Bishop's Queen: A life with Brian

BY TONY WALL

When crisis hit Destiny Church's Brisbane branch, it was Hannah Tamaki who was sent to sort out the mess. The good bishop's wife runs the operation from behind the scenes with an iron fist.

You've got to be quick off the mark – or quick with the chequebook – to get a chat with Hannah Tamaki these days. The Sunday Star-Times wanted to interview Tamaki for this article, but found ourselves scooped by New Idea magazine, which is due out today with the latest happenings in Hannahworld.

Such spreads can typically command five-figure sums for the subject. Tamaki wasn't even throwing us any crumbs.

"Pastor Hannah has signed an exclusive and is unable to do any media until the expiry of the contract term," says her public relations woman, Janine Cardno.

Cardno clammed up completely when asked if Tamaki would be paid for the interview, and if so, what she would do with the money. If Tamaki has negotiated a payment, it would be just the latest in a series of shrewd business decisions by the woman who, most agree, is the brains behind Destiny's "cash cult".

Brian Tamaki readily admits he knows nothing about money and is happy to let his wife control that area, while he concentrates on preaching and being the spiritual head of the organisation.

Sources familiar with the church say while Brian is the charismatic front for Destiny, Hannah is the powerful first lieutenant controlling almost every aspect of church life, but especially the finances.

It is she who comes up with the ideas for fundraising, they say, including a regular gold coin collection, fees for speaking at other churches and a "first fruits" offering each October in which church members collectively give up to $500,000 directly to the Tamakis. She also occasionally takes the pulpit herself, extolling the virtues of giving generously to various church projects.

"She's very quick when it comes to money, if there's an opportunity to make money, she's in there," a source says.

Tamaki wears the trappings of wealth literally on her sleeve – her extensive wardrobe is colourful and expensive and she is always dripping in plenty of bling. She is 49, but in photos, at least, looks a decade younger.

A few years ago she suggested she had a blase approach to money. In a 2004 Sunday Star-Times interview with her and her husband, Hannah Tamaki claimed not to know how much the church brings in each year in donations.

"We've never, ever once said to our finance people: `What does the church make in a year?'," she told me then. "That [money] is not the motivating force. We have accounts and everything, we have other people that do it."

But former senior members of the church dispute this, and claim Tamaki now scrutinises every cent that comes in. "It's a money-making machine and she is in absolute control of it," says Lynda Stewart, a former events co-ordinator for Destiny who became personal bookkeeper to the Tamakis, but left in 2005 because of concerns over money and teachings.

Stewart says Hannah would ask for an update on the weekend's offerings every Monday morning. "She receives copies of the tithes every week, and everything that's paid out every week. She knows exactly how much comes into that place and exactly where it goes."

(The Tamakis claim Stewart is not a credible source, and are taking legal advice over "defamatory" comments she has made, with a view to taking legal action.)

But Stewart stands by everything she has said about the church and says she is speaking out because she believes church members have been kept in the dark, and have a right to know what goes on behind the scenes.

She says she was one of Hannah Tamaki's confidantes. "She doesn't like getting close to too many people. She has a little group of friends from before the church who she still stays in touch with, Maori girls from Tokoroa.

"But she keeps herself separate within the church, and because of that people revere her even more."

Stewart believes Hannah Tamaki is a "compulsive buyer". "She spends money like it's going out of fashion, especially [on] clothes, but she ends up giving half of it away. She can be very generous."

The most extravagant purchase Stewart ever saw Tamaki make, she says, was a three-carat diamond ring worth about $90,000, from a jewellers' on Auckland's North Shore. "She said Brian had had his toys, now it was her turn."

HANNAH LEE always had a nose for business. She dropped out of Tokoroa High school at 15 and got a job in the deli section of a local supermarket, quickly being offered a manager's position.

"She's pretty clued up when it comes to that sort of thing," says her elder brother Tom Lee, a boiler assistant in Tokoroa. "She's always been pretty smart, and always had lots of drive."

Her Maori mother, Polly, left the family when Hannah was only about six, and their Pakeha father, Basil, raised the children. Polly went on to marry two or three more times, and Hannah has about 10 half-brothers and sisters. Polly is now in a dementia ward in Waihi, and Basil died in 1982.

