Labour cuts Maori Party advantage

A poll out today is expected to show the Maori Party comfortably leading Labour in the hotly contested battle for the north, but down on its earlier huge lead.

Both parties are neck and neck in the party vote stakes with the election no more than two months away.

The Marae-DigiPoll survey of Te Tai Tokerau electorate is the first substantial poll of Maori seats in the run-up to the election.

Labour minister Dover Samuels holds the seat with a 5336 majority but is under serious threat from Maori Party candidate Hone Harawira.

Mr Harawira led the contest by a country mile in the last Marae poll in April when he polled 58 per cent to Mr Samuels' 24 per cent - though the sample of voters was smaller and the margin of error 10 per cent.

That difference between them is now thought to have halved to about 15 points, with independent candidate Mere Mangu making ground at Mr Harawira's expense.

She came second to Mr Samuels in the last election, also as an independent, attracting 16 per cent of the electorate vote.

Mr Harawira has refused to stand for the party list and can be elected only by the electorate.

Mr Samuels, at No 10 on Labour's list, is safe, a strong campaigning point for Mr Harawira.

All of Labour's Maori electorate MPs, except John Tamihere in Tamaki Makaurau and Nanaia Mahuta in Tainui, are in winnable list positions, even if they lose their seats.

Mr Samuels said yesterday there had been a lot of volatility and emotion in the Maori electorates over the foreshore and seabed legislation, but voters were now thinking about what the parties could deliver.

He was running a very simple campaign message to voters, that they had two options: a Labour-led government or a National-led government.

"If you're voting for somebody else, you're voting for the National Party."

He believed that Mere Mangu was doing well among those who saw the Maori Party as having been "seduced by the process", by becoming involved in the parliamentary process.

"They are seen as a colonial identity."

Prime Minister Helen Clark told the Weekend Herald last week that the success of the Maori Party could threaten Labour's chances of governing.

She raised the prospect of an overhang - in which a party could pick up more electorate seats than it earned through the party vote - which would increase the number of MPs beyond 120 and raise the number required for a majority.

* Full details of the poll and the key candidates will be seen on Marae today at 10am on TV One.