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# "The NZFirst Colonial Con Of Cheap Brown Labour" - 27 August 2026
- URL: https://www.themaorigreenlantern.maori.nz/the-nzfirst-colonial-con-of-cheap-brown-labour-27-august-2026/
- Published: 2026-08-27T00:13:55.000Z
- Updated: 2026-08-27T00:38:22.000Z
- Description: One Hundred And Twenty Seven Unpaid Days, A Promise Of Shares That Never Came, And A Papakura Candidate Who Sold Loyalty While Refusing To Pay For It
- Author: Ivor Jones The Māori Green Lantern

![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/b1/cd/b1cd2cb0-95e8-4ee7-ad91-84123e3121bd/content/images/2026/08/Auditing_the_Colonial_Con_-_Slide_1.jpg)

*Kia ora koutou. I am Ivor Jones. They call me The Māori Green Lantern.* 

*I do not carry a ring forged by dying aliens — I carry a taiaha sharpened by whakapapa, and tonight I am pointing it at a man who thinks Māori labour is a koha he never has to repay.*

---

## The Taniwha That Ate Its Own Feeder

![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/b1/cd/b1cd2cb0-95e8-4ee7-ad91-84123e3121bd/content/images/2026/08/The_Colonial_Con_Infographic.png)

There is an old warning in te ao Māori about taniwha you feed but never name. Feed it in silence long enough, and it forgets you are the one keeping it alive 

> — it starts to believe it deserves to be fed, that you are lucky to be allowed to feed it. George Ngatai built a media taniwha out of a Māori broadcaster's unpaid mahi for 127 days, if Martel Wikeepa is telling the truth, and then acted shocked 

> — *shocked* — when the taniwha turned around hungry.

[NZ First candidate steps down after earlier shopping himself around to other partiesA NZ First candidate has stepped down just a month after being announced as a candidate, after confirming he had earlier shopped himself around to other parties.![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/b1/cd/b1cd2cb0-95e8-4ee7-ad91-84123e3121bd/content/images/icon/favicon-32x32.bc7fe925-cc58e3e5-2838-4cf9-bb5f-6588d7db3be5.png)RNZRNZ | Te Reo Irirangi o Aotearoa![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/b1/cd/b1cd2cb0-95e8-4ee7-ad91-84123e3121bd/content/images/thumbnail/4JJA3WJ_ngati_avif-71f9f543-b510-4e9d-b680-aa4143e1be67)](https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/politics%5Felection-2026/1136184/nz-first-candidate-steps-down-after-earlier-shopping-himself-around-to-other-parties?ref=themaorigreenlantern.maori.nz)

[![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/b1/cd/b1cd2cb0-95e8-4ee7-ad91-84123e3121bd/content/images/2026/08/Facebook-08-27-2026_11_43_AM.png)](https://www.facebook.com/reel/925661383945627)

I am not here to crown Wikeepa a saint. He has his own baggage, and I will drag it into the light same as I drag Ngatai's. 

> But I am done watching Radio New Zealand publish a headline about a "disloyal candidate" while burying the fact that a wealthy Destiny Church-linked businessman ran an unpaid Māori media operation like a plantation with a microphone.

---

## A Serial Party-Hopper With A $25 Million Wallet

![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/b1/cd/b1cd2cb0-95e8-4ee7-ad91-84123e3121bd/content/images/2026/08/Auditing_the_Colonial_Con_-_Slide_2.jpg)

George Ngatai has worn more party colours than a chameleon at a rugby test — National in 1999 and 2002, the Māori Party through the 2010s, Hannah Tamaki's Destiny Church-linked Vision New Zealand in 2020, and now New Zealand First, announced as Papakura candidate in July 2026 [reported by Awaaz](https://awaaz.co.nz/new-zealand/election-2026-nz-first-dips-into-destiny-church-ranks-for-papakura-candidate.html?ref=themaorigreenlantern.maori.nz). 

He is not a struggling man doing this out of hardship. 

In 2022 he and his wife Raewyn Bhana bought Auckland's Base FM and told staff, in writing, that their combined business interests were a "$25 million operation" — eight medical practices, two supermarkets, childcare centres, and a Mr Whippy franchise [confirmed by Awaaz](https://awaaz.co.nz/new-zealand/election-2026-nz-first-dips-into-destiny-church-ranks-for-papakura-candidate.html?ref=themaorigreenlantern.maori.nz).

> That station became Radio Aotearoa. The unpaid volunteer broadcaster at the centre of this mess is Martel Wikeepa — Shubz.

