2025 has flown by so fast, but so much has happened this year!
There were a few stories this year that seem to have received a lot of notice from you, the audience. As a small gift from Te Ao Māori News, we have compiled our top ten stories of the year you kept coming back to.
All the kaupapa in this list range from the good, the bad, the ugly, and the sad.
Air New Zealand mentors local Māori and Pacific-owned businesses
At the end of May, an Auckland couple, Karalee Tangiau (Ngāti Whātua ki Kaipara) and Quincy Tangiau (Rarotonga, Niue, Papua New Guinea), business, Stronghold Group, was selected to take part in Air New Zealand’s 12-week Ka Rere mentoring programme, that aimed to help Māori and Pacific owned businesses and other diverse suppliers become supplier-ready for future opportunities with the national carrier.
“Honestly, it’s really humbling and exciting to be part of Ka Rere, especially recognising that Air New Zealand is an iconic Kiwi company,” says Karalee.
“But it really reinforces for us that this is a space that we belong.”
Navy sailor rejects online claims he needed approval for mataora
After going viral on social media this year over his mataora, something he recieved in 2017, Chief Petty Officer Rawiri Barriball pushed back at online reports that he needed Navy approval.
“I think it was a mixture of words. The one that got me was the approval to receive the gift of moko kanohi. It wasn’t so much an approval; it was a process that myself and the Navy had to go through,” he told Te Ao Māori News.
Barriball says he was caught off guard by the story trending online.
“It’s been a lot of stuff on Facebook and Instagram. I’m getting tagged every day, and it’s just blown up again. It’s old news, it was done in 2017, and it’s come back again.”
Te Ao Māori News had not seen a reputable outlet publish new reporting on the matter since 2021.
Mayhem erupts at Kaipara emergency meeting
While votes were still being counted across the country for the local elections, Outgoing Kaipara Mayor Craig Jepson called an emergency meeting a few days before the results were to be declared.
The hui was to approve a complaint and request an investigation into the 2025 Kaipara District Council election and Northland Māori constituency referendum.
The meeting was suspended after a member of the public stood up to stand closer to the councillors, with Jepson standing up and yelling at the person to sit down. When the person refused, the mayor cut the meeting short and called for it to be continued at 9 am the following morning.
Peter Linnell, the man behind the meeting being adjourned, told Te Ao Māori News it was his first time ever protesting, with him calling the emergency meeting a “travesty of democracy”.
Final results of Te Matatini o Te Kāhui Maunga
After a week full of amazing performance of 55 rōpū in Taranaki for the biennial Te Matatini compeition.
Te Kapa Haka o Ngāti Whakaue took home the Ngāpō Pimia Wehi Duncan Mcintyre trophy and the championship title of Te Matatini 2025.
The group dedicated their bracket to the late Sir Robert Gillies, the last surviving member of the Māori Battalion, who passed away in November 2024, delivering an emotional performance.
Te Kuru Marutea won the People’s Choice after their waiata 'Kei Wareware I A Tātou' went viral around the world.
Read the full list of awards and winners here.
Dame Tariana Turia’s whānau revives ancient tangihanga practice
In early January, Dame Tariana Turia passed away. At her tangihanga, her whānu revived an ancient practice.
The practice, which is based on tikanga Māori, uses a waka or transporter made of natural wood, rather than a coffin. The body is also wrapped in a kōpaki (mat), which is made from harakeke.
After discussions with the whānau, kairaranga began the process by weaving three papa whāriki (mats) that formed the base of the kahu whakatere.
The tane created the amo out of mānuka, bound with taura to form the tūāpapa (foundation) on which the papa whāriki sit.
Te Pāti Māori doesn’t attend Ngāpuhi hui
After a month and a bit of drama from Te Pāti Māori, which saw the expulsion of MPs Mariameno Kapa-Kingi and Tākuta Ferris, decided not to decline an invitation from Te Rūnanga ā Iwi o Ngāpuhi to attend a hui in Kaikohe.
In a letter sent on Thursday to Ngāpuhi chair, Mane Tahere, it said the party had been “advised by multiple rangatira of Te Tai Tokerau not to attend at this time” and that attendance “may be seen as interfering” with internal legal matters still before the party.
The legal matters referred to action taken by Mariameno Kapa-Kingi, which later saw her return to the party after an interim High Court ruling in December.
Well-known Māori figure pleads guilty to driving offences
A well-known Māori figure pleaded guilty to one charge of driving offence in the Tauranga District Court in May this year.
At the time, he was under an interim name suppression for another court case with charges of domestic violence. The suppression has since been lifted.
Marokopa children found ‘well and uninjured’ after over three years missing
Years after being off the grid, the children of Tom Phillips were found after an altercation with police in the early morning of 8 September, which saw the father being killed in front of one of the children.
Police would later find the other children two kilometres away from the crime scene at one of the many campsites they had set up over the years.
“I can confirm that the children are well and uninjured, and they will be taken to a location this evening for medical checks,” said Acting Deputy Commissioner Jill Rogers.
Māori Wards get the boot in most councils
Local elections in 2025 saw 42 councils give voters the question, to keep their Māori Wards or to remove them from the 2028 elections.
Preliminary results showed 25 out of 42 councils had to remove them for the 2028 elections, but this number changed when the official results came out, and one council was able to keep its ward.
Read the full list of which wards survived, and which didn’t, here.
Pro MMA fighter Te Hakaraia o Te Rangi Wilson has died
The new year started on a sad note, with Pro MMA fighter, Te Hakaraia o Te Rangi Wilson, passing away on 1 January in Gisborne after attending the Rhythm n Vines festival.
He devoted most of his life to martial arts, mainly Jiu-Jitsu and,, in the last few years, MMA. Recently, Wilson was based in the U.S under Bellator MMA.
Wilson’s last recorded fight was back in October at the Canggu Fight Night in Bali, where he came up against Mark Alcoba, beating him by TKO.
Friends and whānau have taken to social media to express their sadness as they begin to process the news of his sudden death.
These stories were measured from 1 January 2025 to 31 November 2025.
