Reporting team: Dan Hutchinson, Danielle Zollickhofer and Jim Birchall
Waikato has given Labour a bad case of the blues with National looking almost certain to take every general electorate seat, while Te Pāti Māori looks likely to take all three Māori electorates in the region.
Labour would likely end up with no electorate seats in the Waikato.
The Maori seat of Hauraki-Waikato is set to have a new MP, the youngest in 170 years, with 21-year-old Te Pāti Māori candidate Hana-Rāwhiti Maipi-Clarke unseating Foreign Affairs Minister Nanaia Mahuta in Hauraki-Waikato.
Mahuta was elected to the Tainui seat in 2002. It was later renamed Hauraki-Waikato in 2008, and Mahuta has been the incumbent since.
Maipi-Clarke sits fourth on Te Pāti Māori’s list, and despite a recent poll that had the newcomer trailing Mahuta by 4 per cent, none of the experts spoken to by the NZ Herald had Nanaia Mahuta going down in Hauraki-Waikato.
In preliminary results, Maipi-Clarke has 8825 votes and Mahuta 7459.
Maipi-Clarke has been In the headlines after an alleged break-in at her home, which may have been politically motivated.
Maipi is the niece of a pioneer of the Māori language movement Hana Te Hemara, who delivered the Māori language petition on the steps of Parliament in 1972.
She is also the granddaughter of Taitimu Maipi, the Ngā Tamatoa member who took to the Captain Hamilton statue in its namesake city with a hammer and red paint in 2018, challenging its colonial legacy and Hamilton’s role in the New Zealand Wars of the 1860s.
Prior to losing, Mahuta put extra pressure on voters by taking herself off the party list, meaning if they wanted her in Parliament, they had to back her in the electorate.
Mahuta held several high-profile portfolios throughout her political career, including becoming the first female Foreign Affairs Minister, Disarmament and Arms Control Minister and Māori Development Minister.
She was also the first female MP in New Zealand to wear a moko kauae.
Incumbent MP Tim van de Molen has retained his seat in the Waikato electorate.
In preliminary results, van de Molen, has 22,692 votes,15,000 votes ahead of Labour’s Jamie Toko who received 7104 votes.
Van de Molen celebrated with around 35 supporters, friends and family at his home in Tamahere and said the mood was “very buoyant”.
“I’m really chuffed. We have a strong lead in the Waikato. It’s exciting to have another three years in Parliament, especially with National in Government.”
He said it might be “a bit early to call it”, but he was very positive. “We’re having a strong lead. I’m confident we will win Waikato.”
Van de Molen said it has been a “challenging 18 months” for him with the death of his sister, his accident, and “the most recent incident”.
What he described as an “incident” has cost him a ministerial position: Van de Molen was found to be in contempt of Parliament a couple of months ago and National leader Christopher Luxon then said he won’t be putting van de Molen in his first Cabinet.
However, van de Molen said he is not ruling a ministerial job out in the future saying there might be an opportunity for him to become in a “future reshuffle”.
“It’s not a no forever.”
He added that he knew his electorate well and was confident to continue to have “a strong level of influence” even without a ministerial post.
Van de Molen said he already had two items on his agenda for the Waikato electorate.
“The extention of the Waikato Expressway to Piarere and a Great Walk along the Kaimai ranges. I’m very keen to keep beating the drum on that.”
He said he wouldn’t be having too much of a late night celebrating: “I gotta be up to watch the All Blacks!”
National candidates had comfortable leads in both Hamilton East and Hamilton West electorates.
In Hamilton East, Labour’s Georgie Dansey has conceded to National’s Ryan Hamilton.
”I’m of course disappointed in the result, but I’m so proud of the work that we have done during the campaign,” Dansey said.
Hamilton celebrated at the Hillcrest Haven with about 100 people. While winning the Hamilton East seat was “awesome”, Hamilton said he was still waiting for everything to sink in.
Incumbent Hamilton West MP Tama Potaka has retained his seat. With 98.7 per cent of the electorate votes counted, Potaka received 14,333 votes and Labour’s Myra Williamson received 8,950 votes.
Potaka celebrated with about 120 people at St Andrews Golf Club.
”I’m very humbled to keep representing Hamilton West. I’ve been working very hard for it, it’s not just about putting your hand up.”
He said he “didn’t take too much notice” of the vote count until it was close to 70 per cent which is when he considered the seat won.
Labour’s Myra Williamson came over to concede, Potaka said.
He was looking forward to going back to Wellington to advocate for Hamilton “and make a great place even greater.”
Taranaki-King Country MP Barbara Kuriger has retained her seat.
With 94.8 per cent of votes in the electorate counted, Kuriger received 20,823 votes. Labour’s Angela Roberts received 8439 votes. Kuriger celebrated in Te Awamutu with a group of 25.
”I have been working my way around the electorate instead of doing one big event.”
Kuriger said she was thrilled.
“I was reasonably confident, I would retain my seat, but this is a much stronger result than what I was expecting.
She said she was excited that after six years in Opposition, National was back in Government.
At the southern end of the region Louise Upston said election night had shades of 2008 about it, when National won all the electorates in the Waikato and Central North island.
She was looking forward to getting stuck into child poverty as she sails comfortably into a sixth term as the MP for Taupō.
Upston is National’s sixth ranked MP, and was hoping the party’s strong showing will be enough to see her take on the key portfolios of social development and employment.
“If we are serious about reducing families in hardship then the pathway to greater opportunities is through work and that is where the policies we have announced are clearly in that space and I am really excited, if I am given that opportunity, to work in the portfolio. That’s where my focus would be – on supporting people into work.
