Do we like Te Hamua Nikora?
Our score: 7 out of 10. A clean record and a good stand in 2025, but the coverage is thin, so we can't go higher than a solid 7.
Te Hamua Nikora is a Māori broadcaster and MC from Ngāti Porou and other iwi, best known as a presenter on shows like Pūkana, Kai Time on the Road and Homai Te Pakipaki. When Mana announced him as a candidate in 2013, its president called him a grassroots bloke who speaks in a language our people understand.
That political bit was real. He stood for Mana in the 2013 Ikaroa-Rāwhiti by-election and finished second to Labour's Meka Whaitiri, and he stood in the electorate again in 2014. He never won, so there is no voting record to judge, just a TV personality who put his hand up.
The harm check is the bit that matters here, and it comes up clean. We searched for anything he has said or done against LGBTQ+ people, women, migrants, vaccines or the climate, and found nothing. Coverage of him is mostly TV and MC work, so it's a thin record, and we'll say so plainly.
What we did find is good. In February 2025, after a group allegedly linked to Destiny Church performed a haka at a Rainbow Story Time event in West Auckland, he questioned using haka and tikanga Māori against the LGBTQIA+ community. He composed a haka in support of takatāpui people, and said haka shouldn't be used to intimidate children. Destiny's spokesperson disputed that children were terrorised.
On the good-person side, no court outcomes, lawsuits or allegations turned up in our searches, and nothing recent has been reported on him lately. That's an absence of bad news rather than a mountain of evidence, which is why this is a seven and not a nine.