Earthyundertones 🍸

Serious questions need to be asked regarding a contract previously awarded to an organisation run by a sitting Labour MP’s wife. OIA documents now confirm that Oranga Tamariki (OT) awarded a nearly $5 million, three-year contract to the Manukau Urban Māori Authority (MUMA), the organisation led by Tania Rangiheuea, wife of senior Labour MP Willie Jackson, without even receiving a business case. OT treated a thank-you letter from Rangiheuea as the “business case” but the letter was thanking then CEO, Chappie Te Kani, for the offer of funding he had already made. When asked under the OIA for any record of that offer, OT said it could not find one and refused the request under section 18(e) because the document does not exist or cannot be found. It gets worse. OT’s own funding team was bypassed and the deal was agreed at CEO level, only afterwards did staff raise concerns about budget double counting and social worker rates that did not match existing contracts. The budget was only “indicative” because MUMA had not even reviewed the files, it had no beds for half the youth and there was no competitive process. The only performance “KPIs” listed are simply: “Provide some recent examples of results being achieved with clients, in particular improving outcomes for tamariki Mãori and their whänau (eg changes in skills, knowledge, attitude, behaviour, or circumstances). If relevant, use a case study.” - there are no targets or measurable outcomes listed for a multi million dollar taxpayer funded contract. This is a no-bid, high-value contract awarded to an organisation led by a Labour MP’s wife, with no locatable starting offer or business case, no proper funding review, soft narrative reporting, no targets, baselines, or verifiable outcomes and budget problems spotted only after the decision to award the contract had been made. This is particularly concerning as both Chris Hipkins and Willie Jackson are now promoting significant devolution of services to Māori, which will mean even less oversight.

If National or ACT had done this, it would be a full-blown scandal leading the news for days. Who authorised it? Is it cheating? Is it deceptive behaviour and gaming the system? Does it go against the spirit of a public debate and the audience reaction it is meant to capture? Opportunity Party, who campaigns on integrity, doing politics differently, and cleaning up the system, allegedly sent an email to supporters the morning of the debate, signed off by Qiulae Wong herself, with step-by-step instructions to vote on Stuff’s Debate Worm the moment she spoke. They have then deliberately misled people by promoting the gamed result on across their social media as if it reflected the room, claiming 35 of every 100 people there backed her, with zero transparency about the coordinated mobilisation that manufactured the number. Mobilising supporters to deliberately skew what is supposed to be a genuine audience reaction is one thing, but not being honest and transparent about it while trumpeting the results is a different league entirely, especially for a political party whose entire pitch rests on higher standards. It’s just insane that media, and especially Stuff, whose system was deliberately gamed, don’t have an issue with it.

And yet, media still haven’t bothered to ask Chris Hipkins the question: If you were leading a coalition govt and one of your junior partners’ leaders or ministers made identical comments, garnering the same responses, would you remove that minister even if doing so risked collapsing your govt and forcing an early election?

Chris Hipkins has painted himself into a corner. If Tova O’Brien and John Campbell are neutral, Hipkins should have an absolute shocker tomorrow, given he said it is ‘untenable’ for the PM not to sack Winston Peters as Foreign Minister over his racist remarks. A simple question they should pose to him: If you were leading a coalition govt and one of your junior partners’ leaders or ministers made identical comments, garnering the same responses, would you remove that minister even if doing so risked collapsing your govt and forcing an early election? Given Labour’s likely coalition partners are Te Pāti Māori and the Greens - there is no wriggle room here. If Hipkins says Yes, he’s reckless. No, and it’s hypocrisy. Probably also worth remembering Hipkins utter reluctance to call the comments made by Takuta Ferris racist - this alone means he lacks any serious credibility.