Te Tai Hauāuru: Meet the candidates for the west North Island electorate

In the latest of its debates between candidates in the Maori seats, TVNZ's Marae speaks to the three hopefuls in Te Tai Hauāuru.

The electorate is predominantly made up of regions in the west of the North Island, stretching from Kāwhia in Waikato to Porirua in the Wellington region, including Tokoroa, New Plymouth, Whanganui, Palmerston North and the Kāpiti Coast.

Watch Marae’s political debate on TVNZ+

In the 2023 election, the electorate had a 69% voter turnout with a total of 27,461 votes. Te Pāti Māori co-leader Debbie Ngarewa-Packer secured a definitive win with 16,288 votes. But the Labour Party received the bigger share of the party vote with 41%.

Ngarewa-Packer joined Labour’s Te Pūoho Kātene and National’s Coral Raukawa in a debate with Marae’s Scotty Morrison.

As the incumbent MP, Ngarewa-Packer was asked why Te Tai Hauāuru voters should put their trust in her again.

She said the electorate needs someone who is a “whaea (mother or aunty)”, born, bred and lives in the region and believes Māori are able to have a better future.

“My role has been to fight for kaupapa, to protect against kaupapa that are harming our people and at the same time, to build on what our solutions, our Māori-led solutions, need to look like. And to serve, and to serve across a really large electorate.”

She said Te Tai Hauāuru needs to have a voice and face who is prepared to hold the government to account and that she’s been able to use “every leverage” as a sitting MP to do so. She listed engaging with workers and unions, advocating on the “front line” for the environment, asking over a thousand questions, submitting over 200 OIAs, and holding around 160 “hapori kaupapa (community initiatives)”.

“I'm an accessible – probably too accessible – MP. So I answer my own private messages on Facebook – I keep getting growled for that! But I want to see from an MP what I remember we had when we didn't have Te Pāti Māori MPs in 2017 to 2020.”

The party lost their representation at the 2017 election when all the Māori electorate seats were claimed by Labour.

Kātene, a Fulbright scholar with a background in business, highlighted Labour’s alliance with Rātana Pā that dates to the 1930s during the time of prophet and leader Tahupōtiki Wiremu Rātana and then-prime minister Michael Joseph Savage.

“The main job for me is to make sure that we can transition from that strong historical support of the party into me as a candidate and that I am going to be capable and positioned into a way to take the voice of Te Tai Hauāuru and take it through to the decision-making tables that will be the key part of new government.”

If Labour were voted in as government, he said they would repeal the Treaty clause review, get rid of the regulatory standards and the climate liability protection legislations, as well as remove the changes to the pay equity regime. He said there were aspects of the Resource Management Act they would look to fix too.

“Personally, I come from a Māori economy space, working with businesses to make sure that they are the ones driving economic development, hiring whānau and investing in local economies. Those are the skills I have to bring in.”

Raukawa is following in the footsteps of former National MP Harete Hipango who stood in the seat in 2023. It was the first time the party put a candidate in a Māori electorate in over two decades.

Raukawa said Māori deserve representation across the board. When Morrison questioned the party’s “negative” policies and how she felt when they came out, she rejected the description.

“I don't believe that that is correct, that there's a lot of negative policies. What I do believe, Scotty, is that I can make a difference, I can affect change and policy within the National Party. That is why I'm sitting here.”

She referred to her time with the party as the electorate chair and deputy regional chair for the Lower North Island.

“I've seen what the party can do, and I see what I can do, and my voice can do within that party.

“So, where a Māori voice can be heard in National Party and that's what I want to do and this is how I have decided to do it.”

On seabed mining, Ngarewa-Packer said Te Pāti Māori stands for a ban on the practice and will be pushing for other parties to confirm. In its place, she said the country needs to turn to renewable energy.

“It's really great to see the other parties' renewable energy bills but they don't go far enough. What we want to see is sovereignty, we want to see that our hapū, our iwi are owning the ability to have their own energy solutions and that we are able to have jobs and we're able to grow an economy intergenerationally from that. So there's one thing offsetting the other.”

The question was asked whether mana whenua should be given the power to stop fast-track proposals.

Kātene said having due understanding and respect for the environment and mana whenua are important.

“I am always very careful about making sure that we understand what the job is, and our job is to make sure that we are able to have informed evidence-based decisions that do weigh up the benefits and costs to everyone, because uncertainty kills economic development.

"We need to make sure that mana whenua's voices are heard and acknowledged in that process alongside everyone who's affected by what has been proposed and make sure that we do hit that balance.”

Raukawa agreed that Māori should have a “meaningful” voice and be part of the conversation when it comes to fast track.

According to Stats NZ, one in four Māori tamariki are living in hardship – candidates were asked what needed to change?

Ngarewa-Packer said poverty is a political choice with housing and health playing a big role. She said a reconfiguration of the wealth tax is needed to tax those “sitting on a whole pile of wealth” at a higher level and relieve those “working two to three jobs and still queuing up for the food banks”.

She said they were standing for a big systemic shift, including investing in wraparound services and getting whānau on the ground the tautoko to lead the way.

"They're capable of leading those solutions we need to get out of the way and let them do it,” she said.

Kātene said key drivers for lifting children out of poverty is increasing wages and benefits. He said a capital gains tax policy where houses are treated as homes and not assets would open funds to pay for health policies, like the party’s three free doctors visits.

"Doctors visits can be as much as $90 in this electorate, and we need to make sure that when our whānau get sick they don't have to choose between going to the doctors or feeding their whānau. So there are things like that that are easing the cost of living on our whānau on a day to day."

Raukawa said all children deserve warm homes, affordable healthcare, and an excellent education.

“But how do we get to that? Income matters, education matters, having good healthcare that is available, that matters. So I guess what we're doing at the moment with National, we're trying to alleviate some of that.”

All candidates were asked to imagine a scenario where their party was in a position to form the government – what would their bottom-line for Māori be?

Raukawa said that the people of Te Tai Hauauru are not an afterthought. "I'd ask for a clear commitment to delivering the practical outcomes for the people of Te Tai Hauauru."

When Morrison asked if she was prepared to walk away if that wasn’t the case? “Prepared to have a conversation!” she said.

Kātene said the active commitment to a Tiriti partnership is his bottom line.

“That's why I'm here. I've worked in kaupapa Māori my whole life – as have we all – if that commitment wasn't here then I wouldn't be running right now. So I think that's a clear alignment between what our leader has said, what our party has said, and what I stand for,” he said.

Ngarewa-Packer said it was difficult because she would theoretically be part of those negotiations due to her position as co-leader of Te Pāti Māori.

“I will be making sure that Te Tiriti is entrenched, and there is billions of dollars that have gone back and been invested into Te Tai Hauāuru's health, education, regional economic development and renewable energy.

“So it's not about one bottom line, the bottom line is I will be in there negotiating my heart out for Te Tai Hauāuru in that room,” she said.

In their closing statements, Raukawa simply pitched “two ticks” for herself and National, while Kātene said he was standing for “Māori hands shaping Māori futures”.

Ngarewa-Packer thanked the electorate for the opportunity to represent them and asked for a single tick. “We trust that you'll choose for your mokopuna, for our taiao, the best party to tautoko," she said.