Supporters and MPs fume as Te Pāti Māori tries suspending MP, who threatens legal action

Tuesday, 28 October 2025

A Te Pāti Māori co-leader walked out of a party meeting following debates over the party's 'reset'. The co-leader expressed frustration over internal disagreements while leaders outlined their plans for political and community priorities.

Te Pāti Māori members and MPs are divided as the party’s leadership attempts to suspend its own MP, Mariameno Kapa-Kingi.

But it’s unclear how Kapa-Kingi will be suspended, or if the party’s leadership has the backing of its MPs to suspend her. Her son is now threatening legal action against Te Pāti Māori, saying it “refuses to comply with their own legally binding constitution”.

The party’s executive met late last week to discuss whether to suspend Mariameno Kapa-Kingi, marking a serious escalation of the party’s internal rift which has pitted the MP against her own party.

Internally, Te Pāti Māori members are raising concerns about how the party’s leadership is handling this. While Te Pāti Māori alleged Mariameno Kapa-Kingi had failed to follow the “kawa” (protocol) of the party, its own members have written to their electorate leaders saying the move to suspend her showed the party had betrayed its own tikanga.

And publicly, the newest Te Pāti Māori MP, Oriini Kaipara, is backing Mariameno Kapa-Kingi. She wrote on social media defending the MP after the party moved to formally suspend her.

“Our kuia are important. They hold rank for a reason.

“Meno is a kuia my soul recognises and gravitates toward without effort. She is a pou of Te Pāti Māori and as the newest member to our waka, I see her, I believe her and in her, I support her,” Kaipara said.

Mariameno Kapa-Kingi faces suspension from Te Pāit Māori.

Mariameno Kapa-Kingi also continued to have the support of her electorate committee in Te Tai Tokerau, but the party’s executive was now attempted to remove that committee.

Other committees, apart from Te Tai Tonga, supported the executive’s moves to suspend Kapa-Kingi and clear out the Tai Tokerau committee.

But their support has led to backlash from the party’s membership.

New Te Pāti Māori MP Oriini Kaipara is supporting her colleague Mariameno Kapa-Kingi.

Messages seen by Stuff show party members directly challenging the party’s executive leadership and electorate committee leaders

Some are calling it “dirty politics”, while others say the executive has failed to follow its own rules or any sense of tikanga.

And with Kaipara now publicly standing behind Kapa-Kingi, alongside the support from Te Tai Tonga - which is represented in Parliament by Tākuta Ferris - the small party is clearly divided. It has just six MPs, with half of them showing publicly that they’re unhappy about how the party is being led.

Te Pāti Māori president John Tamihere leads the party’s executive team.

At the top of the executive is party president John Tamihere, with vice presidents Fallyn Flavell and Lance Norman. General manager Kiri Tamihere Waititi has been managing the fallout. She is Tamihere’s daughter, also co-leader Rawiri Waititi’s wife.

This long-running rift between the party’s executive and Mariameno Kapa-Kingi saw Kapa-Kingi demoted, without explanation, earlier this year. She had been the party’s whip but suddenly had that position taken off her last month.

She said that demotion had been disappointing. And then her influential son, Eru Kapa-Kingi - who had been the face of last year’s massive Hīkoi Mō Te Tiriti and was formerly a Te Pāti Māori vice president - spoke out against the party.

In a statement on Tuesday, Eru Kapa-Kingi said his whānau had hired a lawyer to fight this suspension.

“When the Māori Party executive refuses to engage with tikanga practices, and also refuses to comply with their own legally binding constitution, we have no options left. And we have nothing to hide,” he said.

Earlier, Eru Kapa-Kingi labelled the party’s leadership a “dictatorship” model and said it was wrong to think Te Pāti Maori was the rightful voice of Māori in Parliament. He said it was being driven by “ego” rather than the kaupapa.

The party initially said it respected Eru Kapa-Kingi and would take his views on board. But it proceeded to issue a startling list of allegations against him and his mother, during a late night email to hundreds of its supporters.

Those allegations centred around Mariameno Kapa-Kingi allegedly blowing her electorate budget by $130,000, after hiring her son for, the party said, $120,000. But Mariameno Kapa-Kingi said that spending could be justified, as it had come about when she and her office stepped in to help Takutai Tarsh Kemp - the late MP for Tāmaki Makaurau - while she was unwell.

It wasn’t immediately clear how Te Pāti Māori would suspend a sitting MP. Its constitution did not lay out a clear process for doing so. Stuff asked the party how the suspension would work, and what that would mean for voters in Tai Tokerau.

Its spokesperson replied: “This matter is currently before the Te Pāti Māori National Council and remains an internal Party process. All proceedings are guided by our Kawa (constitution) which was developed by the founders of our movement. We await the outcome of the Council’s proceedings and findings. No further comment will be made while these processes are underway.”

The party’s co-leaders have been largely absent, for weeks, from the day-to-day accountability measures at Parliament by refusing to speak to reporters. They have not responded to any requests for comment.