Nanaia Mahuta

Nanaia Cybele Mahuta (born 21 August 1970) is a New Zealand former politician who served as the minister of foreign affairs from 2020 to 2023. A member of the New Zealand Labour Party, Mahuta served as the member of Parliament (MP) for 27 years, at first for the party list and then for three different Māori electorates, latterly for Hauraki-Waikato. Mahuta served as 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. In October 2022, Mahuta became the Mother of the House, having served continuously in the House of Representatives since the 1996 general election. She lost her seat in parliament in the 2023 general election to Te Pāti Māori candidate Hana-Rawhiti Maipi-Clarke, who was subsequently Baby of the House. 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 former Māori monarch Kiingi Tūheitia. Elected to Parliament at the age of 26, Mahuta has had a long and influential career in the Labour Party. She was also 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. 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 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. She was the first female MP to wear a moko kauae (a traditional Māori facial tattoo), which was widely praised as a powerful symbol of Indigenous women. In 2018, she was listed as one of the BBC's 100 Women. Domestically, she was a proponent of the Three Waters reform programme and co-governance.

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