Dr Bryce Edwards: Democracy Briefing - Te Kāika and the broken model of social service contracting

In Dunedin, a charity called Te Kāika has been receiving tens of millions of dollars in government funding to provide health and social services to some of the city’s most vulnerable people. Over the past year, the Otago Daily Times has been methodically pulling back the curtain on what is going on inside this organisation. The picture is not pretty: nepotistic governance, unexplained payments to the leadership, staff fleeing in droves, government contracts unfulfilled, a youth facility shut down over abuse allegations, and a senior manager convicted of domestic violence. The Department of Internal Affairs is now investigating.

David Farrar: Defiance from Waipareira gets rewarded by Charities Services!

The Herald reports:

A long-running investigation into West Auckland social services provider Waipareira Trust’s hundreds of thousands of dollars of political donations to the campaigns of its chief executive John Tamihere has concluded with the charity avoiding deregistration.

Incredible.

A further story reports:

Matua Kahurangi: How Waipareira survived deregistration by paperwork and power

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.

Matua Kahurangi: Māori poverty pays very well if you run the trust

If you’re on X, you may have seen a report by independent journalist Nick Shirley into Somali-run daycare centres in Minneapolis. According to the investigation, these centres received staggering sums of public money despite reportedly having no enrolled children. The 42-minute video has racked up around 84 million views on x since it was posted on 26 December. That does not happen by accident. It happens because people recognise a scandal when they see one.

Peter Williams: The Dysfunctional Maori Health Trusts

First there was the Waipareira Trust, then the Manukau Urban Maori Authority (MUMA) and now there’s Te Kaika.

They have much in common.

They’re all Maori owned and controlled health and social service providers.

Centrist: ‘Your caucacity never fails' - Tamihere fires race barb as Waipareira fights deregistration

The Waipareira Trust is taking the Department of Internal Affairs to court in a bid to stop its deregistration as a charity, following a years-long investigation into hundreds of thousands of dollars funnelled into John Tamihere’s political campaigns.

The trust’s spending on Tamihere’s failed 2019 Auckland mayoral bid and the 2020 Te Pāti Māori campaign, which he co-led, was later reclassified as a no-interest, related-party loan.

Ani O'Brien: Reports of the death of Whānau Ora are greatly exaggerated

If the sum total of one’s knowledge about Whānau Ora, the Whānau Ora Commissioning Agency (WOCA), and John Tamihere’s web of organisations was informed by the news reports this morning on government contracts, one would think that the Government had no reasons to put the contracts out to tender, no reason to have concerns about perceptions of integrity at existing agencies, and have given the contracts to a bunch of white blokes in suits.

Centrist: John Tamihere’s defence risks credibility of kaupapa Māori governance

The Waipareira Trust, under John Tamihere’s leadership, has faced allegations of financial mismanagement, conflicts of interest, and improper political involvement—including $385,000 in interest-free loans to fund Tamihere’s campaigns.

His response? Cry ‘racism’.

Journalist Liam Rātana writes:

John McLean: The cock Roche and the Heron

The Public Service Commission has at last released its report on the abuse of New Zealanders’ personal information in connection with Auckland’s Manurewa Marae and the 2023 general election.

The Report has been long awaited and much delayed. It was finalized in early December 2024 (it’s dated 5 December) but Public Service Commissioner Sir Brian Roche – who’d just love to “disappear” the whole assault on New Zealand democracy - didn’t make the Report public until almost three months later, on 18 February 2025.

Kerre Woodham: We need a definitive answer to if data was misused

I don't think this counts as breaking news, does it?

An inquiry ordered by the Prime Minister has identified significant failures with public agencies’ protection of New Zealanders’ personal information and management of conflict of interests.

David Farrar: The damning PSC report

The Public Service Commission has released its report around alleged misuse of information by three entities and the findings are damning. Two major outcomes are:

Graham Adams: NZ Herald struggles with how to gain readers’ trust

Manurewa Marae ‘scoop’ falls between clickbait and journalism.

Last week, NZME, the owners of the NZ Herald, announced 38 newsroom staff would be losing their jobs.

