Member of the New Zealand Parliament for Hauraki-Waikato
In office 8 November 2008 – 14 October 2023
Preceded by
New constituency
Succeeded by
Hana-Rawhiti Maipi-Clarke
Member of the New Zealand Parliament for Tainui
In office 27 July 2002 – 8 November 2008
Preceded by
New constituency
Succeeded by
Constituency abolished
Majority
3,430[1]
Member of the New Zealand Parliament for Te Tai Hauāuru
In office 27 November 1999 – 27 July 2002
Preceded by
Tuku Morgan
Succeeded by
Tariana Turia
Majority
6,233[1]
Member of the New Zealand Parliament for Labour party list
In office 12 October 1996 – 27 November 1999
Personal details
Born
(1970-08-21) 21 August 1970 (age 53) Auckland, New Zealand
Political party
Labour
Spouse
William Gannin Ormsby
Relations
Tipa Mahuta (sister) Korokī Mahuta (grandfather) Te Atairangikaahu (aunt)
Children
3
Parent
Robert Mahuta (father)
Occupation
Politician
anthropologist
diplomat
Nanaia Cybele Mahuta[2] (born 21 August 1970) is a New Zealand former politician who served as the Minister of Foreign Affairs of New Zealand from 2020 to 2023. In October 2022, Mahuta became the Mother of the House, having served continuously in the House of Representatives since the 1996 general election.[3] She lost her seat in parliament in the 2023 general election.
Mahuta was born into the kāhui ariki in Auckland, the daughter of Sir Robert Mahuta, who was the adopted son of Māori king Korokī. Affiliated to Ngāti Mahuta, her father was the elder brother of the Māori queen Te Atairangikaahu, and she is a first cousin of current Māori monarch Kiingi Tūheitia.[4] Elected to Parliament at the age of 26, Mahuta has had a long and influential career in the Labour Party. She was Minister of Local Government, Minister of Youth Development and Minister of Customs in the Fifth Labour Government and Minister of Local Government and Minister for Māori Development in the Sixth Labour Government.
She is the first female MP to wear a moko kauae (a traditional Māori facial tattoo) and is the first woman to serve as New Zealand's Minister of Foreign Affairs.[5][6] In 2018, she was listed as one of the BBC's 100 Women.[7] Domestically, she was a proponent of the Three Waters reform programme and co-governance.[8][9]
Mahuta was Minister of Foreign Affairs from 6 November 2020 to 11 November 2023. She received international recognition as the first woman (and first Māori woman) to hold the Foreign Affairs portfolio. Her wearing of a moko has been widely praised as a powerful symbol of Indigenous women. Mahuta took a generally progressive platform as Minister of Foreign Affairs. She called on the Israeli government to stop evictions of Palestinian families from their homes in illegally-occupied East Jerusalem. Mahuta introduced the Russia Sanctions Act 2022, which after unanimous approval imposed various sanctions targeting Russian elites and assets deemed to be complicit in the Russian invasion of Ukraine. As part of New Zealand's membership of the Five Eyes alliance, she condemned the disqualification of pro-democracy Hong Kong legislators as a breach of Hong Kong's autonomy and rights under the Sino-British Joint Declaration.
^ ab"Elections NZ 2005: Official Count Results — Tainui" (PDF). Parliament.nz. Archived from the original (PDF) on 11 February 2012. Retrieved 10 September 2017.
^"Mahuta, Nanaia: Members Sworn". Hansard. New Zealand Parliament. 25 November 2020. Retrieved 13 November 2023.
^"Members of Parliament – Longest, shortest, oldest, youngest". New Zealand Parliamentary Service. Archived from the original on 25 October 2022. Retrieved 25 October 2022.
^"Tainui's Sir Robert Mahuta dies". TVNZ. 1 February 2001. Retrieved 2 November 2020.
^Roy, Eleanor Ainge; de Jong, Eleanor (11 August 2016). "'This is who I am', says first female MP to wear Māori facial tattoo in NZ parliament". The Guardian. ISSN 0261-3077. Retrieved 15 March 2023.
^Manch, Thomas (27 November 2020). "National portrait: Nanaia Mahuta, the foreign minister no-one saw coming". Stuff. Retrieved 15 March 2023.