---

## The Deep Dive Podcast

Unpaid labor behind the Ngatai political scandal

0:00

/1205.556825

1×

> Listen to a lively conversation between two hosts, unpacking and connecting topics in the sources of this essay. I apologise in advance for the AI's very harsh pronounciation of reo. Please dont shoot me, :). 

## Youtube Video

> Like video? Here is a short video suppporting the essay. Again, don't shoot the messenger please because of AI's pronounciation. 😄

---

## Koha Consideration

![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/b1/cd/b1cd2cb0-95e8-4ee7-ad91-84123e3121bd/content/images/2026/08/Auditing_the_Colonial_Con_-_Slide_9.jpg)

Every koha you send tells George Ngatai, Raewyn Bhana, and every business owner banking on unpaid Māori labour that whānau will fund the accountability their $25 million never bought.

It signals that rangatiratanga includes the power to support our own truth-tellers — the ones who count the unpaid days when RNZ won't.

Kia kaha, whānau. Stay vigilant. Stay connected. And if you are able, consider a koha to ensure this voice continues.

If you are unable to koha, no worries! Subscribe or follow The Māori Green Lantern at [themaorigreenlantern.maori.nz](https://www.themaorigreenlantern.maori.nz/), kōrero and share with your whānau and friends — that is koha in itself.

**Four pathways exist:**

> For those who wish to support this mahi directly with a koha (voluntary contribution):  
> **Koha — Support:** [app.koha.kiwi](https://app.koha.kiwi/events/the-maori-green-lantern-fighting-misinformation-and-disinformation-ivor-jones?ref=themaorigreenlantern.maori.nz)

> For those who wish to receive essays directly and support through subscription:  
> **Subscribe to The Māori Green Lantern:** [themaorigreenlantern.maori.nz/#/portal/support](https://www.themaorigreenlantern.maori.nz/#/portal/support)

> For those who prefer direct bank transfer:  
> **Ivor Jones, account number 03-1395-0099387-000**

> For those on Facebook:  
> [**facebook.com/Themaorigreenlantern**](https://www.facebook.com/Themaorigreenlantern/subscribe/)

---

## What RNZ Told You, And What It Swallowed Whole

![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/b1/cd/b1cd2cb0-95e8-4ee7-ad91-84123e3121bd/content/images/2026/08/Auditing_the_Colonial_Con_-_Slide_3.jpg)

> RNZ's story is not a lie in the strict sense — it is a **partial truth weaponised into a full picture.** 

It says Ngatai "shopped himself around" to ACT and The Opportunities Party, was exposed by screenshots on the Shubz Live account, and resigned [confirmed directly from the RNZ article](https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/politics%5Felection-2026/1136184/nz-first-candidate-steps-down-after-earlier-shopping-himself-around-to-other-parties?ref=themaorigreenlantern.maori.nz). NZ First deputy leader Shane Jones added his usual smirking flourish, saying Ngatai had "bought the same parachute as Mr Stu Nash"**.**

> What that story erases: RNZ never once mentions that the man who exposed Ngatai was working for him unpaid. That omission is not neutral journalism. That is a candidate's dirty laundry getting aired while his employment practices get a free pass, because "disloyal candidate" is a story about politics and "unpaid Māori broadcaster" is a story about power — and power protects power.

---

## Analysis: Five Revelations RNZ Didn't Want You To Have

![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/b1/cd/b1cd2cb0-95e8-4ee7-ad91-84123e3121bd/content/images/2026/08/Auditing_the_Colonial_Con_-_Slide_4.jpg)

## One — He Was Unpaid, And The Station Admitted It Before The Fire Started

> Two days before this scandal detonated, Radio Aotearoa published a press release celebrating that "Martel... has volunteered his time" as one of "more than 19 volunteers across our network" [Scoop, direct source](https://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/BU2608/S00236/radio-aotearoa-network-proudly-powered-by-volunteers.htm?ref=themaorigreenlantern.maori.nz). 

That is not Wikeepa's spin. That is the employer's own confession, dressed up as gratitude, released with the precision timing of a man who knew what was coming and wanted his defence filed before the charges landed. Nineteen unpaid people, keeping a network on air, for a couple sitting on $25 million. 

