Analysis: Last week, when the first of the polls on the Māori electorates was released, I wanted to see if there would be any hint as to whether Māori voters might be going to punish Te Pāti Māori (TPM) for their public infighting. Either the party as a whole or the MPs most involved.
That seems to be the case. In Te Tai Tonga, support for incumbent MP Tākuta Ferris has dropped markedly, with party vote for Te Pāti Māori almost halving. In Te Tai Hāuauru, incumbent and Te Pāti Māori Co-leader, Debbie Ngarewa-Packer is leading the race, but support has dropped about 20 points, and again party vote for TPM has halved.
In those first two polls, TPM are polling third with the Greens second and Labour leading. I’ll come back to that.
Hauraki-Waikato
The Hauraki-Waikato poll shows that Parliament’s unexpected new star after the last election, Hana-Rāwhiti Maipi-Clarke, is maintaining pretty much the same support that saw her beat veteran Labour MP Nanaia Mahuta.
Dropping just 4% in electorate support and 7% in the party vote from the last election, Hana is bucking the trend of the first polls. Te Pāti Māori lead the party vote with 26%, and there is just a 7% difference between first and third. The big loser here is Labour, which has lost half its party vote from 2023.
What does this mean? To me, it suggests Māori voters are giving those who were most involved in the TMP raruru an electoral growl. While Hana, who largely stayed out of that mess, is currently maintaining the hearts and minds of Waikato-Hauraki voters
There is some irony in that.
It was clear Hana was highly disillusioned by the party ructions. That led to months of strong rumour that she was about to depart the waka of Te Pāti Māori. The kūmara vine said she would walk, possibly to stand as an independent or even be part of a fledgling new party. Belatedly, the announcement came that she was staying.
She should not take the lead for granted. She is facing a strong campaign from a confident and seasoned performer in Kingi Kiriona, Labour’s new hope for the seat. He has been highly visible, energetic and campaigning hard across the electorate. But being 20 points behind in the electorate and the party vote nearly halving will be a concern to Labour.
Until 2023, with the exception of Tukoroirangi Morgan’s one term for NZ First in that first MMP election in 1996, the seat had been a Labour fortress since the late Koro Wetere won the former Western Maori seat in 1969.
Boundary changes
Since the arrival of MMP, the boundaries of the electorate have changed significantly, and the name has changed three times. When Tuku won it in 1996, it was called Te Tai Hāuauru, which then stretched from South Auckland to Te Kūiti in King Country. In 2002 it became Tainui and in 2003 Hauraki-Waikato.
Back to the Party Vote. A strong trend emerging from these early Māori electorate polls is that the Green Party is currently cutting everyone else’s lunch.
But why are voters in the Māori electorates grumpy with Labour as well as TPM? I believe that goes back to Labour governing alone.
The 2020 election result was an aberration on the back of COVID and what was happening in the country and across the world. The pendulum swung too far one way. It gave Labour the opportunity to govern alone, minus the handbrake of its more conservative coalition partner in the previous term.
I was concerned Labour’s 2020 ambition for Māori was too bold. Just too big for the wider electorate to digest. With the Māori Health Authority, Matariki Holiday, Māori housing funding boost, education and justice reform promises, they simply tried to do too much, too fast.
Three Waters policy was bloody complex and hard to understand, and the iwi/Māori role was unclear. These things created the platform for mischievous politics, claims of racial preference and creating division, blah, blah, blah, which were never adequately countered.
Moving forward
In 2023, the pendulum let go and swung back the other way. A lot of the political rhetoric translated into the current coalition’s legislative programme.
Jump forward to 2026. Labour’s leadership knew it couldn’t go back to anything like 2020. Its Māori campaign launch was muted, with no real commitment to anything. Have Māori voters noticed?
At the same time, the Green Party support among Māori roll voters seems to have been steadily building over this term. They’ve made double-digit gains in party support in Te Tai Hāuauru and Hauraki-Waikato.
My new questions are: What other surprises will Māori voters bring us in a month? Will they win their first Māori electorate seat? I might need some more popcorn.
