Harete Makere Hipango is a New Zealand politician and Member of Parliament in the House of Representatives for the National Party.
Hipango served as an MP from 2017 to 2020 but did not receive a seat in the 2020 general election.
After National MP Nick Smith resigned, she re-entered Parliament in June 2021 as his replacement.
Personal life
Hipango was born and raised in Pūtiki.
Her father is Māori and her mother is Pākehā.
Her iwi are Te Āti Haunui-a-Pāpārangi, Ngāti Apa, Ngā Rauru Kītahi, Ngāti Tamakōpiri, and Ngāti Whitikaupeka.
She is the great-great granddaughter of Hoani Wiremu Hipango, and World War II pilot John Pohe was her great uncle.
She is a Christian and is married with three children.
She graduated law school in 1991 and was a lawyer for more than 25 years and was a member of the Whanganui District Health Board.
Political career
2017 election and first term
Hipango was selected by the New Zealand National Party to contest the  electorate at the 2017 general election.
It was the first time the party had chosen a Māori woman to contest a seat that it already held.
In her first term, Hipango strongly opposed the End of Life Choice Act 2019 and the Abortion Legislation Act 2020.
Hipango received considerable media attention when she said that Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern was being morally inconsistent by voting to decriminalise abortion while also speaking out on child mortality rates.
Hipango also stated that the act allowed for full-term abortions, which was criticised by many as being factually incorrect, as under the legislation two health practitioners must sign off any abortion after 20 weeks.
In September 2020, Hipango posted on social media a false quote attributed to Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern.
Hipango defended this false quote by claiming it was a “construction of words” instead.
In a series of interviews given in 2021, many fellow National MPs criticised Hipango for her actions in her first term.
Several said that she was not well-liked in the caucus and "didn't have a lot of friends", with one MP saying that she "sailed her own waka" and seemed to think the party should be honoured that she agreed to join, rather than being grateful for the opportunity.
Some described her as a liability, and not a team player.
Hipango herself said in 2021 that it was very lonely during her time as an MP and Māori woman in the National Party caucus and that the party still undervalues the Māori voice.
During this term Hipango was accused of inappropriate spending; involving items of furniture and a television, which were bought with Parliamentary Service funds but delivered to her home rather than used in her electorate office.
These allegations did not become public until June 2021.
Hipango refused to comment on the issue when it was revealed but National's leader Judith Collins said that "I had a look at the numbers, there's very little in it and actually the information she has provided to me was that everything she purchased she purchased correctly or she paid for herself once she was alerted to the fact it had been wrongly coded."
The Parliamentary Service said that no formal complaint had been made against Hipango, although this is not a requirement for an investigation of possible misconduct, and declined to comment further.
Hipango helped unseat leader Simon Bridges in a leadership challenge of May 2020 in which Todd Muller took leadership.
Some among the National Party felt that National MPs who supported Judith Collins, which included Hipango, supported Muller's bid as a step towards leadership by Collins, and Collins would become the leader of the party in July 2020.
2020 loss of seat, and subsequent return in 2021
At the 2020 general election, Hipango was defeated in Whanganui by Labour's Steph Lewis by a margin of 8,191 votes.
Hipango was ranked 21st on National's party list, but this was not high enough to receive a seat at the election.
Hipango was the highest-ranked list candidate who did not enter parliament after the 2020 election.
In May 2021, National list MP Nick Smith announced that he would resign.
As the highest-ranked person on National's party list not in parliament, Hipango was automatically his replacement.
Hipango re-entered Parliament on 11 June 2021.
She took on Smith's electoral reform and research and science portfolios, as well as the portfolio of Māori tourism that she had held previously, but other policy work for the party previously undertaken by Smith will be taken on by a more senior MP.
On her return, one fellow MP expressed mixed feelings, saying “While she is a conservative and some people think we have too many of those, she is also bringing some ethnic diversity to the caucus, which we desperately need", while another said that she would need to change her behaviour of "talking outside of the party view".
Todd Muller later identified himself as one of the anonymous critical MPs, allegedly after being overheard making his comments, and announced on 23 June 2021 that he would not stand at the next general election, following a late-night caucus meeting.
On 3 November 2021, Hipango appeared at a protest against COVID-19 vaccination in Whanganui.
When she was seen by a Newshub reporter, she said that she was there to suppport her community, but shortly afterwards she left.
She later said that she had thought it was a protest about another issue.
References
