09-07-2025
Te Pāti Māori meeting tonight to decide candidate for upcoming Tāmaki Makarau by-election
A by-election for the Tāmaki Makarau seat has been sparked by the death of Te Pāti Māori MP Takutai Moana Natasha Kemp two weeks ago.
Photo:
Supplied/ Te Pāti Māori
Te Pāti Māori will meet on Thursday night to decide who will run in the upcoming Tāmaki Makarau by-election.
The selection hui will take place at Hoani Waititi Marae at 6pm for Tāmaki electorate members only, with the successful candidate announced on Friday.
The hui is not open to the public.
The by-election was sparked by the death of Te Pāti Māori MP Takutai Moana Natasha Kemp two weeks ago.
Former broadcaster Oriini Kaipara
announced on social media this week she would seek the party's nomination for the seat.
Another putting their name forward is
youth worker Te Kou o Rehua Panapa
, whose candidacy was announced on the Opaea Marae Facebook page, the marae where Kemp was laid to rest.
"In dedication to our beloved Mareikura, Takutai Moana Natasha Kemp, and with the full support of her whānau, we are proud to offer our support to Te Kou o Rehua Panapa, who will be standing as a candidate for Member of Parliament in Tāmaki Makaurau,"
the post
read.
"A dedicated kaimahi to our Mareikura, Te Kou has worked alongside her for many years, serving the people of Tāmaki with unwavering commitment and aroha. Te Kou will carry her legacy forward, committing his kaupapa to continuing and completing the important mahi she began."
In a video to posted to Instagram, Toitū te Tiriti kaikōrero Eru Kapa-Kingi ruled out running for the seat after receiving messages from people encouraging him to do so.
"Just to make it absolutely clear to everyone, I will not be running for the Tāmaki seat in the upcoming by-election," Kapa-Kingi said.
"Still not for me, still my focus at the moment is my whānau and the wellbeing of my baby boy and being a present pāpā and showing up and building my 'hāwaikī itī' i roto i taku whare, i waenga i taku whānau."
He was "still on the kaupapa" just in "different" ways, he said.
Kapa-Kingi was number nine on the party list for the 2023 general election, and number 10 in 2020. He was once a parliamentary staffer for Te Pāti Māori and is a teaching fellow at the University of Auckland's Faculty of Law.
His mother, Mariameno Kapa-Kingi is currently MP for Te Tai Tokerau.
A potential candidate could be the party's lawyer, Tania Waikato, who told RNZ's
Mata
programme she was
talking to "more than one" political party
about running for Parliament in 2026.
Tania Waikato speaking to RNZ's Mata programme.
Photo:
MATA / RNZ
The Tauranga-based lawyer said she had previously been hesitant about running, but seeing the "disgusting" debate around the suspension of three Te Pāti Māori members prompted her to put her hat in the ring.
"I'm going to probably be the most difficult to understand and difficult to predict politician that you have ever seen, because I do things in accordance with what my tīpuna tell me. And I will never align myself to any particular organisation or any particular kaupapa if my tīpuna are not saying to me, 'That is tika'.
"That is what I will always do regardless of where I am, so it makes me difficult in some ways because I have a higher power to answer to. And I will not compromise that," Waikato said.
Labour's
Peeni Henare previously held the seat
, before being beaten by Kemp in the 2023 election by a slim margin of 42 votes.
Henare had held the seat since 2014, beating out the then-Māori Party's Rangi McLean.
RNZ understands Labour's internal nomination process is underway and will close on Friday.
The Prime Minister is yet to announce the date for a by-election.
However, the Speaker of the House published the notice of vacancy in the Gazette on Wednesday, meaning the Governor-General will issue a writ within 21 days of 9 July, instructing the Chief Electoral Officer to conduct the by-election.
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