Māori loan affair

The Māori loan affair (or loans affair) of 1986 and 1987 in New Zealand was an unauthorised attempt by Te Puni Kōkiri (TPK; the Māori Affairs Department) to raise money overseas for Māori development. The affair was first raised in Parliament on 16 December 1986 with a question from opposition National MP Winston Peters about loan negotiations; the revelations dumbfounded ministers; and the House adjourned on 18 December. Peters was reluctant to share all his information with Roderick Deane or his National Party leader Jim Bolger, and Bolger then downplayed the affair. Peters was getting information from an informant in Wetere’s office and from Rotorua businessman Rocky Cribb. Peters was first advised of the affair by Edwin Perry an associate of Cribb and like Cribb a National Party member. The affair helped Peters′ promotion to the front bench after the 1987 election.

Members of the Fourth Labour Government were divided on the action to be taken, with David Lange, Lange's staff, and Geoffrey Palmer wanting the resignation of Koro Wētere as Minister of Maori Affairs and from his seat in Parliament (Wētere would then face a by-election in an election year), though Cabinet decided against this on 9 February. Hence as Bassett later wrote, “Several ministers would agree in later years, however that it was about the time of the Maori loans affair that cabinet solidarity began to fall apart” ; and Roger Douglas said when he resigned that “’hostilities’ started with the Maori loans affair”.

At the beginning of 1987 a Television New Zealand report from Hawaii claimed a link with the CIA and suggested an American attempt to destabilise the Labour government because of its anti-nuclear policy, although Palmer thought the matter involved incompetence in the Department. Ronald Rewald had opened a branch of his Hawaiian investment firm in Auckland, and it was shown on local television; however Rewald was convicted of various crimes including perjury; he had claimed that he was financed and employed by the CIA.

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