KEY POINTS:
For two candidates who say they will compete on the issues, Labour's Nanaia Mahuta and the Maori Party's Angeline Greensill don't mind having a good go-to.
Not for the first time the pair are squaring off against each other, this time in the Hauraki-Waikato electorate, one of the seven Maori seats.
Take this from the 38-year-old incumbent, Ms Mahuta, about how she reads the mood of the electorate.
"The feeling I'm getting is that if the Maori Party was serious about Hauraki-Waikato they might have considered a whole new candidate all together.
"The other feeling I get is that if they valued Angeline at all they would have put her higher on the list. That tells me they don't value Angeline or the Hauraki-Waikato electorate."
And this from Mrs Greensill (incidentally at number five on her party's list - Ms Mahuta is number 10, the second-highest-ranked Maori on the Labour list) assessing Ms Mahuta's performance over the past three years.
"She's failed to stand up for Maori rights in the House. Why else is she there? They wanted to take the Treaty out of the curriculum - I couldn't believe she supported that. Her supporters couldn't believe she supported that."
They have twice before contested the old Tainui seat with Ms Mahuta winning by 1860 votes in 2005 and Mrs Greensill finishing a distant third in 2002 for the now-defunct Mana Maori party.
But this election the race is much tighter.
A Marae DigiPoll released yesterday showed a statistical dead-heat between the pair, with 50.3 per cent of voters preferring Ms Mahuta to 49.7 per cent support for Mrs Greensill.
While five of the Maori seats are largely predictable, this electorate along with Ikaroa-Rawhiti, where Labour's Parekura Horomia and the Maori Party's Derek Fox face off, are shaping up to be the electorates to watch.
First, they are the seats which could stop a Maori Party whitewash of the Maori seats - a must if they want to claim the moral mandate to represent Maori. And seven seats equates to a potentially powerful balance of power for post-election negotiations.
Second, the pair are daughters of past prominent Tainui leaders. Sir Robert Mahuta was the architect of the tribe's 1995 $170 million Raupatu settlement, while Eva Rickard has a no-less-illustrious record as an early lands right activist whose civil disobedience saw the return of the Raglan Golf Course, land which the Government had originally taken for defence purposes.
Both challenged each other's leadership and this generation is no different.
Aside from the perennial issues which concern the bulk of the Maori electorate - health, housing and education - Treaty issues still loom large across Hauraki-Waikato, which takes in Manurewa, Papakura Hamilton and the Coromandel.
That is because Hauraki, Maniapoto and Raukawa are still prominent iwi waiting or working towards final settlements.
At a meet-the-candidates outing in Kawhia, Mrs Greensill, a Waikato University lecturer, is backed up by her party's most outspoken MP, Hone Harawira. But she does not hold back when discussing Tainui's recent Waikato River co-management deal.
"Our people are being sold short because they've been given this wonderful idea that they're going to clean up the river - at the same time they're not stopping the behaviour of the people who've been given 35-year consents to keep pumping crap into the river. What does that say about mana or rangatiratanga?"
Like her mother, her forthrightness has often put her offside with tribal hierarchy, the 59-year-old says.
She is aware that if she does take the seat, she will have to build a relationship with Waikato-Tainui's Tuku Morgan, a powerful mover and shaker in the region.
But elites don't win elections, the hoi polloi do and they're coming around, she reckons.
"I go to the [Kingitanga] poukai and I know I have to win the hearts and minds of the people.
"I think they're thinking, 'Well, she's not such a threat after all. She's just one of us and she belongs to us." There's some really good endorsements from [hapu].
She can laugh at her past "miserable failures" but this campaign she is doing things differently. She has taken six months off work and worked hard at raising her profile. Last time the party lacked the resources to fight Labour's "a vote for the Maori Party is a vote for the National Party" campaign. In 2008 the party is lining itself up to be a kingmaker - and that has changed the dynamics.
And this time she has been buoyed by support built on the performance of the four sitting Maori Party MPs.
"They've done the job. It makes my job a little easier because there's a track record there."
Poverty, housing, Treaty and environmental issues are at the top of her priority list.
She is encouraging a split vote with her as the electorate choice and Labour for the party vote, a result which would see two Tainui representatives in Parliament.
It is a strategy that annoys Ms Mahuta.
A close relative of King Tuheitia - at times aloof, she is articulate and polite but in general doesn't really do niceties. She says it is "inconsistent" for the Maori Party to push a split vote in her electorate when everywhere else the party wants two ticks - Hone Harawira would not advocate the same in his seat, she says, so why is it okay in Hauraki-Waikato?
Voters are looking for experience and with 12 years on the job, nine as the region's electorate representative, she is "absolutely clear" she is not depending on the list to get back to Parliament.
"If Angeline ever had the opportunity to make a dent in that support, it would have been through the most difficult election [in 2005 on the back of anger about the foreshore and seabed]."
Results count and voters respected her honesty over the controversial act. She credits her father for shaping those qualities.
"[He] certainly taught me to not walk in shadows and to be my own person. To have the courage of my own convictions and to have the tenacity to move forward on issues that are important - to always be upfront with the people."
The river settlement, with its focus on cleaning up the river, will bring real benefits over generations of New Zealanders, she says.
Health, home ownership, education, progressing Treaty settlements and exploring joint ventures for iwi, the Government and private sector are priorities.
Against the polls she predicts a swing back to Labour with the potential for her party to claw back Waiariki and Te Tai Tokerau .
