Parliament’s newest MP, Oriini Kaipara, is feeling “very relieved” following her maiden speech, saying she is enjoying “taking everything in moment by moment, step by step”.
Kaipara, a former broadcaster who won the recent Tāmaki Makaurau by-election, told the Herald she was entering the halls of power with an “open mind and an open heart”, intending to pick up where the late Takutai Moana Tarsh Kemp left off.
Her first day also saw her party, Te Pāti Māori, unveil what it referred to as a “reset”. Party co-leaders Debbie Ngarewa-Packer and Rawiri Waititi said New Zealanders had been calling for clarity from the party about the way forward to the 2026 election.
But it also comes following several difficult weeks for the party, including the aftermath of Tākuta Ferris’s arguing non-Māori campaigning for Labour in the by-election was inappropriate, Mariameno Kapa-Kingi’s sudden demotion as the whip, and a high-profile member of activist group Toitū Te Tiriti making criticisms of party leadership.
Kaipara said she had only felt “looked after by the party” but acknowledged “every family has its ups and downs” and “we have our dramas”.
However, she said some of what was being reported “isn’t entirely true”. Asked to elaborate on what specific parts aren’t, she said, “I won’t go into specifics”.
The new MP also wouldn’t say explicitly if she agreed with Ferris.
“That’s a lot of the problem is the tit for tatting and asking about that. How about ask about what’s really happening on the ground out in our electorates?”
When pushed on whether she thought people of other ethnicities should be able to campaign in Māori seats, Kaipara said one of the key messages of her maiden speech was that “we must respect and honour everybody despite the colour of their skin and despite what language they speak”.
“We are all humans at the end of the day,” she said.
Kaipara’s speech ran over time – she told the Herald she was “learning how to trim it back, typical of a former broadcaster” – and ended with a planned waiata.
However, when a haka broke out in the public gallery, Speaker Gerry Brownlee asked for it to stop. Kaipara and Te Pāti Māori MP Hana-Rawhiti Maipi-Clarke joined in at times on the floor of the House.
Brownlee briefly suspended the House and later said he would investigate whether the behaviour in the gallery “was by agreement with any party in this House”.
Kaipara wouldn’t say if she had known about the haka.
One of the key themes of Kaipara’s speech was “resilience”, including the “resilience” of Māori through “generations of struggle and survival”.
“We’ve been fighting for a very long time for te reo to survive and thrive.”
She spent time speaking about the steps to revitalise te reo, saying that in 1975, just 5% of “all Māori school children could speak and even understand their own mother tongue”.
“We created more than a movement; we built community. Community is what established the kura kaupapa Māori movement which is here in this House right now.”
She told the Herald later that she was feeling “very relieved”.
“I really, really, really am enjoying taking everything in moment by moment, step by step,” Kaipara said.
“It’s probably foreign to hear someone come in and say, ‘Oh, I’m loving every moment of being in Parliament’. That’s crazy in itself. I think it’s how we come into this space.
“For me and my whanau, we’re always of the mindset that, go in with an open mind and an open heart, and whatever happens at the end of the day, make sure you stay true to yourself and just call if you ever need anything.”
The MP felt she had been received well by other MPs and “didn’t feel any sort of ill will towards me”.
“Might change tomorrow, but right now I will celebrate and celebrate what just happened today, a moment in history.”
Kaipara expressed interest in broadcasting as a topic to follow as an MP, but also said she wanted to pick up where Kemp had left off. Kemp had held the Tāmaki Makaurau election before her death earlier this year.
“That is really honing in on solutions for rangatahi, that’s youth, not just in Tāmaki Makaurau but right across the motu, right across the country.”
There’s also sport - “I still don’t sport, but I support sport” – after Kaipara worked recently at the NZ Olympic Committee.
“It’s not about what you do right. It’s about how you can manifest and actually do good mahi for those who are on the frontlines, and that’s my job, to support those who are actually passionate, but who are in the trenches, not just sports, but broadcasting, finding real viable solutions for them.”
On Te Pāti Māori’s recent difficulties, Kaipara said she had “only been looked after by the party, by the caucus itself and by their own electorates”.
“There’s six very strong electorates represented by Te Pāti Māori, each with their own mana, each with their own mana motuhake, and what I have experienced in the last few weeks and for the last three months is nothing but positivity.”
But, she said, “Every family has its ups and downs”.
“We have our dramas, but at the end of the day, the way I really, really am proud of Te Pāti Māori is how we deal with it, and we have been intent on dealing with our internal problems.”
There is a lot of pressure in Parliament, she said, and “it’s a lot to take on”.
“We haven’t really, as a party, what I’ve observed, is actually had genuine real-time together to actually discuss what’s happening on a day-to-day, on an hourly basis. What you see, and what is being reported, isn’t entirely true. It’s not.”
She said she wouldn’t go into specifics, deferring to her leaders.
On Ferris’s controversial comments – which he hasn’t resiled from but which party leadership initially apologised for – Kaipara said she wouldn’t get into it.
The remarks referred to Labour campaigners volunteering in her by-election, but Kaipara said “it was all of Tāmaki Makaurau’s by-election”.
“It wasn’t Oriini Kaipara’s by-election,” she said before then listing off some of its candidates, like Labour’s Peeni Henare.
“This isn’t about Oriini. This isn’t about Peeni. This isn’t about Takuta, or Rawiri, or Debbie. This is about the Māori people within Tāmaki Makaurau and actually Māori people in every electorate that need strong leadership as well as strong voices here to fight for them.”
Asked if generally she was fine with people of other ethnicities campaigning in a Māori seat, Kaipara responded: “I’m not too sure if you understood what I said inside that House today.”
“It leans towards who I am, and I’m a 41-year-old mother, grandmother, and daughter of Kura kaupapa Māori, and I explained quite clearly in there that in Kura kaupapa Māori aho matua we are taught six main principles which all relate to [how] we must respect and honour everybody despite the colour of their skin and despite what language they speak.”
She said that “doesn’t answer directly your question, but it tells you who I am” before ending the interview.
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.