New Zealand’s most remote community held its first-ever election debate this week. The question that will likely be sticking with candidates is, how do you serve a community that doesn’t see itself as Aotearoa?

The simplicity of life on the Chatham Islands can be summed up by the first road sign you see on the way into the township: “Bottle Store, Catholic Church, Hospital”. This time of year, there’s no bigger event for the island’s 620 locals than the annual weekend-long pig hunt. And this week, it was preceded by another kind of pursuit: the island’s first-ever candidates debate.

Clouds of dust rise off the wheels of SHARK, the white ute driven by incumbent Green MP Julie Anne Genter along the gravel roads. In the front seat is fellow Wellington Bays candidate Nicole McKee (Act), and in the back, Karuna Muthu (National) and Gerard Warner (NZ First). Trailing in their dust is Labour candidate Craig Renney and Opportunity candidate Kayla Kingdon-Bebb – for everyone but Genter and McKee, this is their first time being on the island.

Chatham Island’s main township, Waitangi, can be scanned over in less than five minutes. There’s the ANZ bank, which only opens once a week, next to the tiny police station and a janky courthouse. There’s a grocery duopoly here, but not the one you think. Locals shop at the Dough n’ Go gas station and the Waitangi General Store, where a single leek will set you back $7.80, a block of Whittakers will take $16.90 out of your wallet, and a 24 pack of Steinlarger Classic costs $125.

It’s not just the lay of the land that differs. There’s a mental and physical separation between these locals and those “in New Zealand”. Here, Aotearoa is the mainland and Chatham locals consider themselves “Islanders”, an identity separate to the country. These islanders are mostly born-and-bred; one local’s European father ended up here following a shipwreck, staying on the island to avoid the Russians. There are a few exceptions: the mayor, Greg Horler, came here as a 16-year-old to shear sheep and never left.

When the island’s 439 enrolled voters head to the polling booth in five weeks, they’ll bring with them an incredibly unique set of worries. Elderly islanders dread the threat of having to die in care on the mainland, away from their home communities. Parents fork out thousands every year to send their children to high schools on the mainland. Homeowners can’t gain any capital, as they’re cut off from accessing bank loans. It can take a week for air freight to arrive, and even longer for sea freight.

But they also worry how New Zealanders view them, rural folk waiting for their handouts from the government. Others wonder if they’re ever thought of at all. Even when central government provides, the end outcome doesn’t necessarily offer much. Three new wind turbines installed at Point Durham late last year were promised to bring down the power bill, but have barely made a dent as the diesel-dependent island has watched petrol prices rise.

A political debate for the ages

It’s a busy week for The Den Kitchen, the island’s community hub on Norman Kirk Memorial Reserve. Over the next few days, the stretch of field separating The Den from the next-door racing track will become a bloodbath with competitions for possum skinning, hog races (carcasses slung over wide backs) and who can sever the most swan heads. Don’t feel sorry for those feathered bastards; they’ve been running amok by chewing up the land and flying into powerlines.

Thankfully, the hub’s owners were gracious enough to take a break from the excitement of the hunt to host the debate. It might be hard to believe it’s taken so long to get any candidates over here, but these islanders are also some of the last New Zealanders to be granted the right to vote. In 1922, 69 years after parliament’s establishment, islanders were finally allowed to vote in their then-Lyttleton electorate. It was later absorbed into the Rongotai electorate in 1995. In actuality, the islands are closest to the Wairarapa seat.

In the 2023 election, only 159 of about 437 enrolled voters cast a vote. This might be the one corner of Wellington Bays where National has strong support, gaining the strongest share of the party vote at 34.59%. But it’s been a long three years since then: one former longtime National supporter in the crowd has since gone dark on the party. She works at the local health centre, which has been seriously understaffed for the last few months. 

The debate has brought out close to 50 people, “the entire electorate, and the entire police force” — all two of them. “Politically, [we’re] a long way from the mainland,” remarks moderator Te Radar, who at times would have his finger closer to the pulse than the candidates themselves. When the question of how the Chatham Islands can be funded gets met with promises of slashing red tape and taxes, Te Radar labels these proposals “airy fairy” in comparison to the immediate needs of the locals.

For a man in a suit, Renney seems to have the best grasp of the reality of the island. He wins the appreciation of the crowd for recognising the lack of access to bank loans for these locals, highlighting the hypocrisy of the land being seen as dangerous while earthquake-prone Wellington gets new developments.

Education is another sticking point for residents – one parent tells The Spinoff the cost of sending their two children to the mainland for secondary school education is around $40,000 a year. The flights home for these students are government funded, but locals wonder what other subsidies could be offered.

But suggestions from Warner and Muthu that a high school should be built to cut costs is met with groans. “Should’ve done your research, sorry mate,” mutters a man in response. If he had, he would’ve known there’s only around 70 students on the island – not quite enough to support a whole new school. And anyway, these islanders want their kids to be able to mingle with, and have the same opportunities as, New Zealanders.

For one man in the crowd, his vote hinges entirely on how these candidates feel about planned seabed mining for phosphorite on the Chatham Rise. NZ First’s Warner echoes his deputy leader’s “dig, baby, dig!” and earns a few boos. “Seabed mining’s not gonna keep the lights on, bro!” replies Kingdon-Bebb. The Opportunity candidate is a surprise delight for some locals, who tell The Spinoff they walked away from the debate having a clearer grasp on the party’s ideas.

Also hanging over the next government is the question of what to do about Rangihoua, a centuries-old waka found on the island in 2024. It’s thought to be one of the most significant discoveries in the Pacific, but two years on, it stays buried in the sand while Moriori leaders make continuous calls for government funding for its preservation.

Warner finally has good news for the crowd: he has been speaking with Shane Jones, and the party will commit to “try and find funding for the uplift of that waka and the preservation of that waka”. McKee calls the situation “quite shocking”. It is “disgusting”  and “wrong” that the government has failed to act to save a “national treasure”, she says. 

But Genter points out the hypocrisy of McKee and the right-bloc candidates calling for slashed government spending while also calling for something to be done about that waka. “It’s outrageous they can’t find $10m for this, but New Zealand First is promising a [20] million buy-back for BNZ,” Genter says. “Which is a total fantasy that is not going to happen.”

Then it’s Toni, the local motel owner, who rises to speak. “Zombieland: that’s Chathams,” she says of the bank lending opportunities on the island. “It is criminal … it is dire straits… it’s just crucial that you guys do something.” Then another familiar face, Moriori activist Maui Solomon, rises to criticise the “politics of division” and the lack of economic support for an island which contributes around $50m to our regional and national GDP. Solomon suggests it’s time for a referendum on the island’s independence. “We would be better off governed in association [like] Niue,” he says, to appreciative murmurs from the wider crowd.

McKee, who has just spoken to the perception of her party’s relationship with the treaty, seems struck by Solomon’s question of what the candidate will do to “unite Aotearoa”. “I’m sitting on the mainland, being told that I’m plastic and that I’m not good enough as a Māori,” McKee says. “I’m a mix… I want to move forward, take my children forward where we respect the treaty, we accept the settlements we have completed, and we move forward with our te reo, our culture, and our history together.”

The next morning, a heavy mist blankets the island while the pig hunters descend upon the peat. “No wharf, no flying,” says the hotel staffer busying herself with breakfast, while the scene sees the shore and sky fade into a grey void. Today, the island is living up to its Moriori name Rēkohu (“misty sun”) – the land disappears behind clouds, out of sight and out of mind to the mainlanders.