The shouting and the ‘slush fund’: Inside Tamihere’s donations stoush

A long-running dispute between Waipareira Trust and the Charities Service over hundreds of thousands of dollars in political donations found to be unlawful still sees regulators in the dark as to whether $385,307 advanced for
chief executive John Tamihere’s campaigns has been repaid.

A sometimes heated three-year investigation into west Auckland social services charity Waipareira was finally closed in May after a formal warning notice was issued in December determining its political donations – to Tamihere’s failed Auckland Mayoral bid in 2019, and towards Te Pāti Māori 2020 election campaign – were a breach of the Charities Act.

The lead-up to closing the file required Tamihere to be served by Waipareira with a demand for repayment of his interest-free related-party loan used for campaign expenses, and the Trust formally pledging to refrain from funding or supporting political parties and candidates in future.

But Charities Services said this week it remained unsure whether Tamihere – the current president of Te Pāti Māori, who held their 2023 general election campaign launch from the stage with streamers and smoke machines at Waipareira’s Matariki festival in Henderson over the past weekend – had repaid the money.

“We do not yet have confirmation from the Trust that the loan has been repaid or the terms of any repayments. We continue to monitor the Trust,” Charlotte Stanley, the general manager of Charities Services said in a statement last week.

In correspondence with Charities Services in May 2021, lawyers acting for Waipareira said they were “already working with Mr Tamihere regarding repayment”. But according to the most recent published accounts for Waipareira filed to the charities register, dated June 30 2022, no repayments had been made.

On February 9 of this year, Waipareira formally wrote to Tamihere demanding repayment, noting their chief executive had agreed to this course of action as part of the Charities Services investigation, and required the sum to be repaid or “an acceptable repayment plan tendered to [Waipareira] for approval” by March 9.

And in May of this year, in an unusual move, Waipareira was actively consulted and invited to edit a statement to be released by Charities Services to the Herald about the conclusion of the dispute.

Lawyers acting for Waipareira claimed a draft release was “defamatory and/or misfeasance in a public office” and deleted a proposed line that would have said, “any loans relating to political campaigns have been repaid in full”.

In response to questions about the loan balance, and other matters raised in 400 pages of documents released by Charities Services to the Herald under the Official Information Act, Waipareira lawyers Grove Darlow first cited time pressures in refusing to respond within 24 hours and then issued a one-line statement almost a week after questions had first been asked.

“Neither Waipareira Trust nor its Chief Executive will be responding to your inquiry,” the statement said.

In May Tamihere told the Herald when questioned about whether the loan had been repaid: “The loans are commercially confidential, but thanks for asking.”

Files released under the Official Information Act detailing the multi-year investigation show that the saga first began following a December 2019 report in the Herald that showed Waipareira donated $100,000 to Tamihere’s failed campaign for the Auckland mayoralty.

There is longstanding case law barring charities from campaigning, endorsing or donating to parties and candidates.

After Charities Services opened an investigation and requested further information, Waipareira first insisted it was entitled to make the donation, then re-recorded the payment as a no-interest related-party loan to Tamihere after Charities Services ruled in November 2020 the decision-making behind the payments likely amounted to “serious wrongdoing” and “gross mismanagement”.

That November 2020 warning notice was later withdrawn by Charities Services following complaints from Waipareira that the regulator had “adopted a one-dimensional perspective of [Waipareira]; it did not pay any or sufficient regard to [Waipareira’s] Kaupapa,” and in its place in December 2022 another issued another warning notice – this time withdrawing the finding of serious wrongdoing and gross mismanagement – reaffirming the regulators’ determination that political donations by charities were a breach of the Charities Act.

The files also highlight complaints from public servants of alleged bullying and threatening behaviour from Waipareira lawyers and concerns that while its investigation into donations to Tamihere’s mayoral campaign was ongoing – with assertions from the Trust’s lawyers its political funding activity was a one-off – hundreds of thousands more dollars were at the same time flowing to Te Pāti Māori to run its 2020 election campaign.

A May 2020 response to Charities Service questions by Grove Darlow concerning queries about the mayoral donation said “neither the trust nor any entity within the Group have provided donations/funding towards any other election campaign”.

Another letter from Waipareira’s lawyers said a year later: “This is a historic activity and there was and is no evidence to suggest the Trust contemplating doing so in the future … there is no evidence to suggest [Waipareira’s] statement that it had not provided any donation/funding to any other election campaign was anything other than the absolute truth.”

Electoral finance returns show weeks after this assertion was first made, Waipareira funds from June 30 2020 began being advanced to Te Pati Maori, eventually more than $200,000 for that year’s election campaign.

