Three sets of allegations, three inquiries: The Detail talks to the journalist who broke the Te Pāti Māori data breach stories

What happens when the line between helping your people and helping yourself to their private information, blurs

Earlier this week, Prime Minister Christopher Luxon announced an independent inquiry into allegations that Te Pāti Māori misused private data. It is the third inquiry involving Te Pāti Māori and allegations of data misuse.

"At the heart of this story are allegations that private information that was collected on behalf of the state for the census and for vaccination programmes was then used for another purpose," says Sunday Star Times' Andrea Vance, who broke the story.

"If that happened that's extremely serious. It's just really something that we can't treat lightly because ultimately it will undermine trust in the institutions of government if it's proved to have happened."

In today's episode of The Detail, Vance explains the various claims about data misuse, which centre around Auckland's Manurewa Marae. The marae plays a key part in the community: it was one of the first places to roll out vaccines, and last year it was part of a drive to promote the census. Then, in last year's election, the marae became a polling booth.

The first allegations were from the Labour Party, which says that community members received two texts urging them to vote for Te Pāti Māori. That shortcode, they say, was owned by a social services charity called Waipareira Trust, which had people's information because it had been involved in the vaccine rollout. Labour alleges that was a breach of privacy.

In the second incident, Statistics NZ is investigating claims that private information collected by the marae during the census early last year was misused by Te Pāti Māori.

"Same principle - information that was collected for one purpose on behalf of the state allegedly was used for another," says Vance.

"Former marae staff say that hundreds of census forms collected by marae staff were photocopied.

"But as well as that, the information was copied and loaded into a database that was maintained by the marae."

Marae staff also say that information was sent to the Waipareira Trust, which is run by John Tamihere.

"He's CEO of Whānau Ora commissioning agency, which was involved in promoting the census and the Covid 19 vaccination drive which he did through the Waipareira Trust and that's the social services charity that he leads, and through the various urban marae, like Manurewa Marae, and then of course he's also the president of Te Pāti Māori."…

Go to this episode on rnz.co.nz for more details