The two main contenders for Te Tai Hauāuru Māori electorate are Te Pāti Maori co-leader Debbie Ngarewa-Packer and Labour candidate Soraya Peke-Mason. Photo / Mike Scott
The two main contenders for Te Tai Hauāuru Māori electorate are Te Pāti Maori co-leader Debbie Ngarewa-Packer and Labour candidate Soraya Peke-Mason. Photo / Mike Scott
The Māori electorates are “wide open” this election, but with the increasing prospect of neither Labour or Te Pāti Māori in government, there is a more collective approach than in the past emerging. Michael Neilson canvasses each of the unique battlegrounds, focusing on one of the hottest contests: Te Tai Hauāuru.
Te Tai Hauāuru is much like any of the six other Māori electorates - vast, diverse, and it’s often hard to pick a winner.
In the Māori electorates, what happens in Parliament doesn’t necessarily translate into support on the ground, where that support can instead stem from iwi affiliations to historical grievances and be marred by local political scandals - and Te Tai Hauāuru has them all.
This election, it will be also be a litmus test for how far Te Pāti Māori has come since re-entering Parliament in 2020 with a rebrand, and whether campaigning from them and Labour about what Māori stand to lose under a potential National, Act and NZ First government has had any effect.
Co-leader Rawiri Waititi looks near-certain to wrap up Waiariki once more. That means the party should get three, maybe four, more MPs in on the party vote. But the six other seats, held by Labour, are less certain this time.
The real test for Māori is how they convince their electorates, and Ikaroa-Rāwhiti - where Labour defector Meka Whaitiri is taking on Labour’s Cushla Tangaere-Manuel - will be the battleground to watch.
Travelling up from Te Whanganui-ā-Tara/Wellington into Te Tai Hauāuru, billboards of Labour’s Soraya Peke-Mason are the first that hit you, from Porirua through Levin and onwards to Rātana Pā, where she lives.
As you head into Whanganui, hoardings for National’s Harete Hipango, a former local Whanganui MP, emerge.
It’s a striking sight to see a National candidate on a Māori electorate billboard. Hipango is the first to do so since 2002 for her party, having convinced former leader Judith Collins to commit after successive leaders campaigned against getting rid of the seats entirely.
National Party candidates Hinurewa Te Hau (Tāmaki Makaurau) and Harete Hipango (Te Tai Hauāuru). Photo / Michael Neilson
Now the party is also in Tāmaki Makaurau with Hinurewa te Hau, a creative and entrepreneur who also twice ran for the Māori Party (she says she’s always backed National and ran when it worked with the Māori Party).
And beyond Whanganui, Te Pāti Māori co-leader Debbie Ngarewa-Packer starts to dominate the landscape.
Those geographical splits also generally correlate with support bases. At Rātana Pā, it was hard to find anyone with a bad word to say about Peke-Mason, while in the streets of Hāwera, there was generally only one name: Ngarewa-Packer (although that was not always the case).
But travelling through Te Tai Hauāuru, you also couldn’t help but notice National and Act party billboards vastly outnumbered either of the top Māori electorate candidates there.
Ngarewa-Packer likes to call them “markers of colonisation”.
Debbie Ngarewa-Packer - Te Tai Hauāuru. Photo / RNZ / Katie Scotcher
It also illustrates the contrast between the Māori and general electorates in rural areas. Taranaki, Whanganui and Manawatū are all traditionally National Party regions in the general seats and party vote (2020 red tide aside).
This is a region of great industry, rooted in extraction - farming to minerals and oil and gas, and at times high employment and wealth, but which is not always evenly distributed.
In Taranaki, the Māori unemployment rate, at 12.7 per cent as of June, was three times that of Pākehā, at 4.3 per cent.
Covid-19 also illustrated the divide further, with huge inequities in vaccination rates for Māori. It is also a place still reckoning with its colonial past, the Taranaki Land Wars and mass confiscations, with the scars of Parihaka within a generation’s reach.
Ngarewa-Packer only just lost the contest for the seat in 2020 against Labour’s Adrian Rurawhe by 1000 votes (she piggybacked into Parliament after Rawiri Waititi claimed Waiariki), but with Rurawhe as Speaker going list-only, the contest is wide open.
As an MP and co-leader of her party, she has been making headlines and gaining a national profile in her “unapologetic” - at times provocative - approach to advocating for Māori.
Te Pāti Maori co-leader Debbie Ngarewa Packer at Ōpunakē Beach in Taranaki. Photo / Mike Scott
It’s a strategy she and her party are taking into the election, and why they are not too fazed about the prospect of not being in government.
“We’ve been in opposition for over 180 years,” said Waititi in a recent debate, referencing the signing of Te Tiriti o Waitangi in 1840, but perhaps also illustrating a break with the Māori Party that spent nine years with National (both have ruled each other out this time).
Ngarewa-Packer and her party are also courting the youth vote, with an increasingly younger Māori population. The median age of Māori is about 26 years, compared to the national median of 38.
Ngarewa-Packer was definitely the most active MP on TikTok, at least before National caught on to the craze.
She’s passionate about her rohe, growing up in Pātea, and it’s clear eliminating poverty is her main focus.
“We got in to create transformational change, and to grow the movement to do that.
“We want to end poverty, not delay it, not incrementally address it. We want to protect our environment, not incrementally, not slowly. Transformation. And I think that’s why it’s important to support us.”
Te Pāti Maori co-leader Debbie Ngarewa Packer is a keen surfer and credits that as contributing to her passion for protecting the moana. Photo / Mike Scott
She’s also campaigning on what she says is protecting Māori from going backwards if they don’t get into government with Labour and the Greens - their preferred choice, although they’re also open to cross-benches.
