Documents released by Te Pāti Māori accuse a high-profile activist and son of one its MPs of making “threats of physical violence” and “inappropriate and vulgar” remarks to parliamentary staffers.
Some of the comments Eru Kapa-Kingi is alleged to have made include: “You aren’t s***”, “Get f***ed” and “I will f***ing knock you out”.
Eru Kapa-Kingi, the son of Te Pāti Māori MP Mariameno Kapa-Kingi, has not responded to multiple requests to comment about the allegations against him but posted on social media this afternoon:
“I joined Te Pāti Māori as a young, passionate man, with the belief I could help create a better world for our people. Instead, I learnt a long and hard lesson – power can truly corrupt people you once looked up to.
“Regardless of the noise, my whānau have and always will be, on the ground, kaupapa people.
“Those who know us know there is no question of integrity, and we will continue to be side by side with our people. Kia hikoi tonu tātou, āke āke āke.”
The allegations were contained in a series of documents Te Pāti Māori emailed its members about 10pm Monday in what the party claims is a response to calls for transparency after it faced accusations of a dictatorial leadership style by Eru Kapa-Kingi. (In separate documents sent by Te Pāti Māori to members, officials raised concerns that Mariameno Kapa-Kingi was in danger of overspending her office’s budget by up to $133,000).
Eru Kapa-Kingi, as spokesman for the Toitū te Tiriti movement, was a central figure at Parliament for a May 2024 protest sparked by the Government policies relating to Te Tiriti o Waitangi, co-governance and the repeal of smokefree legislation.
One of the documents included in last night’s email from Te Pāti Māori to members was titled “Te Pāti Māori fact sheet – Eru Kapa-Kingi allegations” and details the creation of Toitū te Tiriti, how Eru Kapa-Kingi was established as spokesman and took on the role of party vice-president before resigning on March 25, citing in a resignation letter attached to the email he wanted to “focus on my own little whānau” and “protect the mana and tapu of the Toitū movement”.
The “fact sheet” referenced Eru Kapa-Kingi’s public claims “alleging Te Pāti Māori was led by a dictatorship, bullying and toxic”.
The document mentions Eru Kapa-Kingi’s contract with Parliamentary Service as a party staffer, which Te Pāti Māori alleged was “terminated for serious misconduct” before he returned working under a company, Tautoru Ltd, which the party claimed was a “way of circumventing Parliamentary Services termination”.
The document refers to a written account from a Parliamentary Service staffer about an alleged incident on “Budget day”, understood to be May 30, 2024, when Budget 24 was released.
Eru Kapa-Kingi, the Parliamentary staffer’s written account alleges, was abusive and made “threats of physical violence”.
The identity of the person who wrote the account is redacted in the Te Pāti Māori email to members.
The Parliamentary staffer alleged Eru Kapa-Kingi used include vulgar language and made references to race. Some of the alleged comments include: “You aren’t s***”, “Get f***ed” and “I will f***ing knock you out”.
“The language he used had a very aggressive tone and came across with a lot of hatred and intimidation,” the Parliamentary Service staff member alleged in their account.
“With the combination of the abuse, language and racism displayed by Eru, I firmly believed that he was going to go through with his threats of physical violence towards either myself or [redacted].”
The staffer also claimed Eru Kapa-Kingi said to security staff, “Do you know who I am?”, “Do you know who my family is?”, and “You are going to be so embarrassed and f***ed when you find out”.
“Words such as this I believe were used to try and intimidate [redacted] and myself, hoping that we would back down from the situation, let him get away with what he had done and not take things further,” the Parliamentary staffer said in the document released by Te Pāti Māori.
The staffer called for Eru Kapa-Kingi to be “dismissed from his current employment” and is “denied the ability to reapply for a ‘family’ access card”.
The staffer also referred to an alleged instance when Eru Kapa-Kingi “tailgated” through Parliament security gates and refused to show his Parliament ID.
In a statement, Acting Parliamentary Service chief executive Amy Brier declined to comment on the allegations as they were “individual employment matters” and “internal party correspondence”.
Mariameno Kapa-Kingi, who is Eru’s former manager from when her son had worked for the party at Parliament, told the Herald last night there had been an incident but it “went through the usual processes through Parly [Parliament] Services and, yeah, there was a process that was run and ... I’ll leave that there”.
Speaking last night, Te Pāti Māori co-leader Debbie Ngarewa-Packer claimed she first learned about the allegations on Friday last week, something Mariameno Kapa-Kingi laughed at when it was relayed by the Herald.
“As a leader, I would expect that she would know,” she said of Ngarewa-Packer. It’s unclear whether Mariameno Kapa-Kingi told the party about the incident.
Ngarewa-Packer was adamant informing the membership of the allegations yesterday was not done to discredit Eru Kapa-Kingi, a former party vice-president, in light of his public criticisms about the leadership.
“I’ve got a young son and I guarantee you that is not something either of us [other co-leader Rawiri Waititi] would have gone out to do.
“This isn’t about crucifying anybody, these are the facts that our team have been able to get out.
“I have a lot of aroha for Eru and I don’t like how this has transpired but I also have a lot of aroha and commitment to the party.”
Party president John Tamihere has been contacted for comment.
Asked whether she knew the claims contained in the documents to be true, Ngarewa-Packer said: “I’ve got no reason to doubt that the information that’s written is incorrect.”
She wasn’t able to say whether the party had discussed the allegations, or the decision to send them to party members, with Eru Kapa-Kingi.
The party’s national council decided on Sunday to release the raft of documents after a discussion with electorate leaders across the country.
Ngarewa-Packer, who was on the call alongside the party’s other MPs, said members had “demanded transparency”.
It followed the party’s “reset” last week in which it was acknowledged the party needed to communicate more openly.
Ngarewa-Packer lamented how the matter would be played out publicly through the media, speaking of being “crucified by the media … without a right of reply” over Eru Kapa-Kingi’s claims.
Adam Pearse is the Deputy Political Editor and part of the NZ Herald’s Press Gallery team based at Parliament in Wellington. He has worked for NZME since 2018, reporting for the Northern Advocate in Whangārei and the Herald in Auckland.