In a statement this week Charities Services’ Stanley said the continued flow of political funding raised alarms and was partly responsible for the multi-year investigative effort: “Charities Services clearly had concerns that the Trust provided funds to political campaigns following the May 2020 letter.”

Questions to Grove Darlow and Tamihere about their earlier assertions its political donation activities were limited went unanswered this week.

Meeting notes by Charities Service staff following a meeting in November 2022 show that Grove Darlow partner Tim Allan said, of the loans to the Te Pāti Māori election campaign, that he “wasn’t aware they had been made”.

That meeting, held at Waipareira’s office on November 8, was the culmination of public demands from Tamihere for Charities Services to take note of the Trust’s opposition to their statutory warning notice.

But, as it turns out, meeting notes show Tamihere himself – accompanied by Allan, Trust chairman Raymond Hall and disgraced former lawyer Davina Reid (described in meeting notes as “legal support for CEO”) – left the meeting early, shortly after the recently-disclosed Te Pāti Māori donations were raised.

According to contemporaneous Charities Service notes, the November meeting quickly turned heated, with Allan later claiming it resulted in a settlement seeing Waipareira only needing to “request” Tamihere repay the loan and all regulatory actions would be withdrawn. This claim was firmly disputed by officials who were left alone at one point during the meeting to consider their options.

“Our discussion while they left the room was short, as we don’t negotiate the terms of warning notices, and that wasn’t the purpose of the meeting. When they returned Stephen Reilly [regulatory manager for Charities Services] informed them that all the money needed to be repaid.”

Allan, a Grove Darlow lawyer acting for Waipareira, is claimed by Charities Services staff to have been particularly aggressive in the weeks following that meeting.

In a December 2022 phone call with Charities Services regulatory manager Joe Buchanan, Allan is said to have vigorously opposed demands Tamihere repay the loan, with notes of the call recording the allegation that: “With a raised voice Counsel complained about requiring Mr Tamihere to repay the funds, as Counsel said the money had gone into a ‘slush fund’. Counsel said the repayment request should be made to the Auckland Mayoralty campaign and the Maori Party.”

Questions to Allan and Tamihere seeking an explanation as to why Waipareira’s charitable donations to its chief executive’s campaigns were described by the organisation’s lawyer as being from a “slush fund” went unanswered.

That December phone call is recounted in detailed meeting notes by Buchanan who said Allan: “Advised in a loud voice ‘You don’t know what you’re getting yourself into’ and ‘you’re out of your depth’”.

Allan is said to have repeatedly threatened to “commence proceedings” if a replacement warning notice was issued against Waipareira.

The day following that phone call Charities Services did indeed issue a new warning notice – reasserting its determination that charities contributing to electoral campaigns was a breach of law and requiring repayment and a commitment to cease such activity – but no proceedings from Waipareira have been forthcoming.

But the relationship between the charity and its regulator was still smarting, evidenced by Charities Services officials organising their thoughts in writing about recent meetings and recommending future communications with Allan be limited to email only.

Buchanan wrote to colleagues on December 19 about Allan that: “In my opinion his manner was aggressive, bullying, and threatening. It was impossible to engage in constructive discussion with him because he responded in an aggressive manner whenever I did not agree with what he proposed.”

Buchanan said in his opinion Allan’s conduct, including allegedly shouting at Charities Services staff, appeared to breach standards required by lawyers: “I consider his behaviour brought the profession into disrepute … by perpetuating negative stereotypes of lawyers as threatening and aggressive bullies.”

Charities Service said in a follow-up statement that neither they nor their staff had progressed the matter to a complaint to the Law Society.

Allan, in a statement to the Herald, defended his handling of the case. “I am a litigation lawyer and all of my practice involves actual or potential conflict and confrontation,” he said.

“Insofar as any [Charities Services] employee may have taken offence as a result of me advancing my client’s interests, that is regrettable. However, for the reasons stated above I do not apologise for doing so.”

The OIA release to the Herald followed repeated attempts over the years by lawyers for Waipareira, including Allan, to shroud the dispute and its resolution in secrecy by repeatedly seeking to pre-empt any public release of information about the case.

Charities Services staff repeatedly pushed back on this proposal, with one official recounting in meeting notes: “A central aspect of the proposal was seeking an undertaking that we did not release any information under the Official Information Act 1982. I advised that we cannot contract out of the Official Information Act, or agree in advance of a hypothetical information release that we wouldn’t release documents.”

Charities Services subsequently responded to the Herald request for information by diligently meeting statutory timeframes: Hundreds of pages of documents were released precisely 20 working days after the request was first made.

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 from business newspapers and national magazines.