Hawke's Bay: Time is right for MP challenge to Meka Whaitiri, says Heather Skipworth

Heather Skipworth at the time of being named a QSM recipient in 2014. Now she seeks to add the letters MP. Photo / File

IronMāori co-founder and Hawke's Bay District Health Board member Heather Skipworth is stepping up the game to take on national politics in a challenge for the Ikaroa-Rawhiti Māori electorate seat of Labour MP Meka Whaitiri.

Skipworth is in her third term as a member of the DHB, being first elected in 2013 and being re-elected in 2016 and at the latest local elections in October.

IronMāori was founded in 2009 and five years later Skipworth's contribution was recognised with a Queen's Service Medal in the 2014 Queen's Birthday Honours.

The third candidate named by the Māori Party for this year's election, Skipworth will be up against incumbent Whaitiri, whose nomination for Labour in Ikaroa-Rāwhiti was also confirmed last week.

Skipworth's candidacy in the September 19 was decided at a hui during the weekend at Waipatu Marae, near Hastings, and she will now carry the hopes of the party in an electorate that includes the full Hawke's Bay and Wairarapa area of iwi Ngāti Kahungunu and stretches from East Cape to Hutt Valley.

Of Ngāti Kahungunu, Kāi Tahu, Ngāti Ruanui, Ngāti Tūwharetoa and Te Arawa descent, she is faced with pegging back the substantial majority held by Whaitiri, who won the seat in a June 2013 by-election following the death of seat founding MP Parekura Horomia.

Whaitiri retained the seat with a 4210-votes majority over previous Māori Party List MP Marama Fox, in an electorate which also had one of the highest proportions of party votes, the Labour Party landing almost 65 per cent of all party votes cast in the electorate.

Skipworth, who along with her mother joined the Māori Party amid its formation in 2004, says she had "some kōrero" which provoked her into thought of a parliamentary seat challenge seven years.

She didn't think the time was right then, but does now with a chance to be in on the resurgence as it tries to get back into Parliament after failing to any seats three years ago.

Her terms on the DHB had given her a good insight into workings of politics locally, and issues facing Māori in health are the same as facing Māori in any other sector.