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Welcome to Inside Politics. MPs and Te Pāti Māori in particular will be in shock today after the unexpected death of Takutai Tarsh Kemp, aged 50, the MP for the Auckland seat of Tāmaki Makaurau.
She was at Parliament yesterday, taking part in Question Time and sitting with colleague Tākuta Ferris in the benches left empty by the suspension of co-leaders Debbie Ngarewa-Packer and Rawiri Waititi.
Of the six Te Pāti Māori MPs, she has been the least vocal in the House, possibly because of her health issues, but she spoke in a debate on Tuesday and took part in Scrutiny Week last week on the Māori Affairs committee.
And she left no doubt as to what she thought when officials from the Ministry of Māori Development, Te Puni Kōkiri, and its minister, Tama Potaka, were being grilled about why the long-term contracts for three Whānau Ora commissioning agencies had ended. She said the decision was a waste of time and that their responses to questions about it “don’t make sense to me”. But she also paid tribute to former Labour ministers Willie Jackson and Peeni Henare for the commitment they had made to Whānau Ora.
Kemp was a first-term MP. Last year, she took leave from Parliament for several months to battle kidney disease.
She beat Labour’s Peeni Henare in the seat in 2023 with a slim majority of 42. Her death will lead to a byelection. The seat has bounced between Labour and the Māori Party, having been the seat of former Labour MP John Tamihere, now Te Pāti Māori president, former Māori Party co-leader Sir Pita Sharples, and Henare.
Kemp revealed some of her background in her maiden speech in 2023. Raised by her grandparents in South Taranaki until the age of 11, she had strong connections to the Rātana Church. But she has lived in Auckland for 35 years, immersing herself in the world of hip-hop and its administration in New Zealand. Before becoming an MP, she had been head of the Manurewa Marae, which vaccinated 65,000 people across Auckland during the Covid pandemic.
The marae was central to several inquiries after allegations that the provision of data to health and social services providers for the purposes of Census 2023 and Covid-19 vaccinations was misused. But it was public agencies, rather than the marae, that were subject to the investigation.
Kemp’s death is the second of an MP this term. First-term Green MP Fa’anānā Efeso Collins collapsed and died unexpectedly in February last year. If Parliament follows what happened when he died, the House will dispense with Question Time today, spend some time marking her death, and then adjourn. We can only hope that the Speaker’s Office and Te Pāti Māori will be co-ordinating on the tikanga of the event.
The unprecedented three-week suspension of Te Pāti Māori co-leaders Debbie Ngarewa-Packer and Rawiri Waititi for a haka that interrupted a vote ended at midnight last night.
That means that if they choose to, they will be able to attend Question Time today, where the death of their colleague will be marked.
The House is about to go into a two-week recess after that.
As well as being banned from the House and select committees, Ngarewa-Packer and Waititi, and their young colleague Hana-Rāwhiti Maipi Clarke, had their pay docked by 0.2% per day of their gross annual salary. Combined, it was almost $20,000 in what is effectively a fine.
As co-leaders of a party with six MPs, their annual salary is $200,700 each a year, so having their pay docked for 21 days means they were fined $8429 each. Maipi-Clarke was suspended for seven days and earns less, so her total financial penalty was $2427.
But that is a total of $19,285 forfeited in salary by the three MPs.
It perhaps needs repeating that the Privileges Committee’s recommendations were way out of line with previous findings, the most serious of which was against Sir Robert Muldoon in 1987. He was suspended for three days for being rude to the Speaker and received no financial penalty.
The committee’s treatment of Te Pāti Māori was led by its most senior members, Judith Collins, KC, and Winston Peters, and their report did not attempt to justify the harsh penalty in terms of relativity.
As former Labour Speaker Adrian Rurawhe suggested during the debate on the suspension, it will create a dangerous precedent.
To have such a penalty so out of whack with previous breaches of the rules could also have a chilling effect on the Speaker even referring matters to the Privileges Committee.
The haka was performed during the vote on Act’s Treaty Principles Bill in November, which was defeated.
Prime Minister Christopher Luxon is on his way back to New Zealand after a week in China and several days in Europe rubbing shoulders with Nato leaders. Hours before leaving for Nato, he ended his China trip with a bizarre comment to reporters. He took issue with comments by Nato Secretary-General Mark Rutte that China was co-ordinating with Russia, Iran and North Korea.
“We haven’t seen evidence of those four powers co-ordinating actively against the West,” Luxon said.
Political editor Thomas Coughlan, who was in China, said Luxon’s statement was not prompted by any question about the matter. Luxon volunteered his view.