Hannah met Brian Tamaki when she was just 12, and took up with him at 15 – he was 18. Hannah had their first child, daughter Jasmine, at 18, out of wedlock. Jasmine was born premature and critically ill and the couple were told the baby wouldn't live more than 24 hours.

Hannah told Woman's Day magazine in 2004 that she prayed to God for her daughter's life, and she pulled through. (Jasmine, along with younger siblings Jamie and Samuel, today all serve in the Auckland Destiny Church.)

Around the same time, Brian Tamaki gave up alcohol, the couple became born-again Christians, and married.

Tom Lee is not a member of Destiny, but believes it does good work and is proud of his sister. "I'm positive she's a good person, she's always had a lot of empathy for people who aren't doing too well."

Whether the luxury lifestyle she and Brian lead is appropriate for pastors is beyond him, he says, as he has never read the Bible, "even though she [Hannah] gave me one for my birthday".

Tom Lee says he doesn't get to see his sister much these days; the last time they were due to meet she had to "shoot off" to Brisbane to deal with the fallout from pastor Andrew Stock's resignation. Footage later screened on television showed Hannah Tamaki escorting Stock from the church after he had delivered a farewell message to his flock.

A former Destiny pastor, who asked not to be named, claims he went through the same experience as Stock, forced to resign after disagreeing with Brian and Hannah Tamaki, who he believes created a climate of fear among senior church leaders. "They're really charming and really good leaders, but you don't cross certain lines. You get into trouble if you disagree with anything. You don't question the finances. You just don't ask questions like that, I've seen people get into hot water over it."

The former pastor says that whenever the Tamakis are questioned directly about money, each makes out they don't have that knowledge.

"They're real clever. You hear them say, `I don't know about that'. But they are the leaders of that church and they have all the information about everything. She has absolute control over all the administration and finance."Although members of the church have historically not been able to inquire about Destiny's finances, they – and the rest of the public – are starting to get a glimpse into that part of the Destiny world, thanks to financial statements slowly being drip-fed to the Charities Commission.

While the media has breathlessly reported multimillion-dollar annual donations, what has gone unnoticed is that Destiny, like a lot of churches, has suffered greatly in the financial crisis. Donations across eight of its branches are down 12% overall to $4.5 million in the 2009 financial year, and at some branches down by as much as 41%.

Sources say it is this falling revenue, plus a falling membership, which has forced Hannah Tamaki and others to come up with new fundraising initiatives, such as the Give It Heaps campaign (encouraging people to go without pay TV and coffee to get Bishop Brian back on television) which so outraged Andrew Stock.

ONE OF Hannah Tamaki's best friends is Anne Warren, of Rotorua, whose son Caine is a Destiny pastor and married to Hannah's daughter Jamie. The Star-Times sought an interview with her, but she declined. "She's the best friend a girl could ever have. I love her so much and I respect her privacy," she says.

Her husband, Matt Warren, is more forthcoming, and is effusive in his praise of an "integral" woman he has known for 17 years. "She's a very strong person, she keeps all of us on the straight and narrow, like most good women do."

It is a sentiment echoed by Brian Tamaki, a hell-raiser before he met Hannah. "I've probably needed a wife like this. I think God knew that I needed a balancing factor like Hannah," he once told the Listener.

Matt Warren says Hannah takes attacks on her and her husband hard.

"She's got her feet on the ground, especially handling a lot of the stuff said about Brian. I think it does [upset her] – some of it's exaggerated and not accurate – it's hard for them to vindicate themselves... they get on TV and loaded questions are fired at them."

Hannah Tamaki gets frustrated with the criticism, telling Woman's Day: "You know what, they are fortunate I am a Christian and God dealt with my anger problem early on, or I would smash them."

Hannah Tamaki

Born: December 12, 1960, Tokoroa

1972: Meets Brian Tamaki, whose family has moved to Tokoroa from Te Awamutu

1975: Starts dating Tamaki

1978: Couple have first child, out of wedlock, marry soon after, become born-again Christians and attend Bible college

1982: Father, Basil, who raised her, dies

1980s-90s: Brian and Hannah set up a church in TeAwamutu, then move to Rotorua and take over Lake City church

1998: Form Destiny Church

Today: Lives in Maraetai, beach suburb south of Auckland, drives a 2006 Mercedes-Benz and runs all business aspects of Destiny Church

- © Fairfax NZ News