EXPLAINER: They call it Tāmaki Herenga Waka, the place where many waka are moored.
This election, one candidate has stepped off her waka. But under the law, her name is still lashed to its hull.
Kerrin Leoni resigned as Labour’s candidate on Friday, October 23, over a video from a whānau fundraising event attended by Mongrel Mob members on October 3, then announced on Monday, October 26, that she would stay in the race and sit as an independent if elected.
The Electoral Commission confirmed that a vote for Leoni is valid and will be counted.
But under the law, if she wins, she would be elected as a Labour candidate. The Commission says, to its knowledge, this situation has not occurred since it was established in 2010.
What’s settled and what’s still open
Settled
- A vote for any of the three candidates is valid and will be counted.
- Any of the three can win the seat.
- A win by Oriini Kaipara counts as a Te Pāti Māori seat, and could add an overhang seat (Overhang: when a party wins more electorate seats than its party vote entitles it to. It keeps the extra seats, and Parliament grows beyond 120).
- A win by Florence Te Ohaere counts as a Green Party seat.
- A Kerrin Leoni win counts as a Labour seat.
Still open
- How Labour would respond if Leoni won and how the Speaker of the House would treat her.
- Whether the waka-jumping law could apply to Leoni, who left Labour after nominations closed but before election day. (Waka-jumping law: the part of the Electoral Act that allows an MP’s seat to be vacated if they leave the party they were elected for.)
Ngā waka e toru: where the candidates stand
All three candidates name the same pressures facing whānau: the cost of living, housing and health care. Their differences lie in how they would deliver.
Oriini Kaipara (Te Pāti Māori) has focused on whānau wellbeing, housing, health and opportunities for rangatahi, and on protecting Te Tiriti o Waitangi. She has said she wants an “authentic, uncompromised, unwavering” Māori voice for the electorate.
Kerrin Leoni (campaigning independently) said food on the table, affordable housing, health care, and opportunities for rangatahi remain her priorities, and that she would “work constructively with anyone” committed to improving Māori lives.
Florence Te Ohaere (Greens) wants Māori voices “at the table from the beginning”, Te Tiriti as the foundation of government, and protection of the taiao.
Why this seat could decide the government
Under MMP, every voter has two votes: the party vote and the candidate vote.
They can go to the same party or to different ones, and Tāmaki Makaurau voters often split them.
In 2023, Te Pāti Māori’s Takutai Tarsh Kemp won the seat by 42 votes after a recount, while Labour won the electorate’s party vote with 42.79 per cent. In this election, each campaign is asking for something different.
Te Pāti Māori president John Tamihere posted on October 28 that the party’s strategy “has never wavered”: it is asking for the candidate vote in all seven Māori electorates, and for the party vote to go to the Greens or Labour.
“Our objective is to remove this Government, strengthen Māori representation and secure a stronger political future for Māori,” he wrote.
Labour, which no longer has an endorsed candidate in the seat, is still seeking the party vote.
“If you want a change of government, vote for Labour,” campaign chair Kieran McAnulty said.
Te Ohaere’s priority is the Green Party vote.
“My focus is on strengthening the Green Party vote,” she told Te Ao Māori News. “I would, of course, be grateful for the candidate vote as well.”
Leoni is asking voters to choose her as their electorate MP.
How voters split their ticks matters more than ever. The 1News Verian poll released on Tuesday, October 27, showed 29 per cent, Labour 27 per cent, the Greens 15 per cent, ACT 12 per cent, NZ First 10 per cent, and Opportunity 6 per cent. Parties need 5 per cent of the party vote, or an electorate seat, to share in list seats.
Te Pāti Māori was on 0.1 per cent, so almost every Māori electorate it wins would be an extra seat in Parliament.
On that poll, if Te Pāti Māori holds its current four seats (Waiariki, Te Tai Hauāuru, Hauraki-Waikato and Tāmaki Makaurau) and Te Tai Tokerau Party leader Mariameno Kapa-Kingi keeps her seat, Parliament grows to 125 MPs.
National, ACT and NZ First would have 61 seats, two short of the 63 needed to govern. Labour, the Greens, Te Pāti Māori and Kapa-Kingi would have 56. With kingmaker Opportunity’s eight MPs, that would reach 64, enough to govern. National has ruled out working with Opportunity.
If Te Pāti Māori holds only one seat, Parliament has 121 MPs, and those 61 seats are enough to govern.
A second poll paints a different picture. The RNZ-Reid Research poll, taken from October 20 to 26 and released on October 29, showed Labour at 30.6 per cent, National at 24.8 per cent, the Greens at 14.5 per cent, ACT at 10.1 per cent, NZ First at 9.9 per cent, Opportunity at 7.2 per cent, and Te Pāti Māori at 1.9 per cent. On those numbers, Labour and the Greens, with Opportunity’s support, would have 64 seats in a 120-seat Parliament, enough to govern without relying on Te Pāti Māori’s electorate seats.
The two polls were taken over almost the same days. The gap between them shows how close the election is, and how much could turn on the Māori electorates.
Each extra seat changes the maths. On the 1News figures, 61 seats is a majority in a 121-seat Parliament; in 123, it takes 62; in 125, it takes 63.
That is why the Māori electorates, some decided by a few thousand votes or fewer, are being watched so closely, and why parties are campaigning on how voters split their two ticks.
Each extra seat changes the maths. In a 121-seat Parliament, 61 seats is a majority; in 123, it takes 62; in 125, it takes 63.
