Mariameno Kapa-Kingi reflects on first year as Te Tai Tokerau MP

Mariameno Kapa-Kingi said her first year as Te Tai Tokerau MP has been "bloody great".

It’s been just over a year since Mariameno Kapa-Kingi was elected Te Tai Tokerau MP. Reporter Jenny Ling finds out how she’s been dealing with the issues that matter.

With a huge electorate spanning from Cape Rēinga to the North Shore communities of Auckland city, first-term Te Tai Tokerau MP Mariameno Kapa-Kingi has her work cut out for her.

But the Te Pāti Māori MP is up for the challenge, getting about in her trusty Toyota Highlander which has “kids’ scratches all over it” and sports the Tino Rangatiratanga flag.

Kapa-Kingi said while she doesn’t have an office, she likes to get out and about when the House is in recess.

“I like to go where our people are gathering.

“I don’t have an office, I get out in my vehicle and drive, we go to some of the most significant Māori events.”

Kapa-Kingi (Te Aupōuri and Ngāti Kahu ki Whangaroa) was on her way to Whakatāne, on a day off, when the Northern Advocate phoned.

Constituents typically reach her through an 0800 number, by email or social media, and through her staff who she calls “key people in key places”.

She welcomes everyone to reach out for a kōrero (conversation).

“Come and have a hot chocolate.”

Kapa-Kingi was a 2023 election upset, toppling incumbent Kelvin Davis from the Te Tai Tokerau seat after special votes overturned the Labour MP’s narrow election night lead.

Before Kapa-Kingi came along, Davis had held the seat since 2014.

However, his 487-vote lead on election night was flipped in the final count, with Davis getting 9911 votes compared to Kapa-Kīngi’s 10,428 votes, for a 517-vote majority.

Shortly after the October 14, 2023 election, Kapa-Kingi said she planned to focus on health, infrastructure, housing, improving water quality, and uplifting youth.

How’s all that been going?

Infrastructure

Kapa-Kingi is on the transport and infrastructure select committee along with Northland MP Grant McCallum.

She said Tai Tokerau residents have “suffered more than anyone else in our rural areas” in terms of infrastructure.

The Government’s National Roads of Significance programme, which will see the four-lane Northland Expressway fast-tracked from Warkworth to Whangārei, “is so far away from reality”, she believes.

“I live in Whangārei and have mokopuna in Te Kao , Whangārei, and Tāmaki Makaurau.

“Who doesn’t want a nice easy road, so you’re not having to negotiate the Brynderwyns or the Mangamukas?

“Of course, we’d like it smoother and better, but there is definitely resistance, not because we resist development, it’s because more often than not no bugger talks to us.

“Imagine if those conversations had happened in a Treaty-based way, how much further we’d be ahead.”

Kapa-Kingi said she is part of Northland Regional Council [NRC] cross-party meetings to “discuss infrastructure and have ideas on shared projects”.

Mariameno Kapa-Kingi during the swearing-in ceremony at Parliament.

She said she also “knows the waterways that are clogging up and causing the worst of floodings, along with areas with metal roads and poor access”.

“My electorate leads from Te Kao, Kaitāia, Moerewa, to Whangārei, Te Hana and, Te Atatū ... it’s trying to carry the rural and urban conversations of different realities.

“I don’t have to whitewash my opinion.

“I can bring a Māori perspective.”

Health and Youth

Kapa-Kingi is passionate about her fight for Te Aka Whai Ora, the Māori Health Authority (MHA), which was disestablished by the Government earlier this year.

She is also opposed to the Government giving I Am Hope founder Mike King’s Gumboot Friday initiative, which offers free counselling to young New Zealanders, $6m funding over four years to a total of $24m.

Kapa-Kingi said mental health is a “big issue” in Tai Tokerau, particularly suicides among young Māori men.

She cites budget cuts to the Suicide Prevention Office as having a detrimental effect.

