I haven’t been following the ins and out of all this but John Tamahere has a history of manipulative horrible bullshit so I’m inclined to believe Kapa-Kingi on this one.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Tamihere#Other_political_controversies_while_in_office

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Tamihere#Radio_career_and_the_"Roast_Busters"_controversy

I’d bet money on Tamahere having a lot of dark triad stuff going on.