“You wouldn’t expect, in a country like ours, to have one in five children in a benefit dependent home ... I see the real opportunities to lift children and families out of hardship is to have a parent in work and that’s where I would be really excited, if I had the opportunity to work in social development and employment.”
She was celebrating with volunteers and supporters in Cambridge on election niight and would travel to the southern end of her electorate in Taupō on Sunday to thanks her election team there.
“We have a great crew of supporters here. We have probably had the most activity of any election campaign that I have run - and this is my 6th - in terms of the number of volunteers, the number of people on the ground, the number of phone calls we’ve made, the number of doors we’ve knocked on, the number of letters and leaflets we have delivered.
“So, it is nice to spend some time with my volunteers, acknowledging their efforts and then tomorrow I will go down to Taupō and spend time with the crew at that end of the [electorate] and again, it will be an opportunity for me to acknowledge their contributio.
“No one does this on their own. It is only from having a very strong team that you get a good result and I am really proud of the efforts they have put in.”
She said the mood was the same as 2008, when national swept up all the general electorate seats in the Waikato and central North island.
“The only poll that counts is election day. The polls haven’t really reflected what the realities have been on the ground and so I think about the conversations I’ve been having over the past couple of months, people have been saying we need a change, we want a change and vote from that perspective, but even stronger [support] than I thought it might have been.”
Te Pāti Māori co-leader Rawiri Waititi has claimed victory in Waiariki, telling the crowd “there is a tide turning” amid a surge of support for the party.
Arriving at the Sudima Hotel in Rotorua about 9pm, Waititi addressed the party faithful.
“There’s a tide turning, just with that I’m really excited of that regardless of the results. Our people are believing in themselves,” he said.
He acknowledged the party’s Rotorua electorate candidate, Merepeka Raukawa-Tait “for putting her hand out … her courage and her whānau.”
He thanked the Waiariki electorate “for giving me your support for the next three years”.
“We will welcome you, we will house you, we will feed you ... our party policy is all about that.”
He thanked his whānau, wife, babies, brothers and sisters who were “there when the time gets rough and the dark times when the sun is shining and I’m not home”.
“We want to ensure we have a strong voice for our people. Look at ourselves and we have built a movement ... we will continue to build a movement.”
He thanked those who had contributed to the campaign: “They have given us our taonga to fly”.
The crowd responded to his speech with a waiata about being proud to be Māori. - Michaela Pointon
National MP Scott Simpson has retained the Coromandel electoral seat, one he has held since 2011.
Simpson has been MP for Coromandel since 2011 and served as Minister of Statistics, Associate Minister of Immigration and Associate Minister for the Environment at the close of the Fifth National Government.
Provisional numbers of returned votes have Simpson on 20,950, Labour’s Beryl Riley on 6354 and the Green Party’s Pamela Grealey on 3846.
National had 43.57 per cent of the party vote while Labour had 19.81 per cent.
Simpson posted a simple message on his MP Facebook page this morning: “Thank you Coromandel”.
Te Pāti Māori’s Debbie Ngarewa-Packer is Te Tai Hauāuru’s next MP.
With the votes counted she had 11,695 against Labour’s Soraya Peke-Mason on 5348.
National’s Harete Hipango earned 1027, with Vision New Zealand’s Paris Winiata at 541.
However, Labour had picked up 41.96 per cent of the party to vote to Te Pāti Māori’s 33.92 per cent.
Earlier on election evening, Ngarewa-Packer said she spent the day looking after moko and doing “about 15 loads of laundry”.
“I wish I could say I did something real fancy and sophisticated, but to be honest I live in a three-generational home and it looked like it had three years of three-generational catch-up of housework,” she said.
“I had a great day. We’ve run a great campaign and done everything we could do.”
Te Pāti Māori was in a great space, she said.
“We set out with the objective to grow the movement, so tonight that’s what our end goal is.”
Ngarewa-Packer was in Hāwera on election night.
“There’s just so much we were up against, I think it’s hard with such a big region,” she said.
“There was also some ugliness that we had to sort of pivot around and try and run a clean campaign, and a fun, upbeat campaign. It was about positive politicking and I hope that’s what we’ve landed.”
The death of Act candidate Neil Christensen just a week before the election has meant the electorate vote in Port Waikato will not count on election day (although the party vote will still count) - and instead, a by-election will be held after the election.
This byelection would create an overhang of one seat.
The Port Waikato byelection will be held on November 25, with the byelection set for tomorrow, October 16. The deadline for candidate nominations to be received will be midday on Friday, and the last day for the return of the Writ will be December 5.
Port Waikato is a safe National seat, held by MP Andrew Bayly.
The Electoral Commission earlier confirmed if Bayly subsequently won the byelection, his list spot would go to the next National candidate on the list. That would give National one more seat than it would have won in the election.
Coromandel
Scott Simpson, National 20,950
Beryl Riley, Labour 6354
Waikato
Tim van de Molen, National 22,692
Jamie Toko, Labour 7104
Hauraki-Waikato
Hana-Rawhiti Maipi-Clarke, Te Pāti Māori 8825
Nanaia Mahuta, Labour 7459
Taranaki-King Country
Barbara Kuriger, National 21,132
Angela Roberts, Labour 8567
Hamilton West
Tama Potaka, National 14,348
Myra Williamson, Labour 8951
Hamilton East
Ryan Hamilton, National 14,318
Georgie Dansey, Labour 10,355
Te Tai Hauāuru
Debbie Ngarewa-Packer, Te Pāti Māori 11,695
Soraya Peke-Mason, Labour 5348
Taupō
Louise Upston, National 21,295
Aladdin Al-Bustanji, Labour 7013
Waiariki
Rawiri Waititi, Te Pāti Māori 15,890
Toni Boynton 4395
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Armed police stood guard as the patched members were led out in handcuffs.