It was announced in April the Suicide Prevention office would be scrapped as part of the Ministry of Health’s cost-cutting proposal.

Kapa-Kingi is opposed to the government giving I Am Hope founder Mike King’s Gumboot Friday initiative $24m funding.

However, a month later, Mental Health Minister Matt Doocey said the office would not close, though it may have no fulltime staff, and could face increased scrutiny to ensure it’s doing its job.

“The light has come off,” Kapa-Kingi said.

“I’m challenging them with their ideas about what is best for Māori health and Māori health for young people.

“What works is for Māori by Māori ... otherwise the gaps will widen.

“My job in this regard, is to challenge, fight, resist.

“If it’s an economic motive, say it, ‘you Māoris, you’re the first on the chopping block’, because that’s what it looks like.”

Housing

Kapa-Kingi cites her success leading the development of a 16-house papakāinga in Te Kao in her previous role as chief executive of Te Rūnanga Nui o Te Aupōuri.

The housing development, called Pōtahi Papakāinga, was aimed at tackling the housing crisis and included building a wastewater treatment system and road.

It was opened in September 2023.

Kapa-Kingi said increasing numbers of whānau have been moving home to the North since the Covid-19 pandemic.

More needs to be done to ensure there is adequate housing, she said.

“A warmer home is a human right.”

What have you found most challenging?

One of her biggest challenges is traversing the worlds of Māoridom and a predominantly Western parliamentary system.

Kapa-Kingi said her work in iwi social services, health sectors, and governance over the last 35 years, has helped.

But being Māori in the Beehive is “revealing”, she said.

“There’s the system, and unless you work in it and you are part of it, you don’t really know, you just have an insight into how places like that work.

“Now when you’re into ‘the place’ [Parliament] you get to see how the sausages are made.

“You get to see how law is debated and made.

“Being a Māori ... I’ve done that for quite a while now, and that’s easy.

“But sitting in a fundamentally Westminster system with a Western model ... you are forced to speak that language.

“You’re always having to translate, you’re always switching language and code.

“You’ve got to be good at that to survive it and hold your own in it.”

Kapa-Kingi said being Māori in the Beehive is ‘revealing’.

Another aspect of political life Kapa-Kingi has found challenging is “the gap in knowledge” of her fellow politicians in Parliament.

“When I’m trying to make points or have a debate or discuss things, the knowledge is not there, we’re having to become educators before we can debate this thing.

“That’s challenging because I didn’t expect to do that.

“Many on the other side of the aisle don’t understand the issues we’re dealing with, particularly as Māori or Pasifika, because the gap is so wide.

“I don’t want to have to do Treaty 101, it should already be understood and appreciated.”

What are you most proud of over the last year?

Kapa-Kingi highlights her ability to “take a stand” for mokopuna, which includes opposing the repeal of section 7AA of the Oranga Tamariki Act.

The removal of section 7AA from the Oranga Tamariki Act, still before Parliament, has seen overwhelming opposition due to higher social impacts on Māori and Pākehā.

“My continuous effort is focused on mokopuna so our whānau and families, Māori and Pākehā alike get to see this matters,” Kapa-Kingi said.

“Because I’ve had those years of experience inside those situations, I can speak with confidence.

“It’s not an academic thing – my experience told me this is going to fail.”

Overall, how have you found your first year as MP?

“Bloody great,” Kapa-Kingi said.

“That’s my nature, I make it so, it’s tough but I’m tougher.

“They believe they know what’s best for Māori. I object to that outright.

“I know my job, I can get in there.

“Our whānau expect me there, they’ll tell me ‘you need to be in the house and hold them accountable. You need to scrap for us’.”

How would she rate her performance out of 10?

“Relative to my time in there? A 10.

“I’m mature enough and game enough to talk like that.

“That’s what our people expect of us.

“You bring your best game.”

Jenny Ling is a senior journalist at the Northern Advocate. She has a special interest in covering human interest stories, along with roading, lifestyle, business, and animal welfare issues.