## Two — The "Blackmail" Story Confirms Exactly What It Was Trying To Hide: This Is About Money

Ngatai's camp told NZ Herald that Wikeepa messaged him demanding payment and a better timeslot, warning 

> "Say ka kite to parliament & all your money you spent… Will give you one week to respond if we get nothing will take our own action," and, when refused, "Me saying i can tank your campaign aint a threat thats the truth" [reported by NZ Herald](https://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/auckland/nz-first-candidate-george-ngatai-stands-down-amid-claims-he-was-blackmailed/premium/XUGB6427WZBRTF4SMMM7YN677U/?ref=themaorigreenlantern.maori.nz). 

Call it blackmail if you like — I will not defend threats, and utu does not license extortion. 

> But notice what Ngatai's own defence accidentally proves: this was never really about disloyalty to a party. It was about a debt Ngatai didn't want to pay, and a man who decided if he couldn't get paid in money, he'd get paid in exposure.

## Three — It Was His Own Wife Who Pulled The Trigger

> *Shubz Says So* was stood down "indefinitely" in a statement personally issued by Acting CEO **Raewyn Bhana JP QSM** — Ngatai's wife — cancelling a promised move to a better 7-10pm slot [Scoop, direct source](https://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/BU2608/S00257/radio-aotearoa-announces-indefinite-stand-down-of-shubz-says-so.htm?ref=themaorigreenlantern.maori.nz). 

Employer, station owner, and candidate's spouse, all one household, deciding in private who gets to keep speaking and who gets silenced. That is not editorial independence. That is a family business making a business call about a man who embarrassed the family, and calling it protecting "mana and dignity" while doing it.

## Four — His Allies Have Real Money From Real Anti-Treaty Warriors, And That Cuts Both Ways

> Don Brash himself confirmed, in a leaked email, that Hobson's Pledge — the organisation built to strangle Māori wards and Treaty-based representation in the crib — funded vehicle hire for Corina Shields ("Aunty Heihei") to travel with Wikeepa on the "Heal the Nation" hikoi, after Shields had "offered informal assistance" to Hobson's Pledge's anti-Māori-ward campaign [confirmed by thisquality, primary-sourced](https://thisquality.com/hobsons-pledge-funded-vehicle-hire-for-travel-linked-to-heal-the-nation/?ref=themaorigreenlantern.maori.nz). 

So no, I will not crown Wikeepa a hero. He runs in circles funded by the same forces that want my mokopuna's Treaty rights stripped away. But that does not erase the pay dispute, and it does not give Ngatai a free pass either — a man can be surrounded by dubious company AND still be owed money he never got paid.

## Five — Wikeepa's Own Track Record Has Holes You Could Drive A Rental Van Through

Radio Waatea's investigation confirmed Police received **no formal complaint** over Wikeepa's claimed armed threat near Rātana, found no Māori Land Court record matching a "multi-million-dollar settlement" he reportedly claimed to be owed, and reported unresolved legal proceedings against him in Australia [Radio Waatea investigation](https://waateanews.com/2026/02/10/questions-mount-over-healing-the-nation-hikoi-as-scrutiny-grows-around-martel-wikeepa/?ref=themaorigreenlantern.maori.nz). I name this because accuracy sharpens the taiaha. I will not build a case for one whānau by lying about another.

---

## Three Examples For The Western Mind

## Example One — The Unpaid Broadcaster And The Missing Utu

![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/b1/cd/b1cd2cb0-95e8-4ee7-ad91-84123e3121bd/content/images/2026/08/Auditing_the_Colonial_Con_-_Slide_6.jpg)

**The point:** A man works four hundred and fifty broadcast hours across eighteen weeks (18 weeks × 5 weekdays × 3 hours a day, for a couple worth an admitted $25 million, and receives nothing.

**Quantified harm:** Even taking the lowest plausible New Zealand minimum wage rate (currently over $23/hour) against the claimed hours, the unpaid wage bill would run into the tens of thousands of dollars — a figure I decline to state precisely because the underlying hours claim is unverified, but the *order of magnitude* is not trivial.

**Solution:** Employment New Zealand's own tests for distinguishing a genuine volunteer from a de facto employee exist for exactly this situation — regularity, control, and economic dependency all point toward employment, not volunteering, once a role runs daily for months. Wikeepa, or any broadcaster in his position, has grounds to test this through the Employment Relations Authority, not just Facebook.

**Tikanga impact for the Western mind:** In te ao Māori, *utu* is not revenge — it is the sacred principle of reciprocal balance. Mahi given must be matched by mahi, koha, or its equivalent returned, or the relationship curdles into exploitation. Imagine, Pākehā reader, working unpaid at your neighbour's company for four months on a verbal promise of shares, then being told to be grateful for the "opportunity." 

