Toitū te Tiriti’s Eru Kapa-Kingi has broken his silence on social media, responding to allegations made by Te Pāti Māori in a late-night email send to its members last Monday.
The email accused both Mr Kapa-Kingi and his mother, Te Pāti Māori MP for Te Tai Tokerau, Mariameno Kapa-Kingi, of misconduct.
“I address these allegations so these raruraru can be put behind us, so we can focus on providing our mokopuna with the honest, kaupapa-driven leadership they deserve, to ensure we are not only talking about mokopuna decisions, but actually making them,” he wrote.
Security issue
One of the most serious allegations was around the activist unleashing a “tirade of abuse” at Parliamentary security last year, where he allegedly unleashed a “combination of... abuse, language and racism” toward security and used terms such as: “f***ing white baldhead c***” and “I will f***ing knock you out”.
In the post, he claims his sister and he were “racially profiled”, with security allegedly treating their valid access cards as fake.
“I became increasingly frustrated at the racial profiling, heated words were exchanged, but there was no physical altercation.
“I recognise my actions were not a good example, particularly for young people who look up to me.”
He said there was an internal process managed by an independent team, with no findings made against Mr Kapa-Kingi.
Overspending allegation
In the same email, Te Pāti Māori also claimed Mariameno had overspent her Te Tai Tokerau budget by $133,000. It also said Eru Kapa-Kingi was an employee under her, receiving $120,000 per annum.
The email stated, “A further allegation has surfaced that most of this money, or rather the debt, occurred because Mariameno was paying Eru Kapa-Kingi. We will leave it to Mariameno to front that allegation and declare how much has been paid out to Eru.”
Eru Kapa-Kingi rejected the claims of receiving “handouts from the Tai Tokerau budget.”
He said he worked part-time as an advisor, being paid pro rata, never receiving any large sums of money from any Parliamentary budget.
“Anyone familiar with Parliamentary Services knows that simply isn’t possible.
“No flags were raised internally with my employment, and financial matters are dealt with in the party, which means that details of my employment were provided by a Te Pāti Māori staff member to external sources, likely under the instruction of party leadership, in an attempt to discredit me. These are the lengths our current leaders are willing to go to avoid accountability and protect their own power.” The statement said.
The party also claimed Mr Kapa-Kingi’s contract was terminated for “serious misconduct,” and that he later returned under a different company name.
In response, Mr Kapa-Kingi said he resigned in September 2024 to spend more time with his newborn son and has since provided services occasionally through a consulting agency he runs with his brothers, adding that Te Pāti Māori were aware of the arrangement.
Te Pāti Māori is doing this in “retaliation”
The Toitū te Tiriti leader and former Te Pāti Māori vice-presdient tāne, describes the email sent by Te Pāti Māori a “direct relation against me for speaking out against leadership” stating they have now publicly demonstrated “to be toxic.”
He called the leaked email “embarrassing” for the party to have made public.
“This unprofessional behaviour, unfortunately, demonstrates the dictatorship style leadership that I initially spoke out about.”
At the beginning of October, Eru spoke with Te Ao Māori News, recharacterising Toitū te Tiriti as politically unambigous and not being tied to just one political party, which sent a clear message at the time of distancing the movement from Te Pāti Māori.
As the former vice-president tāne for Te Pāti Māori, he spoke of the leadership as creating a bullying and toxic environment, describing the leadership as operating in “a dictatorship model.”
Te Pāti Māori have told Te Ao Māori News, it will not be responding at this stage.
