Harete Hipango to seek selection in ‘unwinnable’ electorate - likely to exit Parliament at election

National Party MP Harete Hipango with Voices for Freedom protesters in Whanganui. Photo / Supplied

Scandal-prone National MP Harete Hipango is withdrawing from the contest to be selected as National’s candidate for the Whanganui electorate, a seat she once held but which is now represented by Labour’s Steph Lewis.

Instead she will seek selection in the the Māori seat of Te Tai Hauāuru, currently held by Labour but which is fiercely contested by Te Pāti Māor co-leader Debbie Ngarewa-Packer.

The seat has not voted for National since the party was formed. In 1931, Western Māori, as it was then known, elected Taite Te Tomoa, an MP from the Reform party, one of the two parties that formed a coalition and later merged to become the National Party.

Hipango will almost certainly lose that electorate if she is selected as the candidate, meaning her only chance of re-entering Parliament is by securing a good position on the party list.

Hipango is the first National Party candidate in a Māori electorate since the party last contested the seats in 2002.

“I commend Christopher Luxon and the National Party for taking the step to set up another Māori seat structure,” she said.

Hipango implicitly acknowledged she would struggle to win the seat in her statement, talking only of growing the party vote in the electorate, rather than contesting the electorate vote too.

“I believe the time is right for the National Party to realise the value of the Māori seats to engage Māori voters and help to grow National’s share of the party vote,” Hipango said.

“As a two-term sitting MP, I’m cognisant of the National Party’s revival of a history within the Māori seats dating back to the days of Sir Apirana Ngata, Sir James Carroll and Sir Peter Buck,” she said.

The decision to shift electorates is curious, given National stands a chance of winning Whanganui back from Labour at the election.

Hipango faced allegations of inappropriate spending in the last Parliament.

Sources inside the National Party have told the Chronicle that a staff member of the MP flagged a concern in the last term of Parliament, alleging items of furniture were bought out of the MP’s taxpayer funds but did not appear in the office.

The allegations surround a purchase of some furniture, including a new television, which allegedly were delivered and kept in Hipango’s own home.

Little comment was made about the matter at the time. Then-National leader Judith Collins said she “there’s very little in it and actually the information she has provided to me was that everything she purchased she purchased correctly or she paid for herself once she was alerted to the fact it had been wrongly coded”.

Hipango also appeared at multiple anti-vaccination protests, contrary to the National Party’s pro-vaccination stance.

Luxon was forced to clarify his party’s position on vaccination after Hipango posted a picture of herself at the rally.

Last year, Hipango admitted to asking a staffer to edit her Wikipedia page. The staffer removed a section detailing a lengthy list of her controversies.

Hipango later said she regretted the request.

The Wikipedia edit saga now features on Hipango’s Wikipedia page.