A failed mayoral candidate has branded a Stuff journalist a "white supremacist" in reaction to an article about his funding campaign for the election.

John Tamihere, in a text message sent to Stuff senior Auckland affairs reporter Todd Niall on Friday night, wrote "Great article. From a white supremacist".

Niall had reported how Te Whanau o Waipareira, a social agency trust Tamihere heads, was his biggest donor in his mayoral campaign.

The trust donated $100,000 of his total $498,609 campaign cost – revealed in Tamihere's formal campaign spending and donation declaration filed on Friday.

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RICKY WILSON/STUFF John Tamihere lost out as Auckland mayor to incumbent Phil Goff this year (file image).

Niall said he was surprised by the text but didn't take any offence.

"Worse things have been said, some of them by John Tamihere, and considering it was at 9.25pm on a Friday night, I didn't take it seriously," Niall said.

When Stuff contacted Tamihere about the comment he said: "Are you going to jump on this one? Will you print this one too?" before hanging up.

Before Niall wrote the article, he contacted Tamihere to ask if he could talk about his election return.

"We are running a story on the returns and I need to talk to you," Niall texted.

Tamihere responded with "Todd … nice … Maori/Brown folk can support mayoral candidates like white folk like you … print that."

Tamihere did not respond to the initial campaign donation story but, in a statement, Te Whanau o Waipareira said it was proud to have supported its boss.

Niall said the fact it had already prepared a statement showed the trust recognised it was an issue it needed to address publicly.

"They were caught a bit on the hop by not understanding how and when the election campaign declarations would be available to the media – believing it would be Monday," Niall said.

LAWRENCE SMITH/STUFF Tamihere is the chief exective of the Waipareira Trust in West Auckland (file image).

Te Whānau O Waipareira is a major social and health services provider running publicly-funded programmes from its West Auckland base, and is owned by a trust.

Tamihere has led the trust as chief executive since 1991, except for during his six-year spell as a Labour MP.

The trust also has commercial activities such as building social housing developments, and its 2017-18 annual shows it made a surplus of $6.04 million from revenue of $37.8 million.

Tamihere's mayoral campaign was tainted with some controversy – most notably when he used a Nazi slogan during a heated debate with Phil Goff.

The remark was in response to Goff's praise of Auckland's diversity and condemning the "nonsense that we get from racists coming into this country to tell us that multiculturalism doesn't work".

Tamihere blurted out: "I say sieg heil to that".

His words were heavily condemned by the NZ Jewish Council and the Holocaust Centre but Tamihere did not back down and said he didn't regret saying it.

In 2005, Tamihere made headlines for anti-Semetic views when he said he was "sick and tired of hearing how many Jews got gassed" in the Holocaust.

"How many times do I have to be told and made to feel guilty?" the then-Labour MP said.