A tearful Meka Whaitiri has confirmed this morning she resigned from the Labour Party and has now joined Te Pāti Māori: “Effective immediately”.
She intends to be seated with Te Pāti Māori when they are next in Parliament. It is currently uncertain if her resignation means she is now out of Parliament until the election under waka jumping provisions in the Electoral Act.
“Māori political activism is part of being Māori,” a visibly emotional Whaitiri said this morning from her iwi Ngāti Kahungunu’s Waipatu marae in Hastings, which is in her Ikaroa-Rāwhiti electorate.
“It comes from our whakapapa, and we as Māori have a responsibility to it. Not others, we.
“Today, I’m acknowledging whakapapa. I’m acknowledging my responsibility to it and it’s calling me home.”
Whaitiri, until today a Labour Minister and MP since 2013, said crossing the floor was “not an easy one”.
“But it is the right one. I will be contesting the seat again in 2023 as the Māori Party candidate. I have spoken my truth, the decision is in your hands.”
Whaitiri said she was joining an “unapologetic Māori political movement to achieve what was promised to us 183 years ago”.
“A clear commitment to Māori voters across the country ... we hear you and we will serve you and we will never ever take your vote for granted.”
Whaitiri’s shock move was kept secret and Prime Minister Chris Hipkins only learned about after he touched down in London today.
And it is unclear if any of her Labour colleagues knew about her plans either, with those arriving to Parliament today saying they only learned about it in media reports and had not been able to reach Whaitiri either.
Te Pāti Māori co-leader Debbie Ngarewa-Packer compared Whaitiri’s shift to the pains of growing and birthing a child:
“It has bought huge sacrifices and intense, intense labour pains. Chris [Hipkins] is probably feeling some of that in the UK at the moment.”
Ngarewa-Packer said Whaitiri “returning to her whakapapa” was a “turning point for the party”.
“We are a movement that doesn’t accept incremental change. We must be revolutionary in our thinking, deliberately unconventional. So damn uncomfortable that you just want to run for the hills, because that’s what’s required for us.
“We must never ever settle for less be taken for granted compromise and continued to be shackled from being our true selves.
“Welcoming Meka back to her whakapapa to our movement, as Māori, it’s also an important part of growing the lifeline to our movement.”
Te Pati Māori president John Tamihere said it was a “magnificent day for Kahungunu, a magnificent day for Māori”.
“On behalf of the party, I would like to make a couple of formal announcements and then hand it over to Meka, because it is Meka’s day.”
He acknowledged Heather Te Au-Skipworth and her whānau, who after six years as candidate for Ikaroa-Rāwhiti was stepping aside for Whaitiri.
“It’s a big thing to put your ego to one side to offer your cousin.
“I want to point out the mana of Heather [Skipworth] in this whole process which has been: ‘I love you, I support you. I’m stepping aside for you’. I wish some of our men could think that way.”
He referenced Te Pāti Māori founder Tariana Turia defecting from Labour in 2004 after the foreshore and seabed debacle.
“She is coming back to her whakapapa.
“To make this distinction ... crossing the floor, crossing that bridge. This takes courage, enormous courage for her to do this. She’s walking away from a ministerial job, walking away from a sure thing.
“And she’s walking into an unknown, but she’s doing it for the mana of our people.
“She [Meka] is crossing the bridge to her own emancipation.”
Te Au-Skipworth said it was a hard decision to stand aside, but it was “for our people”.
“And look you’ve made the decision, so I know that decision was right. And I love you.
“When you’re given the key to unshackle your cousin, what do you do? You free her.”
In resigning from Labour, Whaitiri may have effectively resigned from Parliament under the waka-jumping provisions in the Electoral Act - a step which will require Parliament to vote on whether or not to have a byelection in the Ikaroa-Rawhiti electorate.
The Speaker is yet to confirm it, but the waka jumping provisions can be triggered by either an MP or a party leader in the Electoral Act. It states that their seat becomes vacant if the MP writes to the Speaker to notify him either that they have resigned from the parliamentary membership of the political party for which they were elected, or that they want to be recognised as either an independent or a member of another political party.
Whaitiri said she had written to the Speaker this morning to say she had resigned from the Labour Party and joined Te Pāti Māori, effective immediately.
If the wording of that letter meets the criteria of the legislation, she will have quit her own seat. That will mean Parliament will have to vote on whether to have a byelection - no byelection is necessary within six months of an election as long as 75 per cent of Parliament agrees.
Whaitiri’s announcement took place from 10am today from Waipatu marae in Hastings, which is part of her electorate Ikaroa-Rāwhiti. It will be live-streamed on this story.
Only Māori media Te Karere and Radio Kahungunu are physically present.
Whaitiri’s Labour MP Facebook page was live last night but this morning has been taken down ahead of the announcement.