That gut-punch feeling you just had — that is utu broken, and it is what I have documented before in [The Traffic Light Taiaha](https://www.themaorigreenlantern.maori.nz/the-traffic-light-taiaha-how-a-white-supremacist-government-built-a-punishment-machine-that-creates-no-jobs-finds-no-work-and-feeds-only-on-brown-bodies-28-february-2026/), where I traced how this country punishes the poor for obligations the state itself made impossible to meet. 

> The same logic runs here at private-sector scale: demand the mahi, withhold the utu, blame the worker when he objects.

## Example Two — The Press Release Written Before The Crime Was Confessed

![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/b1/cd/b1cd2cb0-95e8-4ee7-ad91-84123e3121bd/content/images/2026/08/Auditing_the_Colonial_Con_-_Slide_5-1.jpg)

**The point:** A company issues a glowing statement about its "volunteer culture" two days before a scandal breaks involving the exact volunteer at the centre of it.

**Quantified harm:** This is not measured in dollars but in narrative control — one press release, timed with surgical precision, shaped how every subsequent news article characterised Wikeepa: not as an unpaid worker with a grievance, but as a "volunteer," a word soaked in cheerful sacrifice rather than exploitation.

**Solution:** Broadcasting Standards Authority disclosure rules should require any radio network run by a declared political candidate's family to disclose that ownership on-air and in every press statement, not bury it in the fine print of a puff piece.

**Tikanga impact for the Western mind:** Whakapapa methodology teaches us to trace who benefits — cui bono — before accepting any official story at face value. 

For the Western reader: think of it as reading a company's crisis-management memo and mistaking it for an independent audit. I have traced this exact pattern of institutional narrative control before, in essays exposing how this government's own communications machinery buries harm behind cheerful language — the same "innovation" language used to dress up the pharmacist privatisation con I documented, where a manufactured crisis was rebranded as progress rather than harm.

## Example Three — Māori Voices Rented By Anti-Treaty Money

![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/b1/cd/b1cd2cb0-95e8-4ee7-ad91-84123e3121bd/content/images/2026/08/Auditing_the_Colonial_Con_-_Slide_7.jpg)

**The point:** A prominent anti-Treaty lobby group funded travel for two Māori-presenting online personalities, one of whom is now at the centre of a story RNZ is calling a simple candidate scandal.

**Quantified harm:** The precise dollar value of the vehicle hire has not been disclosed publicly, so I will not invent one — but the harm here is not financial, it is representational. Every time an anti-Treaty organisation funds a Māori face to carry its message, it launders a colonial argument through a whakapapa it does not respect.

**Solution:** Political and lobby-group funding of social media influencers should require the same disclosure standard as paid political advertising under the Electoral Act — full stop, no exceptions for "informal assistance."

**Tikanga impact for the Western mind:** This is *kūpapa* dynamics dressed in a hoodie and a ring light — the historical pattern of using Māori intermediaries to advance interests hostile to Māori collective wellbeing, updated for the algorithm age. For the Western reader: imagine a tobacco company quietly bankrolling a doctor's "wellness" content because the doctor's face makes the message land softer. That is the mechanism, whatever you think of the individuals caught inside it.

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## Rangatiratanga Means Naming Every Wrong In The Room

![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/b1/cd/b1cd2cb0-95e8-4ee7-ad91-84123e3121bd/content/images/2026/08/Auditing_the_Colonial_Con_-_Slide_8.jpg)

I will not launder Wikeepa's record to make Ngatai look worse than the evidence supports, and I will not launder Ngatai's wealth to make an unpaid worker's grievance disappear because RNZ decided disloyalty was the more convenient headline. 

> Both things sit in this story, ugly and true at once: a man who wobbled toward three parties in one year, and a wealthy couple who may have run a Māori broadcaster into exhaustion on a promise they never intended to keep.

> Rangatiratanga is not choosing the tidier villain. It is standing in the mess and naming every hand that pushed.

Māuri Ora.

![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/b1/cd/b1cd2cb0-95e8-4ee7-ad91-84123e3121bd/content/images/2026/08/ioTQiU4rDSoyJ2IU-2.png)

Ivor Jones The Māori Green Lantern Fighting Misinformation And Disinformation From The Far Right

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## Disclaimer

Published in the public interest concerning the conduct of a declared political candidate and broadcasting entities during the 2026 New Zealand general election. All factual claims are sourced and confidence-labelled; opinions are flagged as such. No criminal conduct is alleged against any named individual. Claims sourced solely to an unverified video transcript are explicitly marked unverified. Subject to correction or retraction on substantiated complaint.

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