Inside John Tamihere’s six-figure Waipareira Trust bonus and his long war with Charities Services

There is long-established case law that prohibits charities from involvement – especially the funding of – partisan politics.

In the accompanying Charities Services (CS) Investigation Report discussing the flow of funds inside Waipareira and to and through its chief executive, investigators concluded: “The department considers that the amounts paid to Mr Tamihere are so far in excess of what would be considered reasonable executive payments that they are inappropriate and bring into disrepute the sector as a whole.”

The actual total sum paid to Tamihere is redacted from documents but show the investigators uncovered at least $393,993 of bonus payments in the face of what she described as a “combative or obstructive” trust.

Stanley’s briefing to the board was critical of Waipareira’s governance and management over the period 2019-2024.

She said: “We think that the trust has also engaged in serious wrongdoing by making these inflated payments to Mr T[amihere].” The emphasis is hers.

Those briefing notes and investigation report, and more than 1000 other pages of notes, reports and analysis of Waipareira’s financials, were released to the Herald earlier this month following an Official Information Act (OIA) request.

Contacted for comment about what these released documents revealed, Tamihere denied any wrongdoing by himself or Waipareira and declined to answer specific questions about the case.

“The questions you pose have been answered to authorities that actually count,” he said.

He added: “We have suffered multiple audits, inquiries and investigations, all have concluded no wrongdoing.”

Tamihere earlier described investigations by the regulator and the Herald, into Waipareira’s campaigning financing and his receipt of related-party loans as racist and an ”anti-Māori pogrom”. He had publicly insisted throughout the 2023 election campaign Waipareira was entitled to support Te Pāti Māori. Waipareira later filed a High Court Judicial Review to challenge the regulators’ decision to deregister the charity over the issue.

But by mid-2025, in submissions to a CRB hearing to determine whether Waipareira should be deregistered, and after the Judicial Review failed to stop the regulatory process, the charity was adopting a different line.

Waipareira submitted there was no gross negligence nor mismanagement, and it had earlier been acting in good faith to support Tamihere’s campaigns, but it now conceded its prior support for political parties and candidates linked to its chief executive were in error.

It also said it would be reversing a $393,993.16 bonus paid to Tamihere in 2023, ostensibly for his “outstanding work ethic and unwavering commitment to the ongoing success of Waipareira”.

CS investigators and the CRB noted this amount exactly equalled funds channelled from the charity to Tamihere’s 2019 mayoral campaign and Te Pāti Māori’s 2020 general election campaign, and associated interest, that the charity had earlier agreed would be converted to a loan on commercial terms that would be personally repaid.

The total sum sought for clawback exceeds this total, but is redacted in documents. CS investigators had found he had also received a significant annual leave payout from Waipareira in 2023 that was calculated using his bonus-inflated salary.

D-Day

Tamihere this week referred critically to the Herald’s coverage of this case to date, particularly a story which reported a deadline for him to satisfy regulators that his campaign loan had been repaid.

“Your D[-]Day for Waipareira arrived and went if you recall,” Tamihere said.

But a review of documents released last week suggests this date – August 6, 2023 – marked a turning point in the case that saw a formerly settled investigation reopened, and the charity soon issued a notice for failing to comply with the legal request for documents.

Waipareira was first investigated following the 2019 local body elections when Tamihere declared $100,000 in funding from the trust to support his ultimately unsuccessful bid for Auckland mayor. Hundreds of thousands more dollars flowed to Te Pāti Māori’s tilt for the general election.

This earlier investigation ended in a settlement, with Waipareira agreeing in writing to not involve itself in party politics, and Tamihere agreeing to repay funds used in campaigns that were now classed as a related-party loan to him.

“D-Day” was the deadline for Waipareira to disclose if and how the loan had been repaid, as well as explaining why TPM launched their election campaign from the stage at the trust-run Matariki festival party in New Lynn the month prior, despite having pledged in writing to steer clear of party politics.

Te Pati Māori co-leaders Debbie Ngarewa-Packer and Rawiri Waititi at Matairiki Ki Waipareira in Henderson in July 2023. Photo / Sylvie Whinray

Lawyer Tim Allan, formerly of Grove Darlow, acted for Waipareira throughout this dispute and replied to the legal demand and refused to supply the documents requested.

