Bryce Edwards: political commentator on whether there is an internal divide in Te Pāti Māori

There's suggestions of a deep divide within Te Pāti Māori.

The Party's released documents to members alleging former vice president Eru Kapa-Kingi threatened parliamentary staff and made inappropriate remarks. 

He's the son of recently demoted Party Whip, MP Mariameno Kapa-Kingi. 

Papers also showed Parliamentary Services were concerned she risked overspending her office budget. 

Political commentator Bryce Edwards says there are obviously factions. 

"This is from the leadership against the MPs in question, so this is a bit of a meltdown."

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Now the Maori Party saga's blown up even more. Last night,
the party sent out a late night email accusing their
MP Muddy a Mental Kapa Kingi of being on track
to overspend her parliamentary budget by one hundred and thirty
thousand dollars. The email also alleged that her son Edu
Kapa Kingi, who's the founder of the toy Tu Te
Triti movement, verbally abused parliamentary security staff and was trespassed

(00:20):
from parliamentary grounds. Now neither of them have directly responded
to the allegations. Bryce Edwards is the director of the
Integrity Institute and with us. Now, Hey Bryce, hi, Heather,
this is weird, isn't it to have? I mean, you
have friendly fire in parties, but often it's through leaks
rather than just outright like this, isn't it?

Speaker 2 (00:38):
Oh? This just shows how deep and bitter those factions
are and the degree of feeling that you can have
an email like this sent out at ten pm on
a Monday night, which is a real payback. This is
from the leadership against the MPs in question. So yeah,

(00:58):
it's this is a bit of a meltdown.

Speaker 1 (01:01):
Are there rules Bryce about employing your own family, you know,
if you're using taxpayer money like she is.

Speaker 2 (01:08):
There should be I mean, they have some soft rules
about it. They're not hard rules that you're supposed to
only hire family members if you can't find someone better, basically,
which isn't much of a rule. So that's what's happened here.
And of course it's only come to light through a
leak that there were family members employed, and only after

(01:31):
there was this person was essentially fired because of these
alleged bad behavior, so yeah, it's pretty amazing. It's also
a case that, as far as understand, the employee was
also an officeholder in the party, which is also normally

(01:54):
not allowed. Parliamentary staff aren't allowed to be paid to
carry out party functions. They're there for parliamentary functions. They're
not supposed to be electioneering, and that's pretty much what
Eru Kipikuni was doing. So yeah, it's right.

Speaker 1 (02:12):
Okay, So then who should be investigating this?

Speaker 2 (02:15):
Well, I think Parliamentary Service will be carrying out some
sort of investigation, but of course they are run by
the MPs essentially, and so we probably need an outside
independent person coming in to clear all this up because
it does look like there's been a lot of misuse
of taxpaths funding and used for party purposes, and in

(02:40):
the past the Orders the General has taken a great
interest in this. So I think with about two thousand
and six the Orders of General came in and looked
at some of the ways that the politicians were using
taxpayer money to essentially electionnaire and that's what seems to
have happened here. Yeah, probably a good time for the
Orders of General to come back.

Speaker 1 (02:58):
In quite Thank you, it's good to talk to you
really appreciate it. This Bryce Edwards, who is the director
of the Integrity Institute.

Speaker 2 (03:05):
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