Key electorate: Te Tai Tonga

By Audrey Young

Tutekawa Wyllie does not exactly articulate a compelling reason for Te Tai Tonga voters to re-elect him, but it sounds about right.

"To be honest, I haven't given them sufficient cause to dump me," says the New Zealand First MP.

"I think people are prepared to give me another go because I've been loyal and have acquired, rightly or wrongly, a reputation of being a fairly hard worker."

Mr Wyllie's slim victory last time ended a 64-year grip on the southern Maori seat by the Tirikatene family of the Ratana faith.

The seat is important to NZ First, not just as a matter of pride as its only surviving Maori seat but as an electoral back-stop. In the unlikely event of leader Winston Peters not winning Tauranga, the party would need another electorate seat to claim any MPs, including Mr Peters, if it polled under 5 per cent nationwide.

Whangarei is a possiblity. But Te Tai Tonga is the certain bet and the only Maori seat NZ First is certain to keep after routing Labour last time in all five.

Mr Wyllie is painted as the loyalist for having stuck with NZ First. He also helped steer the $170 million Ngai Tahu Treaty of Waitangi settlement through the Parliament and into law.

Unlike former colleagues Tau Henare and Tuariki Delamere, he is not a great headline-hitter or self-promotor.

But he is still better known than any of his competition. A Marae-DigiPoll survey this month put Mr Wyllie's support at 44 per cent.

His closest rival, on 22 per cent then, is Labour candidate Mahara Okeroa, on leave as Taranaki regional manager of Te Puni Kokiri (the Maori Development Ministry).

Mr Okeroa's candidacy was dogged with controversy from the outset. He missed out on selection in Te Tai Hauauru, which covers Taranaki, King Country and Waikato. List MP Nanaia Mahuta will contest that for Labour.

With the backing of Labour leader Helen Clark and Te Puni Kokiri chief executive Ngatata Love, of Te Ati Awa, Mr Okeroa was an 11th-hour entrant in the Te Tai Tonga contest.

There was an outcry at the result and rumblings about a legal challenge but the selection stood.

He beat some familiar faces to Maori television viewers: lawyer Moana Sinclair, who appears on Marae and was a former Mana Maori Movement candidate, and Te Karere television news reporter Joe Glen, as well as Roimata Kirikiri, and Brenda Lowe-Johnson, who is No 43 on the list.

It was a poor start for a relative unknown in the country's largest electorate.

Insiders say Mahara Okeroa was simply the best on offer - although he was not considered good enough for Labour's list.

He has now been bundled up in a team-approach as groups of four or five Labour Maori candidates blitz an area together.

Tomorrow, for example, [subs Thursday oct 28] he is scheduled to attend a hui at Nga Hau e Wha marae in Christchurch with fellow Labour candidates John Tamihere (Hauraki), Tariana Turia (list) and Parekura Horomia (Ikaroa-Rawhiti).

Mr Okeroa was raised in Parihaka, the Taranaki village steeped in politics through its passive resistance against the Armed Constabularly over the carveup of Taranaki.

Mr Okeroa and Mr Wyllie are the only realistic contenders to take the seat. The others must aim to boost their party's vote.

Third in the Marae poll was the Alliance's Vern Winitana on 12 per cent, followed by, on 11 per cent, Mauri Pacific's Atawhai Tibble, an education adviser to the party leader, Tau Henare.

Dunedin-based Bessy Karu is standing for Mana Maori Movement, which is running an umbrella list covering Mr Delamere's Te Tawharau party and the Ratana-linked Piri Wiri Tua party.

Labour is expected to top the party vote again as it did in 1996.

Even Mr Wyllie says Labour will "probably" win the party vote again.

Neither he nor Mr Okeroa belongs to Ngai Tahu, the largest of the tribes in Te Tai Tonga which cover the entire South Island and Wellington.

Mr Wyllie is of the Ngai Tamanuhiri tribe, and home is Muriwai, just south of Gisborne.

Mr Okeroa is of the Taranaki-based Te Ati Awa.

But both labour the point that being Ngai Tahu is not a pre-requisite and point to a large number of other tribes in the electorate, especially in the most populous part of the electorate, Wellington: Ngati Porou, Ngati Kahungunu, Nga Puhi, Te Ati Awa and Ngati Toa.

Mr Okeroa says his tribe, Te Ati Awa, is strong in the South Island and that a lot of his people were forced out of Taranaki and are buried there.

Mr Wyllie, while not actively linked with any Ngai Tahu marae, has ancestral links with Ngai Tahu. His name, Tutekawa, "is very, very special to Ngai Tahu."

And he says those links were partly why he was first supported by Ngai Tahu as the Treaty Tribes chairman in the fisheries allocation debate and why a lot of Ngai Tahu backed him in 1996.

Neither Ngai Tahu the tribe nor Ngai Tahu the business, Te Runanga o Te Ngai Tahu, formally endorses any candidate.

But former chief negotiator Sir Tipene O'Regan says there is appreciation for the "tremendous service" Mr Wyllie gave in the settlement process.

"It will be interesting to see to what extent that appreciation of Tutekawa's effort translates into votes."

Mr Wyllie's strategy is to bare his soul and to plead not to be dumped.

"I'm going to ask our people for another go. I'm going to say 'please forgive us. I thank you for giving us your vote last time. I apologise for what has happened'."

* Tomorrow: The Coromandel: searching for an accommodation.