^"BBC 100 Women 2018: Who is on the list?". BBC News. 19 November 2018. Retrieved 23 July 2019.
^"Minister Nanaia Mahuta offers three waters co-governance defence". RNZ. 10 June 2022. Retrieved 30 November 2022.
^Porter, Gideon (21 October 2022). "Co-governance new reality says Mahuta". Waatea News: Māori Radio Station. Retrieved 30 November 2022.
Nanaia Cybele Mahuta (born 21 August 1970) is a New Zealand former politician who served as the Minister of Foreign Affairs of New Zealand from 2020 to...
Nanaia may refer to: Nane (goddess), a pagan mother goddess worshipped in Armenia and close to Georgia NanaiaMahuta (born 1970), a New Zealand politician...
years and in the process unseated incumbent foreign affairs minister NanaiaMahuta. Prime Minister Hipkins conceded on election night, paving the way for...
briefly Minister of Foreign Affairs in November 2023 after incumbent NanaiaMahuta lost her re-election bid. During the 2023 New Zealand general election...
the Five Eyes." In mid-April 2021, the New Zealand Foreign Minister NanaiaMahuta issued a statement that New Zealand would not let the Five Eyes alliance...
Commissioner to Kiribati. On 1 June 2022, the Minister for Foreign Affairs, NanaiaMahuta, announced Higgins' appointment as the Administrator of Tokelau. "New...
exchange over the awarding of government contracts to Foreign Minister NanaiaMahuta's husband Gannin Ormsby. In mid-October 2022, Hipkins, acting on behalf...
performance of wastewater and stormwater networks. On 28 January 2020, NanaiaMahuta, the Minister of Local Government, released Cabinet papers and minutes...
and Tonga. On 16 June 2022, Wong visited New Zealand Foreign Minister NanaiaMahuta to reaffirm bilateral relations and cooperation in the areas of climate...
excluded from participating Seat reserved New Zealand Foreign Minister NanaiaMahuta Philippines President Bongbong Marcos Russia Foreign Minister Sergey...
elder daughter, Nanaia, is a Labour MP (and has one son) and his younger daughter is Tipa (who has one daughter and a granddaughter). Mahuta studied at the...
which he was replaced by Grant Robertson as Deputy Prime Minister, and NanaiaMahuta as Minister of Foreign Affairs. On 20 June 2021, Peters announced during...
"dysfunctional" council. On 18 December 2020, Minister of Local Government NanaiaMahuta confirmed that the government would be appointing commissioners to administrate...
against Māori people in October 2022. He called Foreign Affairs minister NanaiaMahuta a "petuh" (Russian: петух, a Russian-language derogatory term for a...
Another Labour MP, NanaiaMahuta, eventually decided that she would also vote against the bill, but chose not to leave the Labour Party. Mahuta had no ministerial...
Atairangikaahu had whāngai-adopted siblings including Sir Robert Mahuta, whose daughter NanaiaMahuta served as a member of Parliament and, from 2020 to 2023,...
(Green), James Shaw (Green), Kevin Hague (Green), Louisa Wall (Labour), NanaiaMahuta (Labour), Paul Foster-Bell (National), and Trevor Mallard (Labour)....
condemned Hamas terrorism. ACT also accused Labour Foreign Minister NanaiaMahuta of not explicitly opposing Hamas' actions. The name comes from the initials...
Archived from the original on 25 March 2022. Retrieved 26 March 2022. NanaiaMahuta (16 May 2022). "Belarusian leaders and defence entities targeted under...
"unacceptable and unprecedented" attack. The New Zealand Foreign Minister NanaiaMahuta said that the incident and the detention of Protasevich "raise[d] serious...
agreement. On 28 January 2020, the Minister of Local Government, Hon NanaiaMahuta, released Cabinet papers and minutes setting out intentions for reform...
Archived from the original on 25 March 2022. Retrieved 26 March 2022. NanaiaMahuta (21 November 2022). "Further sanctions on the political and economic...
Allan Damien O'Connor Jo Luxton Andrew Little David Parker Peeni Henare NanaiaMahuta Priyanca Radhakrishnan Kieran McAnulty Ginny Andersen Barbara Edmonds...