Election 2020: Whanganui connections for rejigged Māori Party

Elijah Pue is ranked 12 on the Māori Party's list of 21. Photo / Bevan Conley

The Māori Party, which began in 2004 when Whanganui's Tariana Turia left the Labour Party, still has strong connections with the Whanganui region.

This year Elijah Pue, who is development and support lead for Ruapehu iwi Ngāti Rangi, is at number 12 on the party's list.

Pue was elected to Ruapehu District Council in 2019. While at Victoria University he was an adviser to the Māori Party and to the university. He has previously been a Youth MP.

Interviewed earlier this year, he told the Chronicle he wanted to go further in politics and influence positive change in the lives of his people.

Māori Party president Che Wilson, who currently lives in Hamilton, also has strong connections to Ngāti Rangi. He was its lead negotiator and is a former pou arahi (manager) for the tribe.

Wilson has not ruled out standing for Parliament in the future.

Number one on the list is the party's co-leader and Te Tai Hauāuru candidate Debbie Ngarewa-Packer. She is currently chief executive of South Taranaki iwi Ngāti Ruanui, and is a former South Taranaki District councillor and deputy mayor.

Ngarewa-Packer has been prominent in the fight to prevent iron-sand mining in the South Taranaki Bight.

Other prominent names on the list are party co-leader and former Labour cabinet minister John Tamihere who is ranked seventh on the list of 21; Iron Māori founder Heather Te Au-Skipworth (3); and former national chief executive of Women's Refuge and now Rotorua Lakes councillor Merepeka Raukawa-Tai (9).

It's a list fit for a Covid-informed landscape, Wilson said, with indigenous ingenuity and intergenerational insight featuring highly.