“Our focus, if National and Act get into government, is to treat the last three years as a warm-up; to do everything we can stop them from taking us backwards into a country that is boldly discriminatory, that is boldly anti-Māori, anti-Pasifika, anti-takatāpui.
“Everything we can to stop a government that is intent on protecting the per cent of the population who own 50 per cent of the wealth, at the misery of the 98 per cent.”
Ngarewa-Packer’s main rival will be Peke-Mason, who entered Parliament as a list MP after Trevor Mallard retired.
Labour's candidate for Te Tai Hauāuru electorate, Soraya Peke-Mason. Photo / Mike Scott
A recent Curia poll for Whakaata Māori surprised many, with Peke-Mason on 34 per cent besting Ngarewa-Packer at 29 per cent.
Commentators have noted how hard it is to poll Māori electorates - the poll had just 500 respondents - but say it also highlighted how strong the Rātana Church connection is to Labour.
The Rātana movement is a church and pan-iwi political movement founded by Tahupōtiki Wiremu Rātana in 1925. It has historic links to the Labour Party after its founding prophet formed an alliance with former Prime Minister Michael Joseph Savage in 1936.
The poll also appeared to dispel some speculation a recent split within the church involving her husband would hurt Peke-Mason.
“People can make up their own minds - there is no pressure [from the church],” said Peke-Mason.
“But I hope that everyone else will think about the history that we have with the Labour Party and continue to support that alliance.”
Ngarewa-Packer said she thought the Labour connection was overdone. In the past, the church had backed Māori Party founder Tariana Turia.
“[Soraya’s] Rātana, but so am I, so are whānau,” Ngarewa-Packer said.
Labour candidate for Te Tai Hauāuru Soraya Peke-Mason says it is "important to be at the table". Photo / Mike Scott
For her part, Peke-Mason is clear she wants to continue the mahi that Labour has done over the past six years.
Peke-Mason was born and raised in Whanganui. She spent 20 years working in Australia before returning in the early 2000s, marrying her husband Andre, whose whānau is heavily involved with Rātana.
Peke-Mason is fourth-generation Rātana morehu, and got into politics through her husband’s whānau.
Labour candidate for Te Tai Hauāuru, Soraya Peke-Mason, is fourth-generation Rātana morehu and hopes to continue the strong connections between the party and Māori faith movement. Photo / Mike Scott
Peke-Mason has gone electorate-only this election, meaning if she doesn’t win the seat, she won’t be in Parliament. This can also be a tactic to convince voters they can get a “two-for-one”, with Ngarewa-Packer near-guaranteed to enter Parliament due to her place at the top of the party list.
A similar tactic is being encouraged in Ikaroa-Rāwhiti, where Heather Te Au Skipworth, who gave up her candidacy for Te Pāti Māori to Meka Whaitiri after her shock defection from Labour, is now campaigning for Labour’s Cushla Tangaere-Manuel.
Whaitiri is number three on her party’s list and very likely to enter Parliament that way, while Tangaere-Manuel is also electorate-only.
Peke-Mason said her decision was so that she could focus on the electorate only, as well as to let the younger generation through on the party list.
Like Ngarewa-Packer, Peke-Mason is trying to energise Māori voters but illustrating what could be lost under a National and Act government, such as the Māori Health Authority. Where she differs is her belief in being “at the table”.
“Unless we get another term, to be able to lock them down, it will be all lost.”
Three years ago, the big question was if Te Pāti Māori could get back in Parliament - this time the question is how much bigger will they be.
Few punters would bet against Waititi in Waiariki, who has been a strong local voice, but especially given his prominence nationally.
And with polls hovering around 3 per cent, the party is likely to double their current two seats to four, and potentially five.
The other big questions are how National’s Māori candidates will go, and whether any of the candidates will have any influence in a future government, given current polls have National, Act and NZ First in pole position.
Ikaroa-Rawhiti candidate Meka Whaitiri caught many by surprise when she defected to Te Pāti Māori from Labour - none more so than Willie Jackson. Photo / Warren Buckland
Labour’s Māori campaign chairman Willie Jackson has long said the landscape this election is vastly different to 2017, when he led the charge to kick Te Pāti Māori out of Parliament.
Earlier in the year, it was looking like Labour, the Greens and Te Pāti Māori were hotshots to lead the next government together, but that is looking increasingly unlikely by the day.
Now, Jackson has been in kōrero with his counterparts in Te Pāti Māori and the Greens about setting aside at least some of their differences and focusing on getting Māori out to vote.
“We need to be less about fighting each other.
“The best thing to do is just to get out our people out to vote.”
Jackson has largely conceded Waiariki to Waititi, though he rates newcomer Toni Boynton and expects her to give a good fight. He says Te Tai Hauāuru will be close, but he’s backing all his MPs in their seats.
It was Jackson who convinced Tangaere-Manuel to run for the party, and he’s on the ground with her working hard.
Jackson also acknowledges the challenges of this campaign in particular with a swing back to the centre-right. He has acknowledged perhaps Labour has gone too far and too fast with some of its policies, particularly around co-governance, without bringing enough of the general population along with them.
It’s the reason why they haven’t launched any major new policies this election and are campaigning on what they have achieved instead.
“It’s a hell of a tightrope,” he told the Herald.
“But we’ve consistently delivered $1 billion budgets, and despite what John Tamihere says - that it’s not enough - it’s 10 times what they got working with National.”
