Nanaia Cybele Mahuta (born 21 August 1970) is a New Zealand politician who is the Member of Parliament (MP) for Hauraki-Waikato and serving as the Minister of Foreign Affairs in the Sixth Labour Government since 2020. She is also the Minister of Local Government, and served as Minister for Māori Development from 2017 to 2020. A political veteran, Mahuta has had a long and influential career in the Labour Party, and has served as a Member of Parliament continuously since 27 November 1999. In 2018, she was listed as one of the BBC's 100 Women. Mahuta was born into Māori royalty in Auckland, the daughter of Sir Robert Mahuta. Affiliated to Ngāti Mahuta, her father was the elder brother of Te Atairangikaahu, and her first cousin is current Māori monarch Kiingi Tūheitia. Mahuta joined the Labour Party at the request of retiring Western Maori MP Koro Wētere. Mahuta was elected as one of the first New Zealand list MPs. She was the youngest member of the New Zealand House of Representatives from 1999 until 2002. In 2004, she joined Tariana Turia in voting against the first reading of her party's controversial foreshore and seabed legislation, but did not secede from Labour to the nascent Māori Party like Turia and others. In the 2005 general election Mahuta ascended to cabinet as part of the Fifth Labour Government’s third and final term. She served as Minister of Customs, Minister of Local Government, Minister of Youth Development, Associate Minister for the Environment, and Associate Minister of Tourism. Following the defeat of the Labour government in the 2008 election, Mahuta held various shadow cabinet portfolios. She later stood unsuccessfully for the Labour Party leadership in 2014. Mahuta was announced as the next Minister of Foreign Affairs on 2 November 2020. She received international recognition as the first woman (and first Māori woman) to hold the Foreign Affairs portfolio. Her wearing of a moko has been widely praised as a powerful symbol of Indigenous women. Mahuta has taken a generally progressive platform as Minister of Foreign Affairs. She has called on the Israeli government to stop evictions of Palestinian families from their homes in illegally-occupied 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