Analysis: Te Pāti Māori’s co-leaders have not ruled out a strategy of deliberately engineering an overhang in the next Parliament, as part of a strategy to force the coalition out of power.
The latest 1News-Verian political poll, released on Tuesday night, showed the left bloc ahead of the current coalition parties if Te Pāti Māori could hold at least three electorate seats and create an overhang in Parliament from November 7.
Asked repeatedly over several days about the idea of running a one-tick campaign in the Māori seats – where the party campaigns to win electorates but demurs or actively backs other parties in the party vote – the co-leaders have made favourable noises, without directly committing to anything.
On a podcast last week, left-wing blogger Martyn Bradbury asked co-leader Debbie Ngarewa-Packer if she would urge voters in the Māori seats to party vote Green.
“We’ve been very, very blessed to have the taonga that we have as Te Pāti Māori. And at times you have to do what’s right for that taonga and our nation. And that requires being better than the other parties whose egos can’t let them think smart,” she said.
“We are going for the candidate vote and we are saying to our people to put the best party forward. You know what our relationship with the Greens are and that is a kōrero that we will continue to develop and talk to our people about. We have to get this Government out being smart, and if it takes the smallest party that’s had some of the heaviest times, we’ll swallow our ego and do what’s right for this nation.”
On Tuesday, co-leader Rawiri Waititi said the concept of a one-tick campaign “sounds nice”, but the party would “be disclosing what our strategy is in August, once everybody else has blown their steam, because it seems like there’s a lot of steam being blown at the moment at this particular time. What you’ve got to understand is Te Pāti Māori’s committed to ensuring this is a one-term Government.”
Ngarewa-Packer said the party’s focus was getting Māori enrolled in the Māori electorates. After August 6 (the deadline for Māori who are already enrolled to vote to switch rolls), the party would talk more about its campaign strategy.
The concept of a one-tick campaign is broadly consistent with the party’s previous statements, however. Waititi and Ngarewa-Packer have criticised Labour for running candidates in the seven Māori seats, with the aim of retaking those it has lost since 2017.
The basis for that criticism is that ousting Te Pāti Māori from Parliament would vastly reduce the chances of the parties of the left having enough seats to form a Government.
“What we’ve seen in the last seven to eight months, in every poll that’s come out, is that the Greens and Labour will not get over the line unless Te Pāti Māori is there. So Te Pāti Māori is committed to ensuring that this is a one-term Government,” Waititi said Tuesday.
“We’re wanting to make sure that our people understand what that means in terms of the Māori constituency and their vote and the power that they have for the very first time in 160 years, is that the Māori constituents will be deciding who the Prime Minister is come November 7.”
It would be consistent, therefore, for Te Pāti Māori to accept that a campaign for the party vote could reduce the overall number of seats on the left by reducing or entirely eliminating any overhang. Currently, there is an overhang of three seats in Parliament, because the party won six electorates but only enough of the party vote to return three MPs in the 2023 election.
The average of poll results over the past 30 days would produce a majority for the coalition. Labour would win 40 seats, the Greens 15 and Te Pāti Māori three (assuming it won one Māori electorate), putting the parties of the left on 58. National would win 37, Act 10 and NZ First 15, putting the Government at 62 seats.
If, instead, Te Pāti Māori swept the Māori seats, there would be a hung Parliament with an overhang of four. That’s just a whisker away from unseating the coalition.
The election is already shaping up to be incredibly close. Come November, an overhang of just one or two seats could make all the difference.
That was highlighted in the 1News-Verian poll released Tuesday, which showed a hung Parliament if Te Pāti Māori won one or two electorates. Its party vote had shrunk to 1.8 percent, however, meaning winning even a third electorate could produce an overhang and put the Opposition into Government.
At the same time, however, a one-tick campaign aimed at intentionally producing an overhang could intensify calls to abolish the Māori seats.
While MMP vagaries like overhangs and coattails have been debated since the system was first introduced 30 years ago and parties of all stripes have made use of those rules, the campaign lands at a time of increasing scrutiny on the Māori seats.
NZ First has pledged to campaign on creating a referendum on whether they should stay or go. The Act Party has always supported their abolition through an Act of Parliament – the seats are not entrenched in the Electoral Act, so a simple majority would suffice to eliminate them.
National has remained studiously quiet on the issue, with Christopher Luxon saying it isn’t his focus. But if he’s sitting around a negotiating table on November 8 with Winston Peters and David Seymour, the role of the Māori seats in the final vote total could play a role in how he responds to moves to scrap them.
In that way, there’s a risk that a tactical success through a one-tick campaign could turn to a strategic defeat for Te Pāti Māori, if its primary avenue into Parliament is blocked off entirely.
Then there’s the question of whether the one-tick campaign would even work. Te Pāti Māori’s infighting and alienation of MPs representing the far north and south of the country has damaged its standing in the Māori electorates.
Even if