Te Pāti Māori undertaking caucus reshuffle following by-election win and 'racist' post furore
Friday, 12 September 2025
Te Pāti Māori is being reshuffled following its by-election win and a furore over one of its MPs posts.
On Friday afternoon a spokesperson for the party confirmed that the whip role had been removed from Mariameno Kapa-Kingi in the midst of a wider reshuffle.
Whips are traditional officers within Parliament who are responsible for enforcing party discipline and attendance. The role comes with a roughly $20,000 pay bump for an MP without another leadership role.
The spokesperson said co-leader Debbie Ngarewa Packer would take back the whip role, which she held during the last term.
They indicated the reshuffle was necessitated by the death of former MP Takutai Tarsh Kemp and her subsequent replacement by Oriini Kaipara following by Tāmaki Makaurau by-election win.
“We’re in the process of a caucus reshuffle following the passing of Takutai [Tarsh Kemp] and boarding on Oriini [Kaipara],” the spokesperson said.
“Debbie held the Matarau role for three years and is the right person to help while we transition and refocus our energy into solidifying our position, holding all of our seats and taking Ikaroa-Rawhiti.”
Kapa-Kingi did not appear pleased with the change when approached by media on Thursday night, telling the NZ Herald she had enjoyed the role, but it was a decision for the co-leaders.
The reshuffle follows an eventful week for Te Pāti Māori, which romped home to win the Tāmaki Makaurau by-election on Saturday, a seat the party barely won in 2023.
On Tuesday night fellow Te Pāti Māori MP Tākuta Ferris ignited controversy with a late-night video to his Instagram, where he reiterated his belief that people of non-Māori descent should not campaign in Māori seats.
Ferris had attacked Labour for using volunteers from other ethnic minorities in the campaign, an attack Labour’s Willie Jackson labelled as “racist”.
Co-leaders Packer and Rawiri Waititi had already apologised on behalf of the party for these comments.
Ferris told Stuff on Thursday night that he did not resile from his views and he had not spoken to his co-leaders about them, instead suggesting that all MPs in the party were essentially equal.
“There are six seats in Te Pāti Māori. They all represent individual rohe. All of those rohe have the same mana,” he told Stuff.