He claimed they were “commercially confidential and contain personal information about Mr Tamihere” and insisted the loan agreement and repayment information could only be inspected at his office, and any information obtained must be destroyed at the conclusion of the investigation.

Allan said this was necessary because CS had earlier released to the Herald a letter he had sent labelled “without prejudice.”

Allan also argued that TPM’s appearance at the Matariki festival was merely incidental and while it was the launch of their campaign it was not a campaign launch as such.

“Although we understand that this event may have marked the beginning of Te Pāti Māori’s campaigning for the upcoming general election, this was not a party political event or a traditional party launch,” Allan said.

CS later obtained video of the event, noting TPM’s prime-time slot between House of Shem and Tiki Tane, and a pre-prepared video slideshow introducing each candidate, and the party were farewelled with a smoke machine and a barrage of streamer cannons.

Dale Husband, the event’s MC, told the crowd of thousands: “Ladies and gentlemen, there’s not many political parties that do their launch on the streets of the west, but Te Pāti Māori have. How wonderful that we can have a Matariki party to officially launch the Te Pāti Māori and their campaign for 2023.”

Inquiries to Waipareira over the status of the loan and whether Tamihere had repaid it as agreed started generating a changing mosaic of explanations.

Regulators started issuing document production requests to banks to try to identify payments made by the chief executive to repay the loan; they found none.

The Investigation Report catalogued the various descriptions used by Waipareira to describe the donation-cum-loan. First, in 2019 as direct donations from Waipareira to Tamihere’s mayoral campaign. Then converted to an interest-free loan to Tamihere, with further funding to Te Pāti Māori’s election campaign added in. It was converted to interest-bearing from April 2023, following the first – and short-lived – settlement with regulators.

By late 2023 Waipareira was telling regulators the loan had been repaid, and this would be recorded in its upcoming financial statements. Those financial statements were duly published on the Charities Register just before Christmas and declared Tamihere’s loan had been settled.

Those accounts also reported a contemporaneous eye-popping increase in executive salaries at the trust. The total pool paid to such staff had increased from $4.39m to $6.79m, despite the number of such staff decreasing.

A sector-wide survey by the Herald at the time found Waipareira’s key management staff were the highest-paid charitable executives (averaging $510,679 pa) in New Zealand, despite the organisation being comparatively small in terms of staffing levels and revenues.

Documents say regulators also noticed this pay bump, and suspected this could explain the disappearing loan. Allan, on behalf of the trust, told regulators the $2.4m increase in executive salaries was partly made up of termination payouts ($202,000) and the payout of excess annual leave accrued during the “Covid years” ($851,000).

It was later revealed Tamihere was one of the biggest beneficiaries of the annual leave payout, and a significant part of the remaining increase was explained by his extraordinary bonus. The latter had helped inflate the former.

‘Substance over form’

And in March 2024, more than six months after Waipareira was put on notice for failing to provide documents, lawyers for the trust finally sent through details of Tamihere’s salary payments, saying the loan was repaid by a salary offset. This is also when the controversial May 2023 bonus was first disclosed.

An analysis of Waipareira’s financial flows and reporting by CS senior accountant Dawn Logan – who joined the regulator from the Police’s Financial Intelligence Unit – drew the obvious inference between the identical amounts and dates of both the bonus payment and loan repayment.

“Having considered the fact that this additional bonus was recommended, endorsed, contracted, and invoiced on May 31, 2023, the day the loan was reported as repaid, and the fact that the bonus amount matches exactly the loan amount, we consider that it is extremely likely, if not certain, that the additional performance bonus was awarded for the purpose of compensating Mr Tamihere for his repayment of the loan to the trust,” she wrote in an early 2024 memo.

In further advice to the CRB, Logan explicitly criticises the disclosure in 2023 that Tamihere had repaid the loan, given it was entirely a paper-based transaction that saw no cash change hands.

“To a typical reader, this would be interpreted as the loan was repaid in cash,” she wrote.

“An assessment of the financial statements found that the loan was not recorded in the cash flow statement during the fiscal years the money was provided to Mr Tamihere, nor when the loan was purportedly paid.”

The conclusion of Logan’s report was heavily redacted, but it finishes with a section entitled “substance over form”.

“It should be considered that the existence and recording of the additional discretionary bonus is not following the true economic reality and instead is structured to comply with a particular legal narrative,” Logan wrote.

