The Tāmaki Makaurau by-election
Why this by-election is worth watching.
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The Māori seat of Tāmaki Makaurau is officially vacant, and a by-election will be held on Saturday 6 September.
Leading candidates are: the Labour Party’s Peeni Henare, who held the seat from 2014 to 2023, and a new Te Pāti Māori (TPM) candidate, former broadcaster Oriini Kaipara. They are both high-profile, media-savvy individuals, and the result is not predictable.
This pits two opposition parties – and potential future coalition partners – against one another. It will have no impact on the numbers held by the government, so it can’t be used to damage Luxon’s coalition – although many in that electorate would do so if they could!
By-elections are fickle, as voters can use them to rock the boat, and turnouts are lower than usual. For example, a by-election for Northland in 2015 was won by Winston Peters with a margin of 4,441 over a National candidate – against the pundits’ initial predictions. In the 2017 general election, however, Matt King won it back for National – while Peters returned as a list MP and then became Deputy Prime Minister. Just another twist in the Winston epic!
The Tāmaki Makaurau contest should reveal, however, how Labour and TPM differ from one another, while also giving an insight into what they might need to do to collaborate in a coalition, if things go the Left’s way in 2026.
So it’s worth a closer look.
In 2023, the late Takutai Tarsh Kemp won the seat by only 42 votes over Mr Henare (who returned as a list MP), but Labour was well ahead on party votes: 11,571 for the Labour Party versus 8,046 for TPM. The Greens came third with 3,229, but they’re not fielding a candidate this time, so there’s a valuable proportion of votes up for grabs.
A lot of vote-splitting had happened in 2023, which is not unusual in Māori electorates. Roughly 1,500 constituents who’d voted for TPM’s Kemp gave their party vote to Labour. This helped both Labour and TPM get Māori members into parliament – TPM in the electorate seat, and Labour from their list. Hence, TPM’s Kaipara may argue that voting for her would give a new Māori voice in the House, free from the Labour Party’s juggernaut. If you’re laying bets, that would tip the odds in her favour.
Holding Maori electorate seats is “existential” for TPM, as they are unlikely to make it over the 5 percent threshold in the next general election. Their party vote was 3.1 percent in 2023, and they’re polling mostly below 5 lately.
Why doesn’t Labour just pull out and let TPM keep the seat? There’s no other viable contestant (with apologies to supporters of Hannah Tamaki). Labour seem to be determined to wrest Māori seats back from TPM’s grip. TPM won six of the seven Māori seats in 2023, compared with just one in 2020 and none in 2017.
But this time Labour have a disadvantage: their candidate is already a sitting MP, while his opponent would be a fresh voice for Māori. If Henare wins, then there’s one fewer Māori in the House. TPM’s proportionality would not be affected if they lose this one, as their six electorates won in 2023 created an overhang of two seats. The fact that, in 2023, TPM got six seats and 3.08 percent of the party vote shows the effectiveness of vote-splitting.
Labour’s candidate, therefore, will need to argue why his party better represents Māori – especially urban Māori. He’s mentioned his mahi in housing, for example. He’ll have to campaign on values and policy, and not just his considerable mana.
Henare could try to attack TPM’s record and policies, but that could backfire, if he took it too far. Surely many Māori voters in Tāmaki Makaurau would have reason to question Labour’s track-record in delivering them positive results: just think of things like wages, prices and rents, and the fallout of the post-Covid recession.
The by-election could also be seen as a proxy referendum on TPM’s adoption of more radical politics since the days when the party supported National in office (2008–17). How far do Māori voters support TPM’s recent tactics, such as their attention-grabbing haka in the debating chamber (for which they were temporarily suspended from the House) and their hard-hitting language, for example calling out the Luxon government as “typical white supremacists”?
TPM took the lead in the protest against ACT’s Treaty Principles Bill early this year, at which time their polling surged over five percent, and many voters in Tāmaki Makaurau may want to reward them for that effort.
In the by-election, of course, there’ll be no party vote – only a vote for one candidate to represent the electorate. And only those registered on the Māori roll, within the Tāmaki Makaurau electorate boundaries, will be eligible to vote.
The vacancy was officially declared on 9 July, after which date any voters of Māori descent enrolled on the general roll can’t change to the Māori roll to vote in the by-election. That prevents efforts by campaigners to persuade people of Māori descent to switch rolls in order to support their candidate.
Will the by-election give hints about a future coalition?
In a recent straw poll of readers, reactions to the prospect of a Labour/Green/TPM coalition government were mixed to say the least.
The by-election may give us some clues about how well Labour and TPM policies could align (or not) later on.
For example, the previous Labour government established Te Aka Whai Ora (the Māori Health Authority) which was then disestablished by the incoming Luxon government. TPM’s health policy assumes that Te Aka Whai Ora is re-established. It says 25 percent of all Health funding should be transferred to and administered by Te Aka Whai Ora.
TPM want to establish an independent Māori Justice Authority and to reallocate 50 percent of corrections, police and courts budgets to it. They would disestablish youth justice residences by 2030 and abolish the present type and style of prisons by 2040 in favour of the Scandanavian model (which means more humane prisons and fewer inmates). They would devolve justice services and adopt kaupapa Māori restorative justice solutions.
Those co-governance policies are far-reaching but not out of line with Labour’s previous commitments. The by-election will require the two candidates to differentiate themselves and their parties, knowing nevertheless that they could need one another at a later date to form a government and to get policies implemented.
Some readers may query a by-election in which only Māori get to vote. If there’s call for it, I could do an explainer on the Māori electoral roll (since 1867) and also Måori wards in local government. Many local councils have to hold referendums on Māori wards this year. Why does New Zealand have them? Why retain them?
Thanks for the explainer Grant. I support another on the Māori electoral roll. Māori wards etc.
The bi-election is an opportunity for Labour to clearly set out what is stands for and what it will do if elected. The performative, activist vibe of TPM gets a lot of media oxygen, but while clear about who they stand for and what their aims are, we are as yet to see much clarity from Labour (aside from generic commitments to houses, jobs etc). Still not clear about what are Labour's bottom lines? Labour has always has to address pressure from the far left - part of how they have operated since 1935 - but successful Labour governments has shown themselves to be clear in their policies (including how they will be implemented) and disciplined in how they operate.