A court orders a party to reinstate its expelled MP, a veteran minister announces his departure, and the prime minister lives to fight another day, writes Catherine McGregor in today’s excerpt from The Bulletin.
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TPM awkwardly welcomes an MP back into the fold
Te Pāti Māori has been ordered by the High Court to reinstate MP Mariameno Kapa-Kingi, after a judge found the party had unlawfully expelled her last November. Justice Paul Radich was scathing of the process, finding “fundamental errors of law and breaches of natural justice” — including the party’s failure to allow electorate representatives into the meeting at which her fate was decided, or to give Kapa-Kingi a meaningful opportunity to respond to allegations against her. The party has written to parliament’s Speaker to confirm her reinstatement, as The Post’s Henry Cooke reports, and co-leader Debbie Ngarewa-Packer confirmed Kapa-Kingi would contest Te Tai Tokerau at this year’s election.
A judgement on leadership
The reinstatement is far from the end of the conflict, as The Spinoff’s Liam Rātana writes this morning. Evidence submitted by TPM in proceedings noted the party “may opt to give fresh consideration to using the comparatively simpler cancellation power” — apparently a reference to another route to removing Kapa-Kingi’s membership. And Tamihere’s alleged threats against Kapa-Kingi’s sons will be “hard to recover from”, Rātana writes, “even in the unlikely scenario he seeks reconciliation”.
Meanwhile the judgment exposed deep fractures between the co-leaders, the party’s other MPs and its electorate councils, several of which either abstained or protested against the expulsion. Labour, who lost all but one Māori seat at the 2023 election, will be watching with interest. As Rātana concludes: “Whether those at the top are willing to go down with a sinking ship will dictate the state of Te Pāti Māori come November.”
A departure with regret – and some relief
Shane Reti, National’s MP for Whangarei and former deputy leader, has announced his retirement, becoming the fourth National MP to confirm they will not stand in this year’s election. Reti teared up as he told RNZ he had made the decision for family reasons. “I’ve missed many birthdays. I’ve actually missed my family’s weddings as well. There’s only so many birthdays and weddings you can miss.”
The sentiment was genuine, but as The Spinoff’s Lyric Waiwiri-Smith writes in a detailed account of his rise and fall, the departure closes a chapter of considerable unfulfilled potential. Reti arrived in parliament in 2014 as a Harvard-trained Māori GP who seemed purpose-built for the health portfolio. He got it – and quickly found it laden with “dead rats”, Waiwiri-Smith. The coalition agreements forced him to roll back smokefree legislation (earning him the nickname “Ciga-Reti”), and he was stripped of the role by Simeon Brown in January 2025. The lesson: “A good doctor doesn’t necessarily translate into an effective minister,” Waiwiri-Smith concludes.
The prime minister breathes again
After last week’s nightmare – a catastrophic poll and a stumbling post-cabinet press conference on Iran Christopher Luxon has got through his first two parliamentary days back, writes Thomas Coughlan in the Herald (paywalled). The prime minister’s post-cabinet press conference was markedly better than last Monday’s disaster; he left Tuesday’s caucus meeting with the same job he had going in. He even managed a passive-aggressive quip when asked if he enjoyed talking to the media, responding with a chirpy “love it!”
Finance minister Nicola Willis, whose fortunes are increasingly tied to Luxon’s, attempted a pre-emptive move by releasing Treasury’s pre-Iran forecasts as evidence that an economic recovery had been underway before Donald Trump threw a spanner in the works. It’s a useful counter-narrative, but one that will face a stiff test when the full Budget figures are released in May. For now, Coughlan writes, the PM is set to survive the week. But he remains “undoubtedly wounded” by the past 10 days — and “another post-Cabinet shocker or dreadful poll could be the spark that ignites National’s caucus to move against Luxon”.
