Eru Kapa-Kingi, the Toitū te Tiriti campaigner at the centre of the recent Te Pāti Māori allegations, has sent a message to his “haters” and those “throwing dirt on my name”, while also assuring supporters that he and his whānau are doing “sweet”.
In a social media video this afternoon, the activist said that despite the high-profile allegations being levelled against him and his mother, MP Mariameno Kapa-Kingi, he and his whānau were doing “sweet” and “solid”.
“I’ve got so many messages of support and aroha. It’s overwhelming in the best way. I’m still working through them, but I appreciate every single one of them,” he said.
“I’m definitely getting the vibe of concern in some of them, and that makes sense, right. Even I would assume before this all happened that, if my name ever got dragged through the media and lies were told about me, I’d be like real down buzz and just going through it.”
But he said that couldn’t be further from the truth.
“It’s like the opposite. I feel so at peace. I feel free. I feel liberated. These last couple nights I’ve had probably like the best sleeps I’ve had in ages.”
For most of the video, Eru Kapa-Kingi spoke of the value of “living by your principles and your purpose and your truth as well”. He said he felt “grounded and anchored in my values”.
“That’s the most important relationship, the relationship with self. You can be settled in who you are when you look in the mirror, you can say to yourself, ‘I’m proud of you, no matter what the world is saying.’
“Even if everyone else is throwing hate, as long as you can honestly say to yourself that you’re proud of yourself and that you love yourself.”
Addressing “my haters” and later “those who are throwing dirt on my name”, Eru Kapa-Kingi said that he hoped “they find time to heal and also be pono and honest with them themselves and also be grounded and anchored, in values that aren’t influenced by their own traumas or their own realities”.
He said, “Toxic behaviour doesn’t just fall out of the sky.
“It’s usually got a context to it and it’s usually driven by unaddressed trauma, unaddressed pain. I wouldn’t wish that upon my worst enemy.”
Te Pāti Māori late on Monday night released a batch of documents making several serious allegations against Mariameno Kapa-Kingi and her son. They included allegations of overspending by the MP’s office and her son threatening violence at Parliament.
That followed Eru Kapa-Kingi, a spokesman for the Toitū te Tiriti campaign group, earlier this month attempting to distance the movement from Te Pāti Māori and accusing it of dictatorship-like leadership. His comments came after his mother was demoted as the party’s whip.
Neither Kapa-Kingi has specifically addressed the allegations. Te Pāti Māori co-leader Ngarewa-Packer told the Herald the budgeting issue had since been resolved.
Eru Kapa-Kingi on Wednesday said he didn’t “regret a single thing” or intend to “throw stones at anyone”, but instead to “speak truth and stand on kaupapa”.
His mother hasn’t been present at Parliament this week, but has been active on social media, including posting about the Marine and Coastal Area (Takutai Moana) Act legislation.
Her colleague, Tākuta Ferris, wouldn’t talk about her today. When asked by the Herald where she was, he responded: “Go and find her bro.”
Te Pāti Māori president John Tamihere on Tuesday claimed that, despite the internal turmoil spilling out publicly, “the movement’s going extraordinarily well”.
Asked specifically about Eru Kapa-Kingi’s allegations and Te Pāti Māori counter-allegations, Tamihere said, “I don’t want to go there.”
But he did say “the right tikanga is to tell our truth, but not run around all the media, work all the back door, okay?
“We’re a party that is trying to play our tikanga, right? We don’t like heads on platters. Everyone chases those. We don’t have the same way of looking at things, okay?
“Eru Kapa-Kingi and his whānau have to determine whether they’re in the movement for self-advancement or not. If they are, well then, go and advance yourself, but don’t do it at the expense of a movement. They’ll work their way through that.”
The fracture within the party is of interest to Labour, which on current polling would require the numbers from Te Pāti Māori to form a Government. Its senior MP, Willie Jackson, told the Herald on Wednesday that he believed a split was “inevitable” if the issues weren’t addressed soon.
“[Mariameno Kapa-Kingi has] been a good MP. We don’t get any joy in watching them killing each other off,” he said.
“From a purely kaupapa sense, I’d like to see them fix it. But if they don’t get together soon, you’d just about think it was all over in terms of a future for her and Te Pāti Māori, which I find sad.”
Jamie Ensor is a senior political reporter in the NZ Herald press gallery team based at Parliament. He was previously a TV reporter and digital producer in the Newshub press gallery office. He was a finalist this year for Political Journalist of the Year at the Voyager Media Awards.