Labour’s ground game is up against Te Pāti Māori’s online momentum – but a vanishingly small percentage of voters seem to care, writes Catherine McGregor in today’s extract from The Bulletin.
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Low turnout a worry
Labour is fretting about a sluggish start to voting in the Tāmaki Makaurau byelection, reports The Post’s Stewart Sowman-Lund (paywalled), with Peeni Henare telling reporters he is “pulling out all the stops” to lift participation. Election day is this Saturday; as of Tuesday, just 3,681 ordinary votes had been cast in an electorate with 43,796 enrolled voters – well behind the last byelection, Port Waikato in 2023, where 18,815 votes were cast and turnout reached 35.9%.
The contest was triggered by the death earlier this year of Te Pāti Māori MP Takutai Tarsh Kemp, who had snatched the seat from Henare at the 2023 general election by a wafer-thin margin of just 42 votes. With only Labour and Te Pāti Māori in the race, the electorate’s voters are essentially being asked to decide whether to return Henare – a former cabinet minister who held Tāmaki Makaurau for nearly a decade – or endorse Oriini Kaipara, the broadcaster-turned-politician hoping to hold the seat for Te Pāti Māori.
Insurgent vs establishment
In a trenchant analysis for the Sunday Star-Times this weekend (paywalled), Andrea Vance notes that Kaipara has framed herself as the insurgent, even though she is only three years younger than Henare. “Kaipara’s campaign is as much about symbols as it is about policy,” Vance writes, pointing to her red beret, tartan paraikete, and strong lines on Treaty entrenchment and decolonising institutions. For Labour, Kaipara’s campaign poses a challenge from both sides: while Henare is fending off claims Labour hasn’t done enough for Māori, “every iconoclastic promise from Kaipara reminds centre voters that Labour is aligned, or will inevitably have to align, with these radical ideas if it wants to govern”.
Though Kaipara is the more telegenic candidate, her political inexperience was on show at last week’s debate. On some points, Kaipara deferred to TPM’s co-leaders in the front row, “who were helpfully available to answer Kaipara’s questions for her”, reports The Spinoff’s Lyric Waiwiri-Smith. Meanwhile Vance cautions that “Te Pāti Māori’s online hype machine is real … but its reach does not always translate into votes.” That gap between visibility and ballots cast, combined with Labour’s marae-by-marae ground game and phone-banking push, is why Kaipara remains the underdog.
Is Henare after Hipkins’ job?
After Kaipara mused on TVNZ’s Q+A that Henare could be a “formidable” Labour leader – even a future prime minister – RNZ’s Lillian Hanly explored the leadership chatter. Supporters note he would be Labour’s first Māori leader, is strong on the marae and in the House, and is seen as capable of reconnecting with communities hit hardest by the cost of living. While Henare has in the past admitted it’s something he’s asked about a lot, this week he batted away the speculation, saying his focus is the byelection and that “Chippy’s the leader of the Labour Party and he’s got my support”. As for Hipkins himself, he said yesterday he intended to be the next prime minister – “and I know Peeni’s 100% behind me”.
Reintroducing Georgie Dansey
If Henare wins on Saturday, his list seat will be taken by Georgie Dansey, whose trajectory up the Labour list has been swift. In 2020 she was placed dead last on the list, prompting an invite from The Spinoff to introduce herself to the nation. She wrote that she was “queer, a mother, a unionist”, described years of grassroots organising, and reflected on a whakapapa that was both Māori and Pākehā. Dansey stood in the Hamilton West byelection in 2022 and the Hamilton East electorate in 2023, losing to the National candidate both times.
Dansey’s extended whānau is steeped in public life: her great-great-grandfather Roger Dansey served as a Māori Battalion captain and advocated for Māori rights after the war; her great-uncle Harry Dansey was the first race relations commissioner; and an ancestor on her mother’s side, William Charles Heaton-Armstrong, served as an MP in England in the early 1900s.