Most of those being dismissed were “production journalists”, which includes sub-editors. The Herald has undertaken culls of such employees several times over recent decades. Inevitably, the ensuing rash of grammatical and spelling mistakes in their publications, along with plain gobbledegook, means at least some of them will soon need to be rehired.

Jane Norton: Charities no place for politics

In late December we learned that, after a four-year battle with the Charities Services, Te Whānau O Waipareira Trust looks set to be deregistered as a charity.

Most of what we know about the activities of Waipareira Trust, and the resulting Charities Services’ investigations, is due to tenacious reporting by NZ Herald’s Matt Nippert. Waipareira will likely go to great lengths to contest any deregistration decision but, if it is upheld, this will have seismic financial implications for the trust and its continued operation.

Graham Adams: Storm clouds gather over Tamihere's fiefdom

A likely reduction in Whānau Ora funding rattles Te Pāti Māori.

Alongside the woes crowding in on John Tamihere’s Waipareira Trust — including the report into Manurewa Marae due at the end of January and news that the Charities Services intends to deregister the trust over political donations — there has been a largely unremarked move by the Ministry of Māori Development / Te Puni Kōkiri to reopen tenders for Whānau Ora cash.

The news broke in late June, and clearly came as a bombshell to Tamihere, whose organisations have long been recipients of taxpayer money.

JC: The Left in Full Flight

If proof is needed the political left haven’t learnt then here it is. What is wrong with these people and what goes on inside their heads?

The chief advisor to the Democrats, a lady who raised billions for the party courtesy of wealthy donors, was called a whore by the party. She is of Asian heritage and they have asked for her to be deported. She has had enough and is now leaving the party to join a team where, in her own words, “Men are men and women are women and where men don’t get to take part in women’s sports.”

David Farrar: A 24% return on revenue

A surplus or profit that is 24% of your revenue is astonishing. Not just astonishing for a charity that is almost entirely taxpayer funded, but would be astonishing for a commercial company.

Of the top 100 companies in NZ, only seven have a higher profit as a share of revenue than the Waipareira Trust. So this taxpayer funded charity is making a higher profit than 93% of the top 100 companies in NZ.

Dr Bryce Edwards: Te Pati Māori political donations scandal gets worse

Sympathy should be extended to Te Pati Māori MP Takutai Tarsh Kemp, who announced yesterday that she is taking six weeks off parliamentary duties to recover from kidney disease. This, of course, doesn’t give her a pass from the continued scrutiny applied to her political donations and allegedly improper electioneering that got her into Parliament last year. The first part of the official government inquiry is due in nine days.

New allegations about Te Pati Māori political finance

David Farrar: Charities don’t fund political parties

The Herald reports:

A four-year investigation into the legality of the Waipareira Trust’s provision of hundreds of thousands of dollars in donations to political campaigns linked to its chief executive John Tamihere has finally concluded, with the case referred for determination by peak regulator, the Charities Registration Board.

Wendy Geus: Like Sturgeon, shouldn't Tamihere face police investigation for fraud?

Revelations early in May 2023 in the NZ Herald that “the social services charity Waipareira Trust had agreed with Charities Services to cease making political donations and take steps to claw back $385,000 of interest-free loans made to its chief executive, John Tamihere, has put the controversial politician and media commentator back in the spotlight for the wrong reasons”.

Thomas Cranmer: John Tamihere and the Waipareira Trust

The Charities Services decision to require the Waipareira Trust to claw back $385,000 of interest-free loans from John Tamihere brings renewed attention to the links between Whānau Ora and the Trust.

Revelations earlier this month in the Herald that the social services charity Waipareira Trust had agreed with Charities Services to cease making political donations and take steps to claw back $385,000 of interest-free loans made to its chief executive, John Tamihere, has put the controversial politician and media commentator back in the spotlight for the wrong reasons.

It’s not the first time that a financial scandal has hit the trust or Tamihere. In October 2004, the then Labour Party MP was accused of dishonest financial dealings, including in relation to a $195,000 golden goodbye from the Waipareira Trust that he accepted when he was elected to Parliament in 1999.