Claire Trevett is the NZ Herald’s political editor, based at Parliament in Wellington. She started at the NZ Herald in 2003 and joined the Press Gallery team in 2007. She is a life member of the Parliamentary Press Gallery.
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Welcome to the Politics Briefing, the week in which allegations swirled about Te Pāti Māori’s campaign actions, Prime Minister Christopher Luxon got in some island time, the Government tried to move on from the failure to deliver on cancer drugs in the Budget, and Act leader David Seymour took his first turn on the floor as Acting Prime Minister. Confusion surrounds Te Pāti Māori claims At the moment, there is a lot of fog and not much light around the various claims swirling about Te Pāti Māori’s election campaign actions . The issue is whether the party used personal data obtained through Manurewa Marae’s work on the Census and Waipareira Trust’s work on the Covid-19 vaccination drive for political purposes.
Te Pāti Māori MP Takutai Moana Natasha Kemp was the marae’s chief executive prior to the election and Waipareira Trust chief executive John Tamihere is also Te Pāti Māori president. Te Pāti Māori has taken the path of explaining is losing – its only public utterances so far have been to reject the allegations and to chall.
