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Elections / 2023 / Waiariki / Rawiri Waititi
Portrait of Rawiri Waititi
Photo via Wikipedia
2023 general election Sitting MP
Defending Waiariki

Rawiri Waititi

Kind
Electorate & list
Source
elections-wikipedia
As of
4 May 2026

Background

Research run #32 · 26 Apr 2026
Every claim below traces to a verbatim quote in the cited source. Click any footnote [1] in the prose, or expand the citation index below, to see where the fact came from.

Rawiri Waititi is a Member of Parliament for the Waiariki electorate and Co-leader of Te Pāti Māori [15][17].

According to a single reputable secondary source, Waititi attended secondary school in Auckland [8] and later completed a Master's degree [1]. He is reported to have a background in education [4] and to have served as a Ringatū minister [2], though both of these details come from single secondary sources.

Prior to his entry into Parliament, Waititi is confirmed to have been an iwi leader [5], and a single secondary source also associates him with broader iwi leadership and activism [7]. According to a single reputable secondary source, he was previously affiliated with the Labour Party from 2014 [19] and stood as a candidate for the Ikaroa-Rāwhiti (East Coast) electorate [3]. He is also reported to have stood as a candidate for the Waiariki electorate before his election there [6].

Waititi is affiliated with Te Pāti Māori, also known as the Māori Party [20][21]. According to a single reputable secondary source, he was elected as the Member of Parliament for Waiariki on 17 October 2020 [15], with his parliamentary term recorded from 2020 [12]. Sources vary slightly on the precise date he assumed the Co-leader role — one places it at 28 October 2020 [9] and another at 29 October 2020 [10]. He holds the title of Tāne Co-Leader of Te Pāti Māori, according to a single reputable secondary source [17].

Generated 27 Apr 2026 · model claude-sonnet-4-6
AI-generated biography. Assembled by an LLM from public sources (Wikipedia, parliament register, Beehive, news archives). Every claim is backed by a verbatim quote in one of the cited sources below and tagged confirmed, unverified, or disputed by corroboration. Use as a starting reference, not a final source — cross-check anything load-bearing.
3 confirmed 18 unverified 0 disputed
Verify the bio — expand the citation index 21 sourced claims

Education

Career

Political offices

Party affiliation

Civic roles & honours

Looked for, not found

  • No public record found to directly confirm Rawiri Waititi's membership on the Ngārimu VC and 28th (Māori) Battalion Memorial Scholarship Fund Board — mentioned in PublicData.co.nz but not corroborated by a second primary source.
  • Could not confirm specific institution(s) where Rawiri Waititi worked as a teacher/principal of Māori language immersion schools prior to his Te Wānanga o Raukawa lectureship — secondary sources refer to this background broadly but without named schools.

The agent checked these topics across the allowed public sources but could not find verbatim-quotable evidence. Absence doesn't rule the fact out — it just means no journalist-accessible source covered it at run time.

Pecuniary interests

2025 register · as of 27 May 2026

As a sitting MP, this candidate files an annual Register of Pecuniary and Other Specified Interests. Items below are the most recent declarations from the Register.

Beneficial interests in, and trusteeships of, trusts
Oruaiti 2B2 Trust Oruaiti 2B2 Trust (trustee)
Winston Wikuku Waititi Whanau Trust Winston Wikuku Waititi Whanau Trust (trustee and beneficiary)
Debts owed by you
Westpac Bank Westpac Bank – mortgage
Real property
Family home (jointly owned) – Whakatāne, Eastern Bay of Plenty
Retirement schemes
Westpac KiwiSaver Westpac KiwiSaver

Companies Office links

as of 27 May 2026

Directorships, shareholdings, and trusteeships filed against this person in the Companies Office register.

Trusteeships

Recent press

50 articles across 7 outlets
Stuff 14
The Spinoff 12
1News 10
RNZ 8
NZ Herald 3
Otago Daily Times 2
Newsroom 1