Tirikatene\u2019s grandfather, Sir Eruera Tirikatene, held one of the four original M\u0101ori electorates – Southern M\u0101ori – from 1932 until his death in 1967 when he was succeeded by his daughter, Whetu Tirikatene-Sullivan, who held the seat until 1996, when its name changed to Te Tai Tonga.<\/p>\n
Tirikatene first entered Parliament after the 2011 election, winning Te Tai Tonga, which covers the entire South Island, parts of Wellington and the Chatham Islands. <\/p>\n
Rino Tirikatene’s wh\u0101nau is synonymous with South Island politics. Photo \/ APN<\/p>\n
Tirikatene held the seat for four terms before losing by more than 2000 votes to then-Te P\u0101ti M\u0101ori MP T\u0101kuta Ferris, who is now an independent after splitting from his own party. <\/p>\n
In the 2017 term, Tirikatene was the M\u0101ori Affairs select committee chairman. <\/p>\n
In 2020, under then-Prime Minister Dame Jacinda Ardern, Tirikatene was made a Parliamentary under-secretary to the then-Minister for Oceans and Fisheries David Parker and then-Minister for Trade and Export Growth Damien O\u2019Connor. <\/p>\n
When Chris Hipkins took over from Ardern after she retired in 2023, Tirikatene was made a minister outside of Cabinet in a reshuffle, becoming the Minister for Courts and the Minister of State for Trade and Export Growth. <\/p>\n
Tirikatene announced his retirement in January, 2024.<\/p>\n
Samuels, another former Labour minister, is understood to be attending NZ First\u2019s convention for the first time as a party delegate. <\/p>\n
Former Labour minister Dover Samuels is attending the NZ First convention as a delegate. Photo \/ Michael Cunningham<\/p>\n
Samuels entered Parliament in 1996 as a list MP for Labour before winning the northern M\u0101ori electorate – Te Tai Tokerau – in 1999 and holding it in the 2002 election. He lost the seat to the M\u0101ori Party\u2019s Hone Harawira in 2005 but was retained on the list. Samuels did not contest the electorate in 2008. <\/p>\n
It comes as a series of high-profile former politicians join NZ First as the party\u2019s public support climbs. <\/p>\n
This year, NZ First has announced that among its candidates will be former Labour Cabinet minister Stuart Nash, former National Cabinet minister Alfred Ngaro, former All Black captain Taine Randell and former National MPs Michael Laws and Harete Hipango. <\/p>\n
Peters is set to open the convention with a brief speech at 9am. <\/p>\n
Adam Pearse is the Deputy Political Editor and part of the NZ Herald\u2019s Press Gallery team based at Parliament in Wellington. He has worked for NZME since 2018, reporting for the Northern Advocate in Whang\u0101rei and the Herald in Auckland.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Tirikatene\u2019s grandfather, Sir Eruera Tirikatene, held one of the four original M\u0101ori electorates – Southern M\u0101ori – from…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":531258,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[1888,2740,6371,6721,1329,6722,111,43,139,69,262194,262195,80],"class_list":["post-531257","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-new-zealand","tag-first","tag-former","tag-joins","tag-labour","tag-member","tag-minister","tag-new-zealand","tag-news","tag-newzealand","tag-nz","tag-rino","tag-tirikatene","tag-zealand"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/531257","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=531257"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/531257\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/531258"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=531257"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=531257"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=531257"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}