Two signatures were all it took to put a marae in breach of charities law

The money was trivial. The breach was not. Charities Services concluded in May 2025 that $12,800 of Manurewa Marae funds directly supported Te Pāti Māori campaigns in 2023, according to Official Information Act documents reported by the Herald. The marae’s former chief executive, the late Takutai Tarsh Kemp, who won Tāmaki Makaurau by 46 votes that October, was under formal investigation when she died in June 2025.

Most coverage treats this as a political story about a party and a deceased MP. For trustees, committee members and directors, it is a governance case study, and a cheap one to learn from.

Small money, ten-month headache

The spending was unremarkable in size. The Herald’s account lists $1500 for seats at a candidate fundraiser in May 2023, $8800 for a musket and korowai bought at a party auction in June, two October payments totalling $1250 coded “Te Paati Maori” on Kemp’s marae credit card, and $1100 in flights and a Wellington hotel in December, after she had already resigned as chief executive. The regulator’s verdict was blunt: the sum “is not significant compared to the income and expenditure” of the marae, but the funds “were used to directly support the campaigns of political candidates and are in breach of charities law.”

That sentence is the whole lesson. Materiality is no defence. A formal investigation ran from July 2024 to May 2025, and the story is still landing in national media more than a year later.

Signing authority is not board authority

The marae told investigators the payments were authorised by Kemp and board member Martin Cooper in their capacity as bank signatories. The same reporting states the spending had not been approved by the board.

That is the control gap. Two people with signing power could commit charitable money to a political party without the board ever deciding to. Nothing in the process flagged a payee that was a registered political party, and a credit card kept working after its holder had left to become an MP. None of this requires bad intent to happen. It only requires an organisation to assume that whoever holds the card knows the rules.

The korowai nobody could account for

The cloak bought with marae money ended up in Kemp’s possession, and the board told investigators it did not know how. A former chair reportedly described it as a loan. Loan or gift, no one had written it down. Any organisation that buys assets at a fundraiser, political or otherwise, needs a register that says who holds them and on what terms.

Waipareira shows how far this runs

The precedent is not encouraging. In 2024 the Herald reported the Charities Registration Board intended to deregister Te Whānau o Waipareira Trust after a four-year investigation into funding John Tamihere’s campaigns. Donations were converted into interest-free loans totalling $385,307, repaid in May 2023. The trust held $104 million in net assets.

Back in June 2024, a Kiwiblog commentary asked the obvious question about that model: “Where’s the incentive not to do it in the first place?” The same month, the Taxpayers’ Union argued the Manurewa case was “the test for whether the same law applies to all groups,” noting the regulator had previously deregistered charities for conservative advocacy. The May 2025 breach finding answers part of that challenge.

Two regimes, one mistake

The exposure is not only under the Charities Act. When The Post revealed in 2024 that a marae-owned 12-seater van was used in Kemp’s campaign, it noted that free goods or services worth more than $300 count as an electoral donation, with those over $1500 requiring declaration. Charlotte Stanley, then general manager of Charities Services, said at the time that charities must not let “a party or candidate use a charity’s resources.” Parties, meanwhile, file annual donation returns with the Electoral Commission, so a single payment can surface in two regulators’ files.

The principle is not partisan. In January 2025, University of Auckland law academic Jane Norton warned that “public trust and confidence in charities can be easily eroded if they become politicised.” For entities living on government contracts and public goodwill, that trust is the balance sheet.

What boards should fix now

The remedy is unglamorous. Treat any payment to a party, candidate or campaign event as a bright-line matter requiring a full board resolution, not signatory approval. Block party payees on cards. Cancel cards the day an officer leaves. Keep an asset register that records gifts and loans. And remember officers and filings are public: Charities Services in 2025 updated its open data register of charities, officers and annual returns.

With an election campaign under way, plenty of iwi trusts, incorporated societies and member organisations will be asked to buy a table, lend a van or bid at an auction. The Manurewa file shows that $12,800 and good intentions buy a breach finding and years of headlines. Boards that cannot say no in writing should not be holding the chequebook.

Sources

• NZ Herald: Late Te Pāti Māori MP Takutai Kemp faced investigation over $12,800 Manurewa Marae charity funds spent on political campaign (2026-10-26)
• NZ Herald: Regulator to deregister Waipareira over political donations (2024-12-20)
• Kiwiblog: More political funding by so called charity (2024-06-28)
• Scoop: Charities Commission needs to act on Manurewa Marae (2024-06-24)
• The Post: Labour MP used charity’s van for political campaigning (2024-07-06)
• Elections NZ: Annual financial statements
• University of Auckland: Charities no place for politics (2025-01-23)