Arnold Reedy(grandfather) Patricia Hekia Parata (born 1 November 1958) is a former New Zealand public servant, diplomat, and politician.

Born and raised in Ruatoria, Parata shares Scottish, Irish, English, Ngāi Tahu and Ngāti Porou ancestry.

She has stated that was unable to join the pitch invasion due to a plaster cast from the hip following surgery for a netball injury.

"[9] She resigned from Foreign Affairs in 1987 and moved to the Ministry for the Environment, from which she was immediately seconded to work in Attorney-General Geoffrey Palmer's office on Treaty settlements and, thereafter, Prime Minister David Lange's policy advisory group.

[9] Parata next worked at the New Zealand Housing Corporation before her final public service role, as deputy chief executive of Te Puni Kōkiri, the new Ministry for Māori Development.

In 1997, Parata was appointed by Prime Minister Jim Bolger as a member of the Towards 2000 Taskforce, to "advise the Government on the appropriate "vision", events for the [millennium] celebrations and national projects of lasting public benefit".

[21][22] Parata's name was connected to an investigation by the State Services Commissioner Don Hunn into the improper use of public funds in the purchase of two vehicles for her partner (and at that time Te Puni Kōkiri chief executive) Wira Gardiner in 1995.

The investigation cleared both Gardiner and Parata of any illegal activity, and the cars were returned to the Ministry for re-sale at a Government auction.

[23] Parata's consultancy firm was contracted to recommend the best options for providing "ongoing high quality Māori advice" to Chief Executive Christine Rankin and senior managers at the Department of Work and Income in 1999, at a cost of $207,500.

[24] The firm also attracted controversy when National MP Murray McCully criticised the spending of $240,000 by the Ministry of Economic Development for training courses on the Treaty of Waitangi run by the company in 2003.

The campaign was managed by Parata's husband, Wira Gardiner, whose first wife Pauline had been the MP for a previous central Wellington electorate.

[26] In a speech given by the National Party leader Don Brash to the Orewa Rotary Club on 27 January 2004, he spoke on the perceived "Māori racial separatism" in New Zealand.

[36] On 10 August 2010, Labour MP Luamanuvao Winnie Laban announced that she would resign from Parliament to take up a position as an assistant vice-chancellor at Victoria University of Wellington, leading to a by-election in the Mana electorate.

[39][40] After the by-election, on 6 December 2010, Prime Minister John Key announced Parata would take over the Cabinet positions formerly held by Pansy Wong, who had resigned after a scandal emerged involving the use of taxpayer funded travel the month before.

[49] She was expected to implement the National Government's plans to improve the quality of teaching and shake up the sector, but got into difficulty almost immediately.

[51] Parata also had to negotiate the introduction of charter schools as part of National's confidence-and-supply agreements with John Banks and David Seymour, which was opposed by much of the existing education sector.

Each of these proposals was met with staunch opposition from affected parties and led to media speculation about Parata's performance and abilities.

[56] Parata also oversaw the introduction of the controversial Novopay payroll system which cost $30 million and was supposed to streamline payments to teachers and school staff.

[60] New Zealand Herald commentator Audrey Young wrote, "Parata came in with high expectations about how to lift student achievement, but an unrealistic view of what the Ministry of Education was capable of doing".

[63] However, Prime Minister John Key removed responsibility for managing the Novopay system from Parata, giving that job to Steven Joyce.

[64] A One News Colmar Brunton poll in February 2013 saw 59% of those surveyed believed the Prime Minister made the wrong decision by keeping Parata on.

[67] Political obituaries described her as having "risen from the ashes" of her earlier tenure as education minister, lauding her for the improvement in the rate of Māori and Pasifika students obtaining NCEA level 2.

[70][71] She also began the work to replace the socioeconomic decile school funding system with an equity index involving predictive risk modelling, which was completed under the Sixth Labour Government.