Serial political heckler Karl Mokaraka has been booted from a byelection debate after interrupting candidates to protest the omission of Hannah Tamaki.
Tamaki is running as Vision NZ’s candidate for the Tāmaki Makaurau electorate seat with four others, two of whom – Labour’s Peeni Henare and Te Pāti Māori’s Oriini Kaipara – were invited to the Waatea News-organised debate at Ngā Whare Waatea Marae in Māngere last night.
In footage shared online, Mokaraka – a former Vision NZ candidate – can be seen standing in front of Henare and Kaipara with a sign showing Tamaki’s face, and asking why the wife of Destiny Church leader Brian Tamaki wasn’t invited to debate.
As well as not being invited to the debate, Ngā Whare Waatea Marae’s committee – led by Labour MP Willie Jackson – has also banned Tamaki from the marae, although Jackson said he didn’t personally agree with the decision.
“We are supposed to be all Māori, we are supposed to be all encompassing,” Mokaraka said last night, as he was jostled out by security against his will.
Several in the audience themselves heckled the veteran disrupter, one describing him as a “pest”.
“Not welcome, bro,” another said.
Mokaraka has disrupted candidate events across the political spectrum, including when he popped up from behind a fence as future Prime Minister Christopher Luxon and MP Simeon Brown spoke to reporters during the 2023 general election campaign.
“Will the real Mr Chris Luxon please stand up,” Mokaraka said, prompting Luxon to reply, “You’re no Slim Shady, buddy.”
Mokaraka also led Vision NZ supporters in disrupting a Labour campaign event at Ōtara markets, and he was kicked out of the Act Party campaign launch after heckling leader David Seymour.
Last year, Mokaraka was led out of Parliament’s public gallery after shouting at Luxon as the Prime Minister apologised to survivors of state care.
Waatea News general manager Matthew Tukaki described Mokaraka and other Vision NZ supporters at last night’s debate as “thugs and hooligans” who breached tikanga despite being told the rules.
“[It was at the] front of the marae on the ātea, which is considered as wāhi tapu, where they decided to pull out their phones and act as if all of a sudden they were the victims ... no. This behaviour is symptomatic of thuggery and hooliganism.”
He blamed Tamaki, who wasn’t invited to debate because organisers wanted voters to hear from the two front-runners on “the things they could achieve”, Tukaki said.
“There was no way on God’s green Earth that Hannah Tamaki was going to be a close candidate in this byelection … [and] she can’t separate herself from what she did in sending her thugs and her hooligans into the marae against tikanga.
“What might be appropriate for her and her husband’s church is not appropriate for the marae.”
A Vision NZ spokeswoman said on behalf of Tamaki and Mokaraka that it was Mokaraka’s decision to attend.
He’d since laid a complaint with police about his treatment, she said.
“He was not asked to leave but manhandled out of the marae, which the video evidence shows.”
In a statement, Vision NZ said it was “calling for accountability following the continued exclusion of party leader Hannah Tamaki from key political debates and media platforms”.
The “front-runners only” justification was an excuse to deliberately exclude Tamaki and deny voters a chance to hear her policies, the party said.
Vision NZ also rejected accusations that its supporters breached tikanga.
“Why [are] publicly funded organisations such as Waatea News ... permitted to use taxpayer money in ways that do not serve the public interest, but instead reflect the choices of a small group of elite Māori voices?”
In a Facebook live video after being kicked out, Mokaraka said with 238,000 people in the Tāmaki Makaurau electorate, it was important to have “all cards on the table”.
He praised Tamaki’s decades of “help[ing] families like mine, and many families come through drugs, and come out of gang life”.
Jackson said Tamaki had done some excellent work in the community, but her church had – particularly in the past year – “upset many in our community”.
As marae chairman, he could’ve overruled his committee over Tamaki’s site ban but he wanted to respect their decision, and that of the debate organisers, Jackson said.
“If I had my choice, I would have had her part of the debate, but it’s not just about me, you know?”
As for Mokaraka, he and other Vision NZ supporters were warned before the debate “that type of behaviour or interruptions would not be tolerated”.
“I spoke to Karl outside [after]. I said, ‘You don’t come to my marae and act like that. This is not an Act or National Party conference.’“
Cherie Howie is an Auckland-based reporter who joined the Herald in 2011. She has been a journalist for more than 20 years and specialises in general news and features.