By the time Luxon got to Europe, he was the only leader of the Indo-Pacific (IP4) affiliates to make it. Most notably, Japanese Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba pulled out after hearing that the IP4 meeting with US President Donald Trump was not confirmed. Ishiba has since hinted that he may also have wanted to avoid any pressure to commit to 5% in defence spending, as Nato partners did yesterday. South Korea followed suit and Australia’s Anthony Albanese already flew halfway around the world, to a G7 conference in Canada last week, in the hope of meeting with Trump. But Trump left early to attend to the bombing of nuclear facilities in Iran.
Trump was treated as a hero by some at the Nato summit, with Rutte indulging in almost unseemly gushing – and having to explain why he referred to the US President as “Daddy”.
• Labour leader Chris Hipkins has returned from his trip to Europe, where he visited Denmark and Dublin, where his former colleague Sir Trevor Mallard is ambassador. En route, he stopped off in London where, by chance, his predecessor and former Prime Minister Dame Jacinda Ardern was attending various events to promote her memoir and a reunion was organised at late notice, including Ardern, Hipkins, Ardern’s former press secretary Andrew Campbell, former press secretary Zach Vickery and former Labour MP Darren Hughes.
• Speaker Gerry Brownlee, recently back from leading a delegation to Japan, is leading another in next week’s recess to the United Nations in New York and to Capitol Hill in Washington DC. With him will be National MP Andrew Bayly, Labour MP Barbara Edmonds, Act MP Todd Stephenson and Green MP Tamatha Paul.
“This is the most serious I’ve ever dealt with and it takes me back to the Cuban missile crisis [of October 1962]” – Foreign Minister Winston Peters speaking hours after the US bombed Iran’s nuclear facilities.
What does the acronym Nato stand for and where is it based? (Answer below.)
Goes to the health committee for cutting the time Health Minister Simeon Brown had before it in Scrutiny Week from 90 minutes last year to just one hour this year. A bid by Labour’s Ayesha Verrall to extend the time failed. In Brown’s favour, he offered to stay a bit longer after the hour was up, but one of the most crucial portfolios deserves better.
Goes to Chris Hipkins and Gerry Brownlee for requiring Finance Minister Nicola Willis to answer a straight question about who introduced the Depositor Compensation Scheme she was alluding to in the House. It was like pulling teeth, but she got there in the end. The answer was Labour’s Grant Robertson.
MP’s death: Te Pāti Māori MP Takutai Moana Natasha Kemp has died, aged 50, after she was diagnosed with kidney disease in 2024.
Mideast conflict: The New Zealand Defence Force’s C-130J Hercules has arrived in the Middle East to support Kiwis seeking to leave Iran and Israel.
Health cuts: The Government would need to reduce health spending to roughly 2008 levels by 2038 if it continues to use its current tools to meet its fiscal goals, according to a briefing just released by Treasury.
Māori roll ad: Whānau Ora and Māori Development Minister Tama Potaka is asking Te Puni Kōkiri officials to urgently review a new advertisement encouraging Māori to sign up to the Māori roll.
OPINION – David Seymour: David Seymour’s performance as Acting Prime Minister has been reminiscent of David Lange, Sir Robert Muldoon and, occasionally, Seymour himself as Act leader, writes Audrey Young.
Regulatory Standards Bill: Act leader David Seymour is rejecting claims his controversial Regulatory Standards Bill could lead to corporations seeking compensation if their property rights are affected.
House rules: New Zealand First leader Winston Peters has apologised for calling Te Pāti Māori MP Tākuta Ferris a “dickhead” in the House, but has questioned whether the word is offensive.
Infrastructure plan: A new national infrastructure plan says central government must “lift its game” on infrastructure planning, condemning much of it as “short-term and reactive”.
ANALYSIS – Mideast conflict: The New Zealand Government’s response to America’s strike on Iran’s nuclear facilities has been quiet and careful. Audrey Young explains why.
Mideast conflict: Foreign Minister Winston Peters has welcomed “positive signals” of a potential ceasefire between Israel and Iran.
Oil & gas policy: The Green Party is concerned the Government’s decision to abandon an alliance on phasing out oil and gas production will undermine New Zealand’s global relationships.
Ngāpuhi settlement: NZ First Minister Shane Jones is drafting legislation to require a single settlement with Ngāpuhi rather than multiple agreements with smaller groups.
Allen profile: New Ombudsman John Allen has signalled his approach to the job will be very different to that of his predecessor, Judge Peter Boshier.
China trip: Prime Minister Christopher Luxon was given the star treatment in the most traditional sense when he met Chinese President Xi Jinping at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing on Friday.
Quiz answer: North Atlantic Treaty Organisation, based in Brussels, Belgium.
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Lawyer accuses Government of poor law-making process.