On Friday evening, an email was sent to members highlighting the High Court ruling temporarily re-instating Mariameno Kapa-Kingi as a party member and stating how it would impact the AGM.<\/p>\n
The email said, to uphold the court ruling, the AGM would be limited to receiving reports from the leadership and electorates. It said no other matters would be addressed or resolved, including any resolutions or motions outside of the reports.<\/p>\n
The closed-door AGM comes after months of turmoil that led to the expulsion of two of their six MPs \u2013 T\u0101kuta Ferris and Kapa-Kingi \u2013 the latter of whom attended, following the court ruling.<\/p>\n
During the p\u014dwhiri, many speakers addressed the issue of disunity within the party and spoke of the need to stop biting each other\u2019s backs \u2013 \u201cngau tuara\u201d.<\/p>\n
Simmonds said he stood up to speak because of the depth of his sadness and frustration, as well as the depth of support the late M\u0101ori king had for Te P\u0101ti M\u0101ori.<\/p>\n
In te reo M\u0101ori, he spoke of the pain the membership felt, with te ao M\u0101ori more widely, at the turmoil that had taken place this year.<\/p>\n
He spoke of K\u012bngi T\u016bheitia\u2019s call for kotahitanga (unity) in 2024 and the way meetings were then held around the country, and the call was picked up by Te Arikinui Nga wai hono i te po.<\/p>\n
Simmonds said he travelled to Parliament recently and spoke to the six MPs, and the party president and found the party wasn\u2019t of one mind.<\/p>\n
He asked who should unite the party now.<\/p>\n
Simmonds referenced the saying that Parliament was the house of lions \u2013 \u201cko taua whare te whare o ng\u0101 raiona\u201d \u2013 but said, if they were being honest with themselves, the question was who the lion was that had \u201cngau\u201d (bit or attacked) Mariameno Kapa-Kingi, T\u0101kuta Ferris and Oriini Kaipara.<\/p>\n
He said the truth was the party was attacking them, but as he made the comments, he acknowledged he was staunchly still in support of Te P\u0101ti M\u0101ori.<\/p>\n
Simmonds said everyone was responsible for what had taken place \u2013 there was no single person at fault.<\/p>\n
He challenged party president John Tamihere, and the party co-leaders Rawiri Waititi and Debbie Ngarewa-Packer, asking if they were the right people to unite the party and the people.<\/p>\n
Simmonds said he had huge belief and support in the co-leaders, but the people were hurting and the party was hurting too.<\/p>\n
He questioned who determined there were now only four Te P\u0101ti M\u0101ori MPs and challenged the news that T\u0101maki Makaurau had supported the decision.<\/p>\n
Simmonds, who has been supporting the newest Te P\u0101ti M\u0101ori MP, said she never agreed to expel party members, despite her T\u0101maki Makaurau electorate voting in favour of the motion.<\/p>\n
His final comments addressed how the p\u014dtiki (the youngest) had been the leader through all this and acknowledged Hana-Rawhitit Maipi Clarke.<\/p>\n
Te P\u0101ti M\u0101ori members attend a p\u014dwhiri at Waiatuhi marae. Photo \/ RNZ, Liliian Hanly<\/p>\n
He said many people had voted for Te P\u0101ti M\u0101ori and the support was available to them, but they felt the supporters weren\u2019t being heard.<\/p>\n
There was one pathway forward. He called for the party to hold meetings around the country and hear from its constituents.<\/p>\n
He finished by echoing Kiingi Tuheitia\u2019s final declarations around kotahitanga and mana motuhake.<\/p>\n
Kaipara then rose to start his waiata tauotoko, Purea Nei, where Kapa-Kingi stood too, along with Naida Glavish, Selwyn Parata, Potaka Maipi (Maipi-Clarke\u2019s father) and John Tamihere.<\/p>\n
Waititi responds<\/p>\n
Co-leader Rawiri Waititi was the final speaker and he began by acknowledging Te Arawa for hosting the event.<\/p>\n
He then referenced the AGM during 2024, where only 20 people arrived, but this year, now there were issues, everyone came along, he said.<\/p>\n
He said he heard the comments that had been made during the p\u014dwhiri. He asked how they might all soften their hearts.<\/p>\n
He agreed with Simmonds, acknowledging that it wasn\u2019t only six MPs paddling the waka \u2013 everyone must help by picking up a paddle.<\/p>\n
He acknowledged the pain te ao M\u0101ori were feeling, particularly in terms of the cost of living or homelessness, and yet here the members were biting at each other \u2013 \u201ce ngaungau nei i a tatou\u201d.<\/p>\n
He said the focus must be turned to the correct enemy, which wasn\u2019t each other, but the government.<\/p>\n
He called for people to stop taking their gripes to social media and was frustrated that people wrote on Facebook, but didn\u2019t speak to them face-to-face.<\/p>\n
This meeting was called for the people, not for the six MPs to debate each other. It was for the people to decide, he said.<\/p>\n
The load was heavy for the six MPs at Parliament, then they returned to their people, and they were attacked by M\u0101ori and P\u0101keh\u0101 alike.<\/p>\n
He said it was a \u201cdouble whammy\u201d \u2013 the Government was attacking the party and M\u0101ori were attacking the party.<\/p>\n
His comments weren\u2019t to disparage or criticise M\u0101ori, but to awaken them.<\/p>\n
The media and the courts weren\u2019t going to resolve this \u2013 they had to resolve it themselves, he said.<\/p>\n
He called for supporters to be strong and to look ahead to the future through working together. He concluded by acknowledging those who had passed in the various electorates.<\/p>\n
Party leadership was expected to address the media at the end of the AGM.<\/p>\n
\u2013 RNZ<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"On Friday evening, an email was sent to members highlighting the High Court ruling temporarily re-instating Mariameno Kapa-Kingi…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":171792,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[111005,9084,40627,1043,40626,2720,111,43,139,111006,69,4762,46800,38630,47500,8690],"class_list":["post-171791","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-new-zealand","tag-agm","tag-challenges","tag-hanly","tag-leadership","tag-lillian","tag-mori","tag-new-zealand","tag-news","tag-newzealand","tag-ngira","tag-nz","tag-party","tag-pti","tag-rift","tag-simmonds","tag-te"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/171791","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=171791"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/171791\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/171792"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=171791"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=171791"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=171791"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}