Te Ao Māori News broke the story last night - also confirmed to the Herald - that Whaitiri would be crossing the floor to Te Pāti Māori, which the party officially confirmed this morning.
Hipkins was on a plane to London for King Charles’ coronation when news broke about Whaitiri’s plans to jump ship yesterday evening.
He told media he hadn’t had a conversation with Whaitiri since Labour’s last caucus meeting, which was three weeks ago, as Parliament is currently in recess.
“As I’ve indicated I haven’t had a conversation with Meka Whaitiri yet and I obviously want to do her the courtesy of hearing what she has to say if anything before I make a comment on it,” Hipkins said.
“I think that’s only fair, so I’ll reserve any further comment until I’ve had that conversation.”
Hipkins said no one from his or Sepuloni’s office has spoken to Whaitiri.
“On a regular basis, elections roll around, people make decisions about their own future, typically they would speak to their party leaders before making those announcements. I haven’t heard from her yet,” Hipkins said.
Acting Prime Minister Carmel Sepuloni has arrived at Parliament by car but did not stop to speak to reporters, driving straight into the carpark. She will be holding a press conference later today,
Senior cabinet minister Megan Woods told Newstalk ZB’s Mike Hosking she too was blindsided by the announcement.
“All I have heard is the comments that the Prime Minister made when he landed, obviously he was on a plane till relatively late last night. He’s left a message and asked her to get back to him.”
Woods said they had been on a three-week recess so she had not seen a lot of her colleagues.
She reiterated the Government’s commitment to recovery in Hawkes Bay and reassured the work was going to continue.
Woods said Whaitiri and Stuart Nash had been really important part of the recovery work in the region.
National Party leader Christopher Luxon told Newshub the Labour Government was “falling apart” and it was getting “very messy”.
“It’s a total mess,” he said.
“The person I feel sorry for is Chris Hipkins. He’s arriving in London and turning on his phone and getting out of airplane mode and discovering he’s lost a minister.
“We’ve gone from Gaurav Sharma and those dramas into Stuart Nash and other ministers not reading Cabinet manuals and now we’re with Meka Whaitiri in this situation.”
Whaitiri entered Parliament in 2013 by winning the Ikaroa-Rāwhiti byelection but was stripped of her ministerial responsibilities in 2018 over an altercation with her press secretary and allegations of bullying.
After the 2020 general election, Whaitiri was reappointed as a minister but overlooked for promotion this year when Hipkins became Prime Minister, watching from the sidelines as Willie Jackson, Kiri Allan, and Willow Jean Prime were shifted up the Labour rankings.
The public demotion in 2018 opened the door for Te Pāti Māori to start talks with Whaitiri and others and the Herald understands the Ikaroa-Rāwhiti MP was almost persuaded to switch for the 2020 general election.
It’s understood Whaitiri will replace Heather Skipworth as the Māori Party candidate for Ikaroa-Rāwhiti.
As a Labour candidate, Whaitiri won her seat handily in 2020 with 13,642 votes, with Skipworth second at 7597 and the Greens’ Elizabeth Kerekere on 2080.
Labour MPs arriving at Parliament today were only just learning the news.
Senior Minister Michael Wood said he had only seen media reports and would not comment.
Labour MP Aupito William Sio said he had not spoken to Whaitiri since learning the news but that “whatever she does is her decision”.
“I wouldn’t characterise it any other way than a decision that she’s made.”
Some had tried to contact her, Sio said he spoke to her on Monday.
He said it was clearly a personal decision.
“At the end of the day, it’s her decision. And you can’t do anything about personal decisions.
“I had no idea, but none of us had any idea other than what we saw on the news last night.”
If Whaitiri were to take Ikaroa-Rāwhiti would make Te Pāti Māori favourites in three Māori electorate seats.
Co-leader Rawiri Waititi is expected to reclaim Waiariki, which he won off in 2020 off Labour’s Tamati Coffey, who is retiring at the election.
Fellow co-leader Debbie Ngarewa-Packer is also tipped to win Te Tai Hauāuru, which she narrowly lost to Labour’s Adrian Rurawhe in 2020.
Rurawhe as Speaker of the House is going list-only for Labour at this year’s election. Labour MP Soraya Peke-Mason, who like Rurawhe is a member of the influential and generally Labour-aligned Rātana church, will stand there for the party.
Hawke’s Bay Māori have had a Labour MP for all but one three-year term since 1935, under the three electorate identities of Southern Māori (until 1996), Te Puku o Te Whenua (1996-1999) and Ikaroa Rawhiti (since 1999).
There have been just five MPs in the electorates in the 88 years, in Eruera Tirakatene (Labour 1935-1967), daughter Whetu Tirakatene-Sullivan (Labour 1967-1996), Rana Waitai (NZ First, 1996-1999), Parekura Horomia (Labour 1999-2013) and Meka Whaitiri (Labour 2013-2023).
Fire and Emergency was on standby for an early flight from Auckland to Napier today.