Former Speaker of the House Adrian Rurawhe has died after a short illness, and politicians from every corner of New Zealand’s Parliament spent Wednesday remembering a man they described as calm, fair and kind.
His family announced he died at 2.15am on Wednesday 30 September, Waatea News reported. In a statement carried by RNZ, the family said the loss was felt well beyond their home.
“The whanau are slowly coming to terms with such a great loss. Not only to our whanau, but to his church Te Haahi Ratana, his Iwi of Ngāti Apa and Whanganui, and his former colleagues in the House of Representatives where he served as a Member of Parliament from 2014 to January 2026.”
Rurawhe was the Labour MP for Te Tai Hauāuru, the Māori electorate that covers the western North Island, winning the seat in 2014, 2017 and 2020 before returning as a list MP after the 2023 election. On 24 August 2022 he was elected the 31st Speaker of the House, only the second Māori to hold the role after Sir Peter Tapsell. He held the chair until 5 December 2023, presiding over Parliament through the Ardern and Hipkins governments and the change of government that followed the 2023 election.
He announced in January that he would retire, and left Parliament on Waitangi Day, 6 February 2026. At the time he said he had spent the summer thinking about his family and his church, and that stepping away would let him be more involved in both.
Labour leader Chris Hipkins called Rurawhe “one of the finest people ever to sit in the New Zealand Parliament” in a statement quoted by RNZ.
“He carried the mana of his people and of the Speaker’s Chair with dignity and respect. He was firm without ever needing to raise his voice, and he was universally respected across every party in the House,” Hipkins said.
“Members of every party sought his counsel because they knew it would be honest, considered, and given in confidence.”
Prime Minister Christopher Luxon, who sat on the opposite side of the House for most of Rurawhe’s time as Speaker, was just as warm. According to 1News, Luxon described him as “one of those MPs who carried real mana, and was respected on all sides of the House”.
“As Speaker he was fair and calm, as a Member of Parliament he was steadfast and committed to his people, and as a man he was warm and humble,” Luxon said.
The current Speaker, National’s Gerry Brownlee, said he was deeply saddened. “He was a fine gentleman who brought a calm manner to the Speaker’s chair and a dignity to Parliament,” Brownlee said. Flags at Parliament will fly at half-mast in the coming days, and Brownlee said he would join a cross-party delegation from Parliament paying respects at Whangaehu Marae near Whanganui on Friday.
Green Party co-leader Chlöe Swarbrick, a former colleague, told RNZ’s Morning Report that Rurawhe was a “beautiful, beautiful man” who brought calm to a House that was rarely calm. She said his kindness and “generosity of spirit” sat alongside a “spine of steel” behind the scenes.
“That’s a huge loss to our country,” she said.
Family member Piriwiritua Rurawhe told Morning Report that the former Speaker had kept his health largely to himself.
“We knew he had some ailments but Adrian was a very private man even to his closest, and kept things close to his chest.”
Rurawhe’s story began a long way from the Speaker’s chair. Born in Taihape in 1961, he grew up in a railway house. His father was a train driver and second-generation railway worker, and his mother trained as a nurse before becoming a social worker, Waatea News reported.
Politics also ran deep in the family. He was a grandson of Matiu and Iriaka Rātana, who both represented Western Māori in Parliament, and a great-grandson of Tahupōtiki Wiremu Rātana, founder of the Rātana church, a Christian movement whose long alliance with Labour shaped Māori representation for most of the 20th century. When he first won Te Tai Hauāuru in 2014 he succeeded Dame Tariana Turia, another member of his wider family.
Before entering Parliament he worked in health and education. He chaired Ngāti Apa, a Whanganui-Rangitīkei tribe, for a decade and was part of the team that negotiated its Treaty settlement with the Crown. He also spent 13 years as chair of the board of Te Kura o Rātana, the school at Rātana Pā, experience he later credited with teaching him much of what he knew about governance.
In Parliament he rose steadily through the procedural side of the House rather than the ministerial ranks. He became an Assistant Speaker in 2017 and Deputy Speaker in 2020 before taking the top job in 2022. After handing the chair to Brownlee he stayed on as a Labour list MP, holding the Whānau Ora (the government’s family-centred Māori social services programme) and Associate Māori Development portfolios for the party in opposition.
His election as Speaker drew support from both sides of the House, and the tributes on Wednesday followed the same pattern. The praise came from Labour, National and the Greens in almost identical terms, with each leader pointing to his fairness and his quiet manner in the chair.
His death comes five weeks before New Zealanders head to the polls on 7 November. Campaigning continued elsewhere on Wednesday, but MPs from across the parties paused to mark the loss of a former presiding officer. If you are still weighing up your vote, our voting tool can show which party best matches your views.
Rurawhe will lie in state at Whangaehu Marae before being buried at Ngā Puketuurua at Rātana Pā. His family said further details of the funeral would be announced in the coming days.
Did you ever see Adrian Rurawhe in the Speaker’s chair or meet him in Te Tai Hauāuru? Share your memories of him in the comments below.
This article was written by AI, briefed to report the facts, hopefully without some of the bias people bring to the job 🙂
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