Nanaia Mahuta off Labour Party list for election, focus on Hauraki Waikato Māori seat

Senior Labour Party Minister Nanaia Mahuta during Labour Party Congress in May. Photo / Getty Images

Senior Labour Māori Minister Nanaia Mahuta has taken herself off the party’s list and will focus all her attention on being re-elected in Hauraki Waikato.

The move means if Mahuta doesn’t win the seat she doesn’t have the fallback option of re-entering Parliament as a list MP.

But the move also puts more pressure on any candidate Te Pāti Māori - the main competition - decides to run, with the electorate vote the only way residents can retain the experienced MP.

In 2017 Labour decided to take all of its Māori electorate MPs off the list in a bid to boot Te Pāti Māori out of Parliament, sending a clear signal to voters that if they wanted those MPs in Parliament, they needed to back them.

Labour Māori seats campaign chair Willie Jackson previously told the Herald such a campaign this election would be unlikely, with polls indicating Te Pāti Māori will at least claim Waiariki and the Labour would likely need their support in any future governing arrangement.

He confirmed today only Mahuta and Soraya-Peke Mason in Te Tai Hauāuru would run in their electorates only.

While Labour has not yet decided on its final list rankings, Mahuta said she had asked to be off the list.

“I think that this election, because of the significance of the decisions that voters have to make, and certainly in my electorate, I’m putting quite squarely in front of voters that I am up for the next set of challenges.”

Mahuta said Labour had made a lot of progress for Māori - including health reforms, rates remissions and council decision-making and representation - and if they wanted it to continue they needed to back another Labour government.

“I know the changes we have made have progressed issues for Māori in a positive way.”

She said she was unaware if any of her colleagues were considering also coming off the party list.

Mahuta has held the seat since 2008.

The seat was established in 2007, largely replacing Tainui, a seat Mahuta had also held between 2002 and 2008.

Mahuta won the seat in 2020 with a 68 per cent share of the vote - more than double second-placing Te Pāti Māori candidate Donna Pokere-Phillips at just under 26 per cent.

She had an even larger majority in 2017, claiming nearly 72 per cent of the vote, the last time she came off the Labour Party list.

Mahuta also came off the list in 2005 when running for the-then Tainui seat, shortly after the foreshore and seabed debacle.

Te Pāti Māori has not yet announced its candidate in the electorate.

Jackson said it was a different scenario to 2017 and that there would be a “bit of a battle” in some of the seats.

He also acknowledged Labour might need the support of Te Pāti Māori after the election in forming a government.

“Times have changed... we might have to work with them in the end, but we’ll see.”

Jackson also confirmed the party had selected a candidate for Ikaroa-Rāwhiti, recently vacated by Meka Whaitiri who announced she would instead be running for Te Pāti Māori at this year’s election.

Jackson said the candidate would be announced next week, but let slip it was a “wahine toa” of Ngāti Porou whakapapa.

“She’s a fabulous candidate and I’m really proud. I think she’ll win the seat.”

Te Pāti Māori co-leader Rawiri Waititi said whatever Labour’s strategy they would be putting up a good contest.

“On a bad day we will take three seats, on a good day we will take five.”

Meanwhile, the party co-leaders appeared unaware their candidate in the general Tukituki electorate seat, Heather Skipworth, had pulled out,

Skipworth told Hawke’s Bay Today she was leaving for “personal reasons” though hinted she was not leaving politics for good.

She had originally been named as the party’s candidate for Ikaroa-Rāwhiti, but withdrew when incumbent MP Meka Whaitiri announced she was leaving the Labour Party and standing in the seat for Te Pāti Māori instead.

Skipworth and Whaitiri are cousins.

Asked about this at Parliament, Waititi and Debbie Ngarewa-Packer said they had not heard anything official from Skipworth.

Labour’s Ōhāriu MP Greg O’Connor has also decided to stay off the list at the election.

He told Newstalk ZB’s Nick Mills this month that he had asked the party to keep him off the list, going as far as to say if that didn’t happen and he didn’t win the seat he wouldn’t take up the list spot. He confirmed to the Herald today that the request had been granted.

“I only want to be the MP for Ōhāriu, the local cop, doing the mahi on the ground,” the former police officer and Police Association president told Mills.

National Party deputy leader Nicola Willis is also contesting the seat.