You have to feel for Heather Te Au-Skipworth.
As a broad rule, electorate candidates who are up against the Labour Māori party-machine have an unenviable job – to fly the Te Pāti Māori flag when it’s highly likely they’re going to get a hiding.
Te Au-Skipworth had done that job loyally in the Ikaroa-Rāwhiti electorate. At the last election she lost to her cousin Meka Whaitiri by a margin of 6045. That is a significant amount in a Māori seat where the turnout is never great.
Yesterday, at Waipatu Marae she was there, dressed fabulously in a bright red suit and sat in the front row in support of her cousin Whaitiri, who had taken her spot as the party's Ikaroa-Rāwhiti candidate after ditching Labour.
All political parties go through catchphrases - the current iteration for Te Pāti Māori is “unapologetically Māori”.
She's now standing for Te Pāti Māori in the October election. (Source: 1News)
Te Au-Skipworth seems to be operating by the old slogan – “mana enhancing”.
She put it like this: “When you’re given the key to unshackle your cousin, what do you do? You free her.”
Important Ngāti Kahungunu iwi leaders were at Waipatu yesterday – Ngahiwi Tomoana, Bayden Barber, Jeremy Tatere-MacLeod - leaning into proceedings through the whare’s window.
Their support is important.
But the question is – how will this defection feel to ordinary Māori voters who are staunchly Labour? What will they make of the way this highly planned resignation-come-unofficial campaign launch played out?
Two-thirds of voters in this massive electorate, which stretches from East Cape to Wellington, gave their party vote to Labour in 2020. It encompasses Ngāti Porou in the north and urban Māori in the south.
'A thunderous opening shot'
Make no mistake, as an election strategy, this was a thunderous opening shot from Te Pāti Māori.
Co-leader Rawiri Waititi holds Waiariki and that won’t change, Debbie Ngarewa-Packer came in as a list MP off the back that 2020 win, with 1.2% of the party vote enough to get her in. The electoral maths is difficult but if Te Pāti Māori takes Ikaroa-Rāwhiti as a second seat, Packer could be dragged in again by the party vote if it stays where it is now at 3%.
The party has relied on the Māori seats, but with the president John Tamihere marshalling his troops there are likely to be more candidate surprises on the way, and in general seats as well.
His party (he’s also ex-Labour) has never taken a general seat but they will like their chances in urban Auckland if they can get someone high profile to stand.
Returning to Whaitiri’s move - it leaves Labour scrambling to find someone with a big enough profile to make this seat a competition. It’s an unfamiliar and almost embarrassing position to find itself in given its history in the seven Māori seats.
The move blindsided Chris Hipkins and the Labour Party. (Source: 1News)
A big question remains unanswered. Why did Whaitiri leave?
We can only fill in the gaps. Even after being tagged as the Hawke's Bay Cyclone Recovery Minister this year, hers was a career that had largely stalled with Labour after those bullying allegations in 2018.
And you wonder what she thought about younger Māori women in Labour – Kiri Allan and Willow-Jean Prime - moving ahead of her.
All we got from her and the co-leaders were seemingly scripted answers about reconnecting to whakapapa.
I was at Whaitiri’s by-election win just outside Gisborne in 2013. That competition was brought about by Parekura Horomia’s death.
The Labour MP had been universally loved up and down the coast.
She said she had big shoes to fill that night but wanted to build her own path.
“Pare – I hope you’re looking down on us, I hope you’re smiling with that big cheesy smile. I hope you’re happy with the outcome like we all are tonight.”
You wonder what he’d make of the latest iteration of brutal Māori politics.
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