by the three Whānau Ora Commissioning Agencies: Te Pūtahitanga o Te Waipounamu, Te Pou Matakana (Whānau Ora Commissioning Agency) and Pacific Futures.”3
Again, a reminder that John Tamihere is the CEO of Whānau Ora Commissioning Agencies (WOCA).
For those who keep up with political news it is a struggle to wrap one’s head around the complexity of the John Tamihere web of influence and power. He has his fingers in so many pies one wonders where he finds the hours in the day to work for them all. He certainly earns a pretty penny from the government funds that have flowed through them.
Tamihere isn’t the only one who will be stressing about the loss of the government gravy train. Reporting in 2024 detailed how there had been a 77% increase in average pay for Waipareira Trust’s key managers.
“Waipareira’s annual report records 13.3 fulltime-equivalent senior management personnel - the most senior of whom is chief executive John Tamihere - were paid an average of $510,679 per annum.”4
No wonder there has been such an outcry from those who have benefited from extraordinary amounts of public funding. The well has dried up. Or rather the flow of funding is being diverted elsewhere. To other Māori organisations. To other iwi.
The media has an apparent aversion toward reporting on Te Pāti Māori and affiliates with the robust critical approach they deploy to other political parties and organisations. Really, the scandals surrounding Te Pāti Māori and John Tamihere organisations should have been the subjects of front page investigative journalism that digs into every conflict of interest and perception of dodginess.
We are, again, let down by those in our newsrooms. Hopefully the information we share with each other in pieces like this help to make more New Zealanders aware of what is going on.
Sources:
1 www.stuff.co.nz/politics/360561595/inquiry-marae-data-use-raises-concerns-requiring-investigation
2 https://thespinoff.co.nz/atea/06-03-2025/dear-john-we-cant-always-blame-racism
3 www.nzherald.co.nz/kahu/whanau-ora-is-a-love-story-and-it-is-about-falling-back-in-love-with-ourselves-helen-leahy/IES7FBTJSRBZZA7SNERZEO62Y4/
4 www.nzherald.co.nz/business/waipareiras-controversial-campaign-loan-repaid-while-executive-salaries-skyrocket/EYVHUCDXLRGJBKODYEVFLPZCOU/
Ani O'Brien comes from a digital marketing background, she has been heavily involved in women's rights advocacy and is a founding council member of the Free Speech Union. This article was sourced HERE
11 comments:
Ani a refreshng voice. Hopefully she might find employment with the revised Herald.
I presume the motto of the Tamahere group is "Houatu he koromatua tango te wae wae".
With the diminished responsibiity, the reduction in salaries will be interesting. Although at the current rates the reserves are likely to be rapidly drained anyway, despite the colossal accumulation.
No, no. Debbie Packers' et al point is that the money was taken from her kind of maori and given another kind of maori.......are you seeing how tribalism works yet?
Anna is spot on - a perfect preview of the planned post 2040 He Puapua order. Only dimwits would fail to grasp that their future is very grim indeed!
Clearly Whanua Ora need dismantling, the risk of corruption is too high. Anyone should be able to get those contracts not just Maori.
Why the hell should ordinary working people go to work for at least 1 day each weak to subsidize Maori in one form or another ?
Or any hours in any week ?
And what is missing is that there is "unspent" sitting in Tamihere's web of Whanau Ora enterprises bank accounts, some $19 million of tax payers money, that MUST be given back, not left with Waiparera Trust to squander... the NZ tax payers expect that unspent money to be returned.
Not only let down by our newsrooms, but also our elected Government in dealing with all things related to the Maorification of this country. More especially, the the current Maori seats in parliament need to be gone, in order to restore our democracy and at least curb some of the corruption that is going on. If our coalition is too stupid, or gutless, to address this, they will be on the sidelines come the next election.
And if you think Tamihere's shenanigans are bad, just wait until Maori have control of our foreshores & seabeds, and our conservation estates with the concessions operating therein.
As the song goes - "You ain't seen nothing yet...."
Spot on Anna Mouse
Cue Derek Mackie with a short, appropo song version???
If the conditions in the new contracts include clauses about accountability, Tamahere wouldn't want them,
Debbie Ngarewa-Packer says:
“Whānau Ora has consistently outperformed government agencies. It has shown that when Māori lead, Māori thrive. That success should have been recognised and expanded, not gutted.”
So where is the data to support that assertion Debbie? Where are the KPIs that recipients of taxpayer funding have to meet. What does success look like to the recipients of the funding. I believe the scheme was criticised from the outset for for having hard to define and impossible to measure specific outputs. So has anything changed? After 15 years of taxpayer largesse, what precisely has Whanau Ora achieved?
As it happens, the Ministry of Health has run a few numbers. A recent major report (Tatau Kahukura: Māori Health Chart Book 2024 published 19 December 2024) states:
* Māori boys and girls (aged 0 to 14 years) and Māori adults (aged 15 years and over) had daily vaping rates that were around three times higher than their non-Māori counterparts.
* Ischaemic heart disease rates were twice as high for Māori adults compared to non-Māori adults.
* Māori females had a lung cancer registration rate over three times that of non-Māori females.
* Māori males and females were around one and a half times more likely than non-Māori males and females to have diabetes.
* Māori aged 5–34 years were more than twice as likely as non-Māori in the same age group to have been hospitalised for asthma.
Seems that when real data is analysed we get a rather different picture of Maori health. So c'mon Debbie. Give us the hard data to support your view of the health of the nation. Then I might give some credibility to your comments. Until then I am forced to conclude that those "non-Maori" folk referred to by the Ministry of Health might just be doing something right about managing their health outcomes. And all within the conventional health framework that's available to every New Zealander who chooses to use it. What's more, they don't seem to need an additional $155 million being spent to drive home the point.
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