Smoke, mirrors and pressure politics: how Matt McCarten tried to force a deal at MUMA

There’s a difference between standing up for workers and manufacturing a crisis to force an outcome. And in the ongoing dispute between Matt McCarten and the Manukau Urban Māori Authority, that line matters.

On the Duncan Garner podcast, McCarten claimed – or at least allowed it to be claimed – that he had 19 personal grievances ready to be filed against MUMA at the Employment Relations Authority. That claim travelled fast through right-wing blogs and talkback, amplified by commentators eager to portray a Māori organisation as dysfunctional, abusive, and out of control.

But here’s the problem: those 19 personal grievances were never filed. In fact, they never existed in the way listeners were led to believe.

According to reporting in the New Zealand Herald, McCarten has taken several personal grievance matters this year – not 19.  The idea that 19 formal grievances were about to hit the ERA was wrong, and even the Herald notes that the podcast reporting on this point was incorrect. McCarten then provided a spreadsheet to the right wing blogosphere – what he failed to tell them was many were the same, several related to this Radio Waatea Station were not being represented by either him or his union and that many of them were not filed as personal grievances at all – in other words a fabrication – and instead of fact checking? the right wing bloggers went on a click bait rage with zero fact checking. They were was used by McCarten in other words.

McCarten himself has since shifted the ground. Instead of lodging mass grievances, he has attempted to challenge a trespass order issued by Ngā Whare Waatea Marae trustees. That is a fundamentally different legal issue – and crucially, one that sits outside the normal jurisdiction of the Employment Relations Authority.

Trespass is a property and tikanga matter. The ERA deals with employment relationships, not who has the right to enter a marae complex. Framing a trespass order as an “anti-union attack” suitable for ERA intervention stretches the law – and conveniently keeps the controversy alive in the media.

So why push the 19-grievance narrative at all?

Because pressure politics only works if you make the target look like it’s about to collapse.

By floating the idea of mass grievances – without filing them – McCarten created the impression of an organisation on the brink: a Māori social service provider supposedly facing dozens of workers ready to take legal action. That impression was then picked up and weaponised by right-wing bloggers and broadcasters, many of whom have long histories of attacking Māori institutions, kaupapa Māori governance, and Māori leadership.

Those commentators weren’t interested in tikanga, due process, or the wellbeing of whānau served by MUMA. They were interested in leverage.

And leverage was the point.

The strategy appears to have been simple:

– inflate the scale of complaints
– generate public outrage
– apply reputational pressure
– force MUMA into a deal, including collective bargaining, on McCarten’s terms

That is not good-faith union organising. That is brinkmanship.

It also ignores an uncomfortable truth: multiple independent checks found no evidence of widespread bullying at MUMA. The Herald reports that a consultant review failed to uncover formal complaints against the CEO, despite claims that up to 18 existed. When pressed, those complaints could not be produced.

Yet the narrative continued – because once a story is loose in the talkback ecosystem, facts struggle to catch it.

There is something especially troubling about using right-wing platforms to attack a Māori organisation founded by Dame June Batley-Jackson, one that employs over 100 staff and delivers essential services across South Auckland. These are the same platforms that routinely oppose kaupapa Māori approaches, Māori control of services, and Māori autonomy.

If this was really about workers, why hand ammunition to those who have never stood with Māori workers or Māori communities?

And if this was really about justice, why blur the line between employment law and trespass law – knowing full well that the ERA cannot simply override a marae trustee decision grounded in tikanga?

None of this is to say workers should not raise grievances. They should.

None of this is to say unions should not organise. They must.

But integrity matters.

When claims are exaggerated, when legal processes are misrepresented, and when media pressure is used as a substitute for proper filings, the real damage is not just to one organisation – it’s to trust in advocacy itself.

MUMA continues to operate. The grievances have not multiplied. The 19-case wave never arrived.

What we’re left with is a cautionary tale: about how power, media, and ideology can be used to try to bend Māori institutions into submission – and how important it is to check the facts before joining the pile-on.

Because when the smoke clears, whānau deserve better than politics dressed up as principle. I put a range of questions to McCarten and the responses were the same in a letter than provided to the righ wing blogosphere – so no there is no coming on this radio network to utilise our platform to spread more mistruths because at the end of the day if it walks like a duck, and quacks like a duck – its a duck. 

Matthew Tukaki