Tini "Whetu" Marama Tirikatene-Sullivan (9 January 1932 – 20 July 2011) was a New Zealand politician. She was an MP from 1967 to 1996, representing the Labour Party and was New Zealand’s first Māori woman cabinet minister. At the time of her retirement, she was the second longest-serving MP in Parliament, being in her tenth term of office. She was one of twenty holders of the Order of New Zealand, the highest honour of the country. Early life Whetu Marama Tirikatene was born on 9 January 1932, the daughter of Eruera Tirikatene and Ruti Tirikatene (). Her iwi are Ngāi Tahu and Ngāti Kahungunu. She was raised at Rātana Pā by her grandmother, dress designer and tailor Amiria Henrici Solomon. Educated at Rangiora High School and Wellington East Girls' College, she excelled in dancing, winning the New Zealand amateur Latin American ballroom dancing championship with her Australian partner Kevin Mansfield, and was also accomplished in fencing, becoming one of the top four female fencers in the country. She studied for a PhD in political science at the Australian National University, with the topic "Contemporary Maori Political Involvement". While there, she met Denis Sullivan, a physics PhD student who later became an associate professor in physics and astrophysics at Victoria University of Wellington, and they were married in Canberra on 18 March 1967. Member of Parliament Her brother Te Rino Tirikatene stood unsuccessfully for the Labour Party in the and for . When their father Sir Eruera Tirikatene died in 1967 many expected Te Rino to succeed him as MP for Southern Maori. As Te Rino was part-Maori and entitled to choose between being on the Maori and European electoral rolls, at the time of the by-election he was registered on the European roll in Rangiora where he had to remain under the electoral act until the next general election, which made it unlikely he would be eligible as a candidate in Southern Maori. With her brother effectively ruled out, attention turned to Tirikatene (studying in Australia at the time) as the likely Labour candidate for the seat. She was eventually selected as Labour's candidate. She duly was elected to succeed her father in Parliament at the Southern Maori by-election of 1967. Between 1972 and 1975, she was the Minister of Tourism. In addition, she was Associate minister of Social Welfare from 1972 to 1974. She was Minister for the Environment