The 2023 general election is now less than six months away. It’s shaping up to be a rip-roaring scrap, with polls suggesting the two major parties National and Labour are neck-and-neck. Now with Meka Whaitiri throwing in the towel for Labour in favour of Te Pāti Māori, 1News digital political reporter Felix Desmarais shines the spotlight on some of the most gripping electorate races ahead.
Ikaroa-Rāwhiti
Ikaroa-Rāwhiti is the new electorate elephant in the room. Following the shock announcement of Meka Whaitiri’s defection from Labour to Te Pāti Māori this week, this will be a crucial seat to watch at the election.
Whaitiri has held the seat since winning it in the by-election triggered by the death of Labour MP Parekura Horomia in 2013.
It’s said Horomia — aware he was dying — anointed Whaitiri into the seat, but a fondly-held anecdote within the party is that an unwell Horomia travelled home, stopping at four locations on the way, and advising a different candidate in each location that they were his chosen successor.
The seat — which runs much of the length of the east coast of the North Island — has been held by Labour since its establishment in 1999, with Te Pāti Māori candidates coming second in five of its seven general elections.
In the 2020 election, Whaitiri commanded a more than 6000 vote majority against Te Pāti Māori candidate Heather Te Au-Skipworth — who has now stepped aside to allow Whaitiri to run for the party.
In 2020, the Labour Party attracted more than 66% of the party vote in the seat, and Te Pāti Māori almost 12%.
If Labour retain the seat with a new candidate, it could be a blessing and a curse — while one more seat for Labour is exactly that, it has a multiplier effect of sorts on Te Pāti Māori if Whaitiri wins it. It would deliver a bolstered, stronger Te Pāti Māori back into Parliament and in turn, strong coalition prospects for a Labour Party which is highly unlikely to win an outright majority as it did in 2020.
It is highly unlikely a strengthened Te Pāti Māori, in kingmaker position, would enter into a deal with National. That may make all the difference to whether Labour can secure a third term.
It's far from a sure thing for Whaitiri however. It's difficult to know whether Whaitiri was elected for her name, or for the colour on her flag. Voters will soon show us which it is.
Strategically, it will be interesting to see if Labour throws everything at it to re-secure the seat or phones it in in a kind of "cup of tea" deal to ensure strong coalition options. The hurt — personal and political — from Whaitiri's shock departure cannot be underestimated.
Ilam
The Ilam electorate delivered one of the biggest upsets in the 2020 election. As the so-called ‘red wave’ washed ashore, National’s Gerry Brownlee was turfed out of the seat he’d held since 1996 — when the electorate was created.
In August last year, Brownlee announced he would not stand in the electorate this year, instead going list-only. The Father of the House (Parliament’s longest serving MP) is tipped to be National’s nominated Speaker, should it win the election.
Dr Hamish Campbell, a medical researcher, was selected to contest the seat for National in October last year. In 2020 Campbell had run in the neighbouring Wigram electorate, which has been a Labour-left stronghold since 1969.
Labour’s Sarah Pallett won the seat with a comparatively slim majority — just shy of 3500. Brownlee had enjoyed margins ranging between less than 12,000 and more than 8000 in 2014 and 2017.
In February, Pallett was selected to contest the seat again for Labour. A former midwife, she sits on the Health select committee.
Between the 2014 and 2017 elections, the National Party has enjoyed an average party vote share in the electorate of more than 55% to Labour’s more than 24%. Labour won the party vote in the electorate in 2020 with an almost 45% share to National’s more than 26%.
This year’s result will test whether Pallett’s win was a deviation in an otherwise safe National seat.
Nelson
The Nelson electorate is the only electorate that has continuously existed since the first Parliament in 1853. Since 1946, the seat has been held by Labour for 15 terms and National 12 terms.
In 2020, Labour’s Rachel Boyack — a union organiser — flipped it from National’s Nick Smith. He — like Brownlee in Ilam — had held it since 1996.
The margin — 4525 — was similar to Smith’s margin in 2017 when he beat Boyack, which was 4283. Between 1996 and 2014, Smith averaged a margin of almost 8000.
Between 2014 and 2017, the National Party attracted almost 42% of the party vote, while Labour caught just over 33%. In 2020 Labour won more than 53% of the party vote while National won more than 20%.
Smith retired from Parliament and became Nelson mayor in 2022. Boyack’s member’s bill, the Plain Language Bill, passed into law last year and came into force on April 21.The bill aims to compel the public service to communicate in a clear and accessible way.
In February, the National Party selected 31-year-old Blair Cameron — a Brown University graduate — to take on the seat. Cameron has worked as a senior research specialist at Princeton University and now works remotely from Nelson as part of the teaching faculty at the Leadership Academy for Development, a centre at Stanford University.
Wellington Central
Wellington Central is not just another battle for supremacy between red and blue, with Green Party candidate Tamatha Paul stepping up to take on the electorate.
Green candidates are running in other electorates too, but by all accounts after Chlöe Swarbrick’s Auckland Central win in 2020, it appears Wellington Central is the next electorate the party has set firmly — and seriously — in its sights.
That's because Labour's Grant Robertson stepped down from his candidacy in the seat, after holding it since 2008. List MP Ibrahim Omer has been announced as his replacement.
Robertson commanded an average majority of more than 6600 votes from 2008 to 2017 (2020 delivered a massive almost 19,000 majority outlier) but began his tenure with a comparatively slim margin of almost 2000 votes. With Robertson stepping down, its now open season for new candidates to get a foothold in the seat.
Wellington Central can be a wildcard seat. While it's mostly been held by Labour candidates, in 1996 it selected ACT's Richard Prebble, National's Stephen Franks came within a whisker in 2008 and it was held by National MPs from 1960 to 1978.
Omer has a reasonable chance in the seat, and while he has a compelling backstory, he has a lot of work to do to get his name out there.
Crucially, Wellington Central is the electorate where the Green Party attracts its biggest share of the party vote. From 2008 to 2020, the average Green party vote in the seat was almost 26%, despite the continued election of Robertson. The Green party vote in Wellington Central is stronger than in Auckland Central, where an impassioned and robust ground campaign secured Swarbrick the seat.
Auckland Central is not even second (Rongotai) or third (Mt Albert) best for the Green party vote. It's fourth.
That suggests if the Green Party can win any seat, it's Wellington Central, especially with a grassroots community campaign with a dynamic, fresh and politically inspirational candidate.
That's exactly why James Shaw stepped aside as the Green candidate in the seat for current Wellington City councillor Tamatha Paul, who already commands an enthusiastic following, and managed to instigate an energetic campaign in the 2019 local election.
If Paul secures the seat on election night, that could signal a new era for the Green Party where it starts to pivot its campaign strategy away from mostly campaigning for the party vote, to legitimately contest key electorates. It would also mean more MPs for the Greens, which turns the dial a little more to the left for the government after October 14.
SHARE ME