Hekia Parata

Tame Parata, a Member of Parliament from 1885 to 1911, was Hekia Parata's great-great-grandfather.

One of Parata's sisters, Nori Parata, was the principal at Tolaga Bay Area School.

Another sister, Apryll Parata, was a deputy chief executive at the Ministry of Education (although was first employed in this role prior to Hekia Parata's appointment as Minister of Education).

Her brother is Sir Selwyn Parata.

Parata attended the University of Waikato, where she graduated with a Bachelor of Arts and Master of Arts in Māori studies.

Her thesis explored the role of women and the wharemate (house of mourning) on marae and was written in te reo Māori.

Bilingual in Māori and English, Parata moved between the English- and Māori-speaking communities of students and was known as "Hekia" by Māori students and "Trish" by English speakers.

Patricia Hekia Parata (born 1 November 1958) is a former New Zealand public servant, diplomat, and politician.

She was elected president of the Waikato University Students' Association in 1980, the first Māori woman to hold the role.

During the Springbok rugby tour of 1981 Parata took an active part in protests against the tour, including the protest at Rugby Park in Hamilton, which ended in a pitch invasion that stopped the match.

She has stated that was unable to join the pitch invasion due to a plaster cast from the hip following surgery for a netball injury.

Parata started working in the state sector in 1983, first with the Ministry of Foreign Affairs working on the Latin American and Caribbean desk.

Her diplomatic service included a posting in New York.

Parata was a youth representative at the first Hui Taumata held in 1984.

She resigned from Foreign Affairs in 1987 and moved to the Ministry for the Environment, from which she was immediately seconded to work in Attorney-General Geoffrey Palmer's office on Treaty settlements and, thereafter, Prime Minister David Lange's policy advisory group.

Her contributions included developing the principles of the Treaty of Waitangi as a public policy tool, Tomorrow's Schools and restructuring the former Department of Maori Affairs into two agencies: the Ministry of Māori Affairs and the Iwi Transition Agency.

Parata next worked at the New Zealand Housing Corporation before her final public service role, as deputy chief executive of Te Puni Kōkiri, the new Ministry for Māori Development.

This was where she first met Wira Gardiner, her future husband, who was then the chief executive.

They both left Te Puni Kōkiri to work as consultants and raise their two daughters, living in Ruatoria.

Parata's name was connected to an investigation by the State Services Commissioner Don Hunn into the improper use of public funds in the purchase of two vehicles for her partner (and at that time Te Puni Kōkiri chief executive) Wira Gardiner in 1995.

Parata's name was on the purchase orders issued by the Ministry, although it eventually became known that the cars were paid by and for Mr Gardiner at the time of purchase.

The investigation cleared both Gardiner and Parata of any illegal activity, and the cars were returned to the Ministry for re-sale at a Government auction.

In 1997, Parata was appointed by Prime Minister Jim Bolger as a member of the Towards 2000 Taskforce, to "advise the Government on the appropriate "vision", events for the [millennium] celebrations and national projects of lasting public benefit".

She also served on the boards of NZ On Air (a broadcasting funding authority) and the Ngai Tahu Development Corporation.

Parata's consultancy firm was contracted to recommend the best options for providing "ongoing high quality Māori advice" to Chief Executive Christine Rankin and senior managers at the Department of Work and Income in 1999, at a cost of $207,500.

The expenditure was criticised by Green MP Rod Donald, as the Māori unemployment rate rose during this period from 27 to 29%.

In 2001, Parata was appointed to the Māori Television Service Board.

She resigned within two months, reportedly blaming a "lack of funding" for the new Māori TV channel.

Parata joined the National Party in August 2001 and was selected as the National Party candidate for the Wellington Central electorate that December for the 2002 general election.

The firm also attracted controversy when National MP Murray McCully criticised the spending of $240,000 by the Ministry of Economic Development for training courses on the Treaty of Waitangi run by the company in 2003.

After a career as a senior public servant, Parata was a member of the New Zealand House of Representatives, representing the National Party, from 2008 until 2017.

She served as the Minister of Education in the Fifth National Government.

Born and raised in Ruatoria, Parata shares Scottish, Irish, English, Ngāi Tahu and Ngāti Porou ancestry.

She was one of ten children to her mother, Hīria Te Kiekie Reedy of Ngāti Porou.

Her maternal grandfather was Arnold Reedy.

Her father, Ron Parata, was of Ngāi Tahu descent and was raised in Puketeraki, near Dunedin.

He served in the Māori Battalion and was a teacher and then principal at Ngata Memorial College in Ruatoria.

She received a distinguished alumni award from the university in 2011.

In 2011, while a Member of Parliament, Parata was a senior executive fellow at the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University.

In 2017, she wrote about her feeling that New Zealand's foreign policy at the time exclusively talked about Pakehā New Zealand and did not embrace an "unequivocal New Zealand identity."