Election 2023: D-Day for John Tamihere campaign loan; Te Pāti Māori election launch probed

Te Pāti Māori co-leaders Debbie Ngarewa-Packer (centre) and Rawiri Waititi (right) last month at their campaign launch at the Waipareira Trust's Matariki event in Henderson, which is now under investigation by Charities Services. Photo / Sylvie Whinray

West Auckland social services charity the Waipareira Trust has been set a deadline of today to prove to regulators their chief executive John Tamihere is settling an outstanding $385,307 loan used - in breach of the Charities Act - to fund his political campaigns for the Auckland mayoralty and Parliament.

A Herald investigation into financial flows between the Waipareira Trust, Tamihere and Te Pāti Māori can also reveal Charities Services has opened a fresh investigation looking into the party’s general election campaign launch at Waipareira’s Matariki concert in Henderson last month.

Tamihere is both chief executive of Waipareira and also president of Te Pāti Māori, with the charity having poured hundreds of thousands of dollars into his failed 2019 bid for the Auckland mayoralty and then into Te Pāti Māori’s 2020 general election campaign.

Contacted last week for comment on these developments - including the status of the outstanding loan and the fresh investigation into Te Pāti Māori’s campaign launch - Tamihere said Herald questions were based on unspecified incorrect assertions and inaccuracies and he would not be answering them.

“The matters raised by you are issues solely between Te Whānau o Waipareira Trust and Charities Services,” he said.

Waipareira chief executive and Te Pāti Māori president John Tamihere declined to address questions about his dispute with Charities Services over funding his political campaigns. Photo / Sylvie Whinray

The first investigation by Charities Services into Waipareira’s political donations began in late 2019 after the charity financially backed Tamihere’s failed bid for the Auckland mayoralty. The trust first claimed they were entitled to donate to political parties and candidates, but later reclassified the sum provided - and hundreds of thousands of dollars more the following year to Te Pāti Māori - as a related-party no-interest loan to their chief executive.

At issue is a long-standing prohibition on charities engaging in partisan political campaigning.

Auckland University senior lecturer Jane Norton, a specialist in charities law, said: “The law and the Charities Services’ guidance on this is clear. A charity’s funds should only be used to advance a charity’s purposes. It should not be used to further the interests of other non-charitable organisations, which includes political parties.”

The earlier Charities Services investigation concluded with regulators issuing a formal warning notice to Waipareira late last year, declaring the political donations - even if repackaged as loans - were in breach of the Charities Act and required both the loan be repaid or converted to commercial terms, and assurances from the Trust that it would no longer support or endorse political parties or candidates.

Documents released under the Official Information Act showed on February 9 Waipareira provided letters to Charities Services from chairman Raymond Hall showing Tamihere had been issued a demand for repayment of the loan and a pledge that “[Waipareira] hereby confirms that it will refrain from supporting or opposing political parties or political parties’ candidates in the future”.

In February 2023, Waipareira pledged to cease making political donations or supporting candidates or parties. Source / Official Information Act

But despite repeated requests for information, Charities Services is still unaware as to whether the loan to Tamihere had been repaid or converted to commercial terms, leading to recent demands to Waipareira for evidence that progress had been made.

Charities Services’ general manager Charlotte Stanley said: “We have given the trust until 7 August to provide evidence that one of these things has happened and await their response.”

While discussions about the loans - which provided the bulk of Te Pāti Māori’s campaign funding for the 2020 election - have this year been ongoing, the 2023 general election campaign has also been rumbling on.

On July 13, Waipaeira held a free Matariki block party in Henderson featuring performances by musicians Tiki Taane and Katchafire. The event also doubled as the general election campaign launch for Te Pāti Māori.

Reports from the event said there was substantial Te Pāti Māori branding, no other political parties or candidates were prominent, and the concert concluded with a half-hour presentation from the stage, including the use of smoke machines and streamer cannons, from seven out of eight Te Pāti Māori’s candidates contesting electorate seats.

Charities Services’ Stanley confirmed she had received a complaint that the event amounted to a charity engaging in party-political activity, and had used her statutory powers to commence an investigation.

“After receiving the complaint, Charities Services opened an inquiry in this matter. As this is subject to our regulatory processes, it is not appropriate to make any further comment at this stage,” she said.

Stanley said if Waipareira failed to abide by the terms outlined in prior warning notices, the possibility of deregistering the charity was on the table.

“Recommending de-registration is never our preferred option. We would much rather charities take action to rectify a situation,” she said.

Deregistration would remove Waipareira’s tax-free status, complicate the fulfillment of tens of millions of dollars in annual contracts with government agencies, and attract an immediate tax levied on net assets that could total $26 million.

Auckland University’s Norton said Charities Services’ investigation into the campaign launch was understandable.

“In terms of a charity using its resources to support the launch of a political party’s election campaign, in my opinion, this seems a clear breach of charity law and is something the regulator will obviously have to look into,” she said.

Yet another Charities Services investigation into a Tamihere-run charity - concerning the National Urban Māori Authority’s $82,695 in “sponsorship payments” to Te Pāti Māori during the 2020 election campaign - was said by Stanley to still be ongoing.

Matt Nippert is an Auckland-based investigations reporter covering white-collar and transnational crimes and the intersection of politics and business. He has won more than a dozen awards for his journalism - including twice being named Reporter of the Year - and joined the Herald in 2014 after having spent the decade prior reporting from business newspapers and national magazines.