In Australia, Kopu worked in community programmes aimed at drug addicts and prostitutes at a crisis centre in Kings Cross, New South Wales.
Kopu also had considerable involvement in rehabilitation programmes for criminals acting as house parents for long term prison inmates after their release.
In the 1996 election, the first to be conducted under the new MMP system, Kopu contested the Te Tai Rawhiti seat, essentially a reconfigured Eastern Maori.
While she did not win Te Tai Rawhiti, the Alliance received enough votes for Kopu to enter parliament as a list MP.
She was also seen as having been elected in a 'backdoor' manner; Mana Mohutake leader Sandra Lee had threatened to resign if the Alliance did not include Kopu in a high place on the party list.
[3] This was compounded by her apparent lack of participation – many Alliance colleagues complained that she was rarely seen in Parliament, and believed that she was not doing sufficient work.
Moreover, Kopu (like all other Alliance MPs) had previously signed a pledge affirming that if she ever left the party, she would resign from parliament.
Upon leaving the Alliance, she also received strong support from several other Māori MPs, notably Tau Henare of the New Zealand First party.
Henare, who had often criticised the Alliance's (and Mana Motuhake's) approach to Māori affairs, said that Kopu was welcome to join New Zealand First, although this was later rejected by other members of the party.
[8] After spending some time as an independent, Kopu decided to establish her own political party, Mana Wahine Te Ira Tangata.
Mana Wahine became significant when, in 1999, the governing National Party was with a precarious majority when its coalition with New Zealand First collapsed.