Among Māori voters nationally, a Whakaata Māori–Curia poll released on October 28 has Labour on 34 per cent, the Greens on 18 per cent and Te Pāti Māori on 8 per cent, down 10 points since September. The poll of 613 Māori voters was taken from October 15 to 22, mostly before the Leoni video emerged.
How it came to this
News of Kaipara’s visit to a Mongrel Mob pad with Green MP Hūhana Lyndon and other candidates emerged on October 14. Labour has said Leoni was invited to the same event and declined. Her own October 3 event came before it, and before Labour leader Chris Hipkins criticised the pad visit as a “huge error of judgement”.
At the Whakaata Māori debate on October 21, Leoni criticised Kaipara’s visit. Kaipara alleged Leoni had been to the same place, which Leoni denied, and Labour backed her denial. Leoni did not disclose her own event. Video of it was published the next day.
Leoni resigned on October 23, with Hipkins saying the footage was “inconsistent with the standards I expect of Labour candidates”. Te Pāti Māori co-leader Rawiri Waititi called her resignation “a sad day for Māori”.
Casting his vote on October 26, after Leoni announced she was staying in the race, Hipkins said he did not believe she would win the seat.
“Really, what she does from here is up to her, but she will not be a Labour MP and not be a part of the Labour team,” he said.
“As Chris Hipkins has said, Kerrin Leoni will not represent Labour in Parliament. She is no longer a Labour Party member,” Labour leader’s office chief press secretary Alex Masters told Te Ao Māori News. “We are not going to get into hypotheticals about what might happen, before people have had their chance to vote.”
If Leoni wins: two possible paths
Some voters have said online they were unsure whether a vote for Leoni would count. It does.
The Commission says candidates cannot withdraw after nominations close, or change to seek election as an independent. A win by Leoni would count towards Labour’s seats, meaning Labour would bring in one fewer list MP (List MP: an MP who gets into Parliament through their party’s list, based on the party vote, rather than by winning an electorate seat through the candidate vote)
Leoni’s campaign material tells voters that “when elected she will be an independent”. Asked on Facebook about the waka-jumping law, she said she was confident she would “find a way forward”.
What happens next would largely be up to Labour. The Commission says it has no role in the waka-jumping process, which sits with the Speaker.
Speaking to Newsroom, Otago University law professor Andrew Geddis said the situation was “messy”, and that the waka-jumping law was not designed for something so “highly unusual”.
He said if Leoni won and sat as an independent, it could be seen as distorting proportionality, leaving it to Labour to decide whether to give notice to the Speaker.
If Labour lets her sit outside its caucus, it could advise the Speaker she is not one of its MPs, and she would be treated as an independent. That is what happened when Te Pāti Māori expelled Tākuta Ferris and Kapa-Kingi in 2025: they kept their seats as independents, and the party chose not to force by-elections. Leoni has said that if elected, she would serve a full term.
If Labour wanted her out of Parliament, it would have to use the waka-jumping law, as the Greens did with Darleen Tana. That means giving her written notice and 21 working days to respond, getting the agreement of two-thirds of Labour’s MPs, then notifying the Speaker. It would trigger a by-election, which Leoni could contest.
What Leoni could not do is write to the Speaker formally declaring she had quit her party or wanted to be independent, because under the law that would cost her the seat. In 2023, Meka Whaitiri left Labour and was recognised as an independent without triggering the law, because the Speaker ruled her notice did not formally make that declaration.
How waka-jumping worked in practice: the Tana case
- 8 July 2024: Darleen Tana resigns from the Green Party but stays in Parliament.
- By 28 July: The Greens have sent her the notice the law requires, giving her 21 working days to respond.
- 20 September: The High Court throws out her challenge to the party’s process.
- 17 October: Green Party delegates vote to give notice to the Speaker.
- 22 October: The Speaker declares her seat vacant, more than three months after she resigned.
Tana is one of only two MPs removed under waka-jumping laws, alongside ACT’s Donna Awatere Huata in 2004. Both were wāhine Māori.
Before the current law, some MPs chose to resign and face voters instead: Dame Tariana Turia in 2004 and Hone Harawira in 2011 both won the by-elections that followed.
Leoni also stays on Labour’s list at number 43, and the Commission says she must be declared elected if the party vote reaches her. That would need around 37 per cent, well above Labour’s polling.
Whānau, whakapapa and politics: what people are saying
Former Labour MP Louisa Wall argued in an opinion piece for Te Ao Māori News that the decision belongs to voters: “Whānau relationships should not be weaponised to silence candidates or manipulate voters.”
ACT leader David Seymour said voters “are going to see her as a Labour candidate so that’s going to guide their vote”, and accused Hipkins of creating “a constitutional cluster of stupendous proportions”. McAnulty dismissed the criticism: “It’s not a cluster at all, it’s quite clear-cut.”
Te Ohaere said of her rivals: “Kerrin and Oriini are both incredible mana wāhine, and I have so much respect for the mahi they do and the contributions they bring to our people.”
Tāmaki Makaurau Māori electorate at a glance
- More than 46,000 enrolled on the Māori roll.
- Turnout of 63.4 per cent in 2023, the lowest of the seven Māori electorates.
- At the 2025 by-election, turnout was 27.2 per cent, and 1,383 votes were disallowed, mainly from people not enrolled in the electorate.
- 2,173 Tāmaki Makaurau voters enrolled overseas as of October 1, up from 1,216 in 2023 (Electoral Commission, provisional)
Tāmaki Makaurau is often translated as “Tāmaki desired by many”. On 7 November, its voters will decide who holds the Māori seat.