‘Unnecessarily litigious and combative’

As regulators moved to finalise their investigation in March 2024, another meeting between CS and Waipareira was brokered to discuss the direction of the case.

But two weeks prior to that planned hui, Allan sent a letter to regulators requesting officials sign an acknowledgment beforehand that discussions be treated as confidential and exempt from the OIA and only revealed under court order or subpoena. He also sought clarity on an agenda item proposed by the regulator, which sought to discuss “interactions between our office and Te Whanau O Waipareira Trust”.

Stanley explained: “In simple terms, we have consistently had an unnecessarily litigious and combative response from the trust’s legal representative, presumably working to instructions from the board and/or the executive.”

She continued: “As public servants, our dealings need to be transparent, recorded in an appropriate way and available for public release under the Official Information Act. We will not sign any agreements to the contrary.

“We have decided to cancel the hui.”

Stanley later directly criticised Allan when briefing the CRB.

“The trust’s lawyer has engaged with us as if we are in negotiations with it in civil litigation, and seeking settlement by negotiation, rather than a regulatory process,” she said.

Allan did not respond last week to an opportunity to respond to his involvement in the case or criticism of his conduct found in the released documents.

In response to similar criticism from officials in 2023, again over the Waipareira case, he refused to apologise for his approach: “I am a litigation lawyer and all of my practice involves actual or potential conflict and confrontation.”

Two-track diplomacy

Waipareira’s approach in September 2024 after finally receiving notice that it faced deregistration, took parallel paths.

It followed through on earlier threats to legally escalate the dispute and filed Judicial Review proceedings. That case, heard at the High Court at Wellington in May last year, resulted in only a pyrrhic victory for the trust.

The CRB was found to be inquorate – a 2023 law change had increased its required membership from three to five and these new seats had only been belatedly filled – but the High Court declined to quash the notice given the trust had ample opportunity to be heard at an upcoming objection meeting.

That objection meeting, in July last year, saw Waipareira recant its support for political activity and pledge to reverse the bonus and reinstate the loan.

The CRB heard Tamihere was now – again – required to repay the loan, which was again reinstated on commercial terms. The sum owed was said to also include annual leave payments inflated by the bonus.

“The board has been advised that the payment has now been made,” the decision said.

Charities Registration Board chair Jane Wrightson said the decision not to deregister Waipareira was only made after the trust pledged to undertake “significant remediation”. Photo / Michael Craig

Waipareira also established a bespoke conflict of interest policy related to Te Pāti Māori to better manage any future interactions with the party.

“The policy will provide clarity about ensuring that if one political party speaks at an event, the same opportunities are afforded to other parties,” Waipareira submitted.

Waipareira also undertook, and has largely completed, restructuring that sees its trust group reformed with Waipareira Investments now sitting atop its subsidiaries. It set up a separate Apiti Trust, not funded by Waipareira, to provide an outlet for non-charitable activity.

These reforms leave those responsible for Waipareira’s management and governance largely in place.

Jane Wrightson, in a statement accompanying the decision not to deregister, said it had been a line call.

“The decision not to deregister was complex. Had significant remediation not been taken, the board’s decision would likely have been different,” she said.

Charlotte Stanley, general manager of Charities Services at the Department of Internal Affairs.

Stanley said her office’s involvement in the case had not concluded.

“This is a live issue, with ongoing monitoring in place, including a planned audit process. If any bonus payments are found to have been used to repay amounts required to be repaid to the trust, regulatory action will be initiated,” she said.

She said no further complaints about Waipareira promoting political causes and candidates had been received since the CRB made their decision.

Stanley said Waipaerira had until December 31 to complete the promised and required remediation, and an audit process would monitor compliance.

She defended Charities Services’ handling of a case that had dragged on for six years.

“This was an exceptional case, unprecedented in its complexity. It involved multiple investigations, ongoing forensic accounting work, and sustained legal challenge, including proceedings before the High Court,” she said.

“The timeframe associated with this investigation is not representative of a more conventional investigation, because of the complexity and scope of the issues involved. Efficiency is important, but public confidence is not only built through speed, but through decisions that are lawful, proportionate, and able to withstand scrutiny.”

Matt Nippert is an Auckland-based investigations reporter covering white-collar and transnational crimes and the intersection of politics and business. He has won more than a dozen awards for his journalism – including twice being named Reporter of the Year – and joined the Herald in 2014 after having spent the decade prior reporting for business newspapers and national magazines.