{"id":276858,"date":"2026-02-10T12:15:09","date_gmt":"2026-02-10T12:15:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/276858\/"},"modified":"2026-02-10T12:15:09","modified_gmt":"2026-02-10T12:15:09","slug":"far-north-mayor-moko-tepania-quashes-rumours-of-labour-mp-candidacy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/276858\/","title":{"rendered":"Far North Mayor Moko Tepania quashes rumours of Labour MP candidacy"},"content":{"rendered":"

\u201cWould the mayor do the community the courtesy of being open about his intentions for the upcoming election,\u201d Smolders said. <\/p>\n

In an email, Smolders said: \u201cResidents of the Far North would reasonably like to know whether Mayor T\u0101pania (sic) intends to run for Government in the upcoming election\u201d. <\/p>\n

Tepania has clarified he will not be standing for the Labour Party or any other political party in the upcoming general election. <\/p>\n

Neither would he be standing as an MP at the next general election in 2029. <\/p>\n

Tepania said at his Kaikohe 2025 second term inauguration in October<\/a> he wanted to pursue a Doctor of Education, further developing his work on the use of maramataka or the M\u0101ori lunar calendar in education at the end of the current council term. <\/p>\n

He would not respond to Smolders\u2019 Waitangi Week post or her latest comments as council code of conduct proceedings were underway. <\/p>\n

Smolders refused to say where she got the information from that led to her post. <\/p>\n

\"FarFar North District councillor Davina Smolders. Photo \/ Susan Botting<\/p>\n

Smolders said at the time she had put up the post after several individuals told her Tepania had secured the candidacy. <\/p>\n

\u201cI believed that to be public information,\u201d Smolders said. <\/p>\n

She would not say who the individuals were. <\/p>\n

\u201cI have apologised, and from my perspective, that is the end of the matter.\u201d <\/p>\n

Her post was up for just over a day. <\/p>\n

Smolders said she posted it on February 3 about 10pm. <\/p>\n

She removed the post on February 5 about 7am, as soon as she realised it was incorrect.<\/p>\n

\u25a0 LDR is local body journalism co-funded by RNZ and NZ On Air.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"\u201cWould the mayor do the community the courtesy of being open about his intentions for the upcoming election,\u201d…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":276859,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[155811,24004,2223,7558,63697,15559,5903,528,2294,6721,10934,43770,6368,111,43,139,529,69,1118,155810,24602,11767,21707,57918,1533],"class_list":["post-276858","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-new-zealand","tag-candidacy","tag-coming","tag-confirmed","tag-councils","tag-definitely","tag-elected","tag-election","tag-far","tag-general","tag-labour","tag-mayor","tag-moko","tag-mp","tag-new-zealand","tag-news","tag-newzealand","tag-north","tag-nz","tag-of","tag-quashes","tag-rumours","tag-standing","tag-staying","tag-tepania","tag-will"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/276858","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=276858"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/276858\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/276859"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=276858"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=276858"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=276858"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}