Te Pāti Māori expels Mariameno Kapa-Kingi and Tākuta Ferris

Monday, 10 November 2025

The party has held a last-minute meeting to discuss how to punish the two “rogue” MPs who have allegedly rallied against the party’s leadership.

Te Pāti Māori has expelled two of its MPs, after weeks of internal dramas that have paralysed the party.

While Te Tai Tokerau MP Mariameno Kapa-Kingi and Te Tai Tonga MP Tākuta Ferris have been expelled from the party, co-leader Debbie Ngarewa-Packer said there was no plan to force them out of Parliament.

Te Pāti Māori held just six seats, so in effect it has just lost a third of its party - and the reason for their expulsion remains unclear.

At the Monday press conference announcing their expulsion, co-leader Rawiri Waititi said they wouldn’t confirm what, exactly, the MPs did to warrant expulsion.

Both of the MPs hold electorates, meaning by-elections would be needed if the party moved to kick them out of Parliament. Waititi said it was a decision for the party’s national council on whether to use the “waka jumping” law to boot the MPs from Parliament, but Ngarewa-Packer said they were not planning to do that. In effect, that meant there were now two separate Te Pāti Māori caucuses in Parliament.

The freshly-expelled MPs vowed to challenge their expulsion. Ferris said he “rejects” the decision outright and Kapa-Kingi was looking to challenge the expulsion in court.

Mariameno Kapa-Kingi and Tākuta Ferris are accused of trying to stage a coup against their party leaders.

Both Ferris and Kapa-Kingi, in a statement, claimed their removals breached the party’s constitution and tikanga. They raised questions about the process and authority behind the national executive’s actions.

Ngarewa-Packer and Waititi told reporters the two MPs had been expelled from their party with immediate effect following a five-hour meeting of the party’s national executive.

That meeting came as a surprise on Sunday. Both Ferris and Kapa-Kingi said they were not invited to attend it.

No one from Te Tai Tokerau was invited to the meeting, and Te Tai Tonga and Hauraki-Waikato abstained from voting. Kapa-Kingi’s Te Tai Tokerau wasn’t allowed a vote because, in October, the council declared it had “ceased to perform its duties and functions” in line with the party constitution.

The timing was also unusual because the Iwi Chairs Forum was in the middle of trying to broker a peace deal between the warring Te Pāti Māori factions. A delegation of iwi leaders met both sides individually last week, and was scheduled to bring them together for a hui on Wednesday.

Ngāti Kahungunu chairman Bayden Barber was brought in as peacemaker from the powerful Iwi Chairs Forum.

This decision could also be seen as the party leadership thumbing its nose at the powerful Iwi Chairs Forum, which represented elected iwi leaders from across the nation.

Ngāti Kahungunu chairman Bayden Barber had also told Te Pāti Māori he wanted a pause on any “constitutional stuff” like moves to expel Ferris and Kapa-Kingi.

Waititi told Stuff it was the party’s members, not iwi leaders, who held mana in Te Pāti Māori.

“The mana of this movement sits with membership, and like Debbie has said, the national council already had a process in play,” he said.

Debbie Ngarewa-Packer and Rawiri Waititi announced the explosion of two MPs on Monday.

Based on minutes from the last national council meeting, seen by Stuff, there was widespread upset at how Kapa-Kingi had acted. On October 23, they voted to suspend her, but during Sunday’s meeting the party leadership successfully pushed for expulsion.

“Today, we have made a decision. And that is where it sits today, from the national council, that is who makes decisions for the party,” Ngarewa-Packer confirmed, on Monday.

Te Pāti Māori MP Takuta Ferris says he has nothing to apologise for despite his own party issuing an apology on his behalf. Caught at Wellington Airport, Ferris dismissed his co-leaders’ response as the party faces deepening internal strains.

Following October’s 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”.

But on Monday, the party’s co-leaders refused to give any specifics about what, exactly, the two MPs did wrong.

“That information sits with the national council and has also been presented to the two MPs. And that is, that is how we’re going to leave. You’re not going to get that detail here in this press conference,” Waititi told Stuff, when asked what exactly the MPs had done.

A range of accusations and criticisms have been traded between both sides.

This long-running rift first became clear when 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 in September.

At the same time, Ferris was refusing to back down from his criticism of Labour for having “Indians, Asians, Black and Pākehā” supporting Labour’s Tāmaki Makaurau by-election. Ngarewa-Packer apologised to Labour on his behalf, but Ferris told Stuff he wasn’t sorry - and tripled down.

The tensions escalated when Te Pāti Māori shared documents alleging Kapa-Kinngi had overspent her electorate budget, and when her son, Hīkoi Mō Te Tiriti organiser Eru Kapa-Kingi, publicly accused the party of operating under “a dictatorship model”.

After that, Tamihere and Waititi alleged those two MPs had attempted to coup against the party co-leaders.

For their part, the expelled MPs have said they haven’t done anything wrong. Ferris said he would continue as the MP for Te Tai Tonga.

And Kapa-Kingi said the decision was “unconstitutional”. She also confirmed she planned to continue as the MP for Te Tai Tokerau.