Takutai Moana Kemp

Takutai Moana Natasha Kemp is a New Zealand politician, chief executive and hiphop dance director. Kemp won the Tāmaki Makaurau electorate for the Māori Party by 42 votes in the official results of the 2023 New Zealand general election.

Early life
Kemp comes from the iwi (tribes) of Ngā Rauru, Ngāti Tuwharetoa, Ngā iwi o Mōkai Pātea, Ngāti Tamakōpiri, Ngāti Whitikaupeka, Ngāi Te Ohuake, Ngāti Hauiti, Ngāti Hinemanu and Ngāti Paki. She was raised by her paternal grandparents at the Takirau marae in South Taranaki between the ages of seven and eleven. After that, she lived in Palmerston North and Auckland. At the University of Auckland, she studied anthropology, health, education, and mātauranga Māori.

She is named for her grandmother and has two children.

Career
Kemp developed the Rangatahi Mental Health Youth Hub with the University of Auckland and was its chief executive for 13 years. The program aimed to address high youth suicide rates in Māori youth.

She was director of Hip Hop International, the organisation that arranges the qualifying event for New Zealand teams in the World Hip Hop Championship. She was a trustee and Auckland manager for Street Dance New Zealand.

She was also chief executive of the Manurewa Marae and a prominent community voice for vaccination for South Auckland during the COVID-19 pandemic. In the 2021 Queen's Birthday Honours, Kemp was appointed an Officer of the New Zealand Order of Merit, for services to street dance and youth.

Political career
Kemp was selected by Te Pāti Māori to contest the Tāmaki Makaurau seat at the. She was 6th on the party list. The official results, released on 3 November 2023, showed Kemp had won the Tāmaki Makaurau electorate by 4 votes. Kemp received 10,050 electorate votes while Labour's candidate, Peeni Henare, received 10,046. A recount was requested; once completed, Kemp retained the seat with a final margin of 42 votes.

Media reported that the Electoral Commission investigated complaints about voting at Manurewa Marae, which is led by Kemp. The marae was used as a polling station, and according to video shown to Stuff, a Te Pāti Māori campaign song was played on loudspeakers during voting, and food was available for voters. Other media said the Commission had received no complaints.

By mid-December 2023, Kemp had joined Parliament's social services and community select committee. She also assumed Te Pāti Māori's social development, Whānau Ora, disabilities, communities & volunteers, statistics, family & sexual violence, mental health, Kaumātua (Māori elders), employment & training, workers' rights and community affairs spokesperson portfolios.

On 2 June 2024, the Sunday Star-Times reported that Statistics New Zealand was investigating several allegations by former staff at Manurewa Marae that Te Pāti Māori had illegally used 2023 New Zealand census data to target Māori electorate voters in the Tāmaki Makaurau electorate during the 2023 election, and that participants were given supermarket vouchers, wellness packs and food parcels to encourage them to fill out census forms and switch to the Māori electoral roll. A whistleblower from the Ministry of Social Development had alerted Statistics NZ and the Police. In response, Te Pāti Māori leader John Tamihere denied the allegations and claimed that they were driven by disgruntled complainants. Tamihere did not permit Kemp to be interviewed but acknowledged that marae workers had given gifts to encourage people to participate in the 2023 Census and to switch to the Māori roll.

Former Māori academic Rawiri Taonui has disputed the allegations against Manurewa Marae, Waipareira Trust and Te Pāti Māori; arguing that photocopies of census data collected at Manurewa Maare were taken solely for verification purposes and destroyed, highlighting that Statistics New Zealand had clarified that neither Tamihera, the Waipareira Trust and the Whanau Ora Commissioning Agency had access to their database, disputing that vouchers were used to encourage people to switch to the Māori electoral roll, and denying that Māori Party flyers were included in wellbeing packs.