Te Pāti Māori ‘rogue’ duo back for peace talks, but divisions grow deeper

Thursday, 6 November 2025

This followed the latest of the public drama that has been plaguing the party for weeks.

Mariameno Kapa-Kingi and Tākuta Ferris, the two Te Pāti Māori MPs facing heat from their own party, were all smiles on Thursday as they took selfies in Parliament’s debating chamber.

Despite their cool demeanour, their fate as MPs - and the fate of their party - remains uncertain.

The depth of the fractures within Te Pāti Māori became even clearer on Thursday. With Kapa-Kingi and Ferris returning to the House, the rest of the party - apart from co-leader Debbie Ngarewa-Packer - decided not to attend Parliament.

That meant Kapa-Kingi was, for most of the day, the only Te Pāti Māori MP in the House to cast votes and represent the party. She spoke and voted on every bill.

Stuff also understands that the entire party infrastructure, including its parliamentary staffers, have had to pick sides. They are effectively operating two completely separate parties, within the six-person “Te Pāti Māori”.

Mariameno Kapa-Kingi and Tākuta Ferris posed for a selife in the debating chamber on Thursday.

The party’s electorate committees and executive were scheduled to meet next week to decide how to punish Kapa-Kingi.

In October, the party’s leadership held a vote with its electorate committees on whether to suspend Kapa-Kingi. They agreed to suspension, and to allow the executive to determine exactly what that punishment would look like.

Te Pāti Māori president John Tamihere has urged two MPs to resign after an internal rift over leadership spilled into public view. Co-leader Rawiri Waititi supports Tamihere’s stance, saying the party must “straighten up its waka” ahead of 2026.

After that meeting, party president John Tamihere and co-leader Rawiri Waititi widened their accusations. They said Ferris had co-conspired with Kapa-Kingi.

Tamihere called the two MPs greedy and “rogue”, accusing them of purposely trying to “destabilise the party”.

The saga, between Tamihere and the co-leaders against Kapa-Kingi and Ferris, has dragged on for months and divided the party. To try and put an end to the dramas, a delegation of senior iwi leaders from across the country have been working to broker a peace deal.

Those iwi leaders arrived at Parliament on Thursday, to meet with Ferris and Kapa-Kingi after sitting down with co-leaders Debbie Ngarewa-Packer and Waititi earlier this week. But Tamihere didn’t attend the meeting.

The delegation’s leader, Ngāti Kahungunu chairman Bayden Barber, said both sides had agreed to meet next week at a marae in Wellington.

The Iwi Chairs Forum, a group of elected representatives from iwi across New Zealand, asked Barber to try and mediate the fallout at Te Pāti Māori as they were unhappy it was distracting from the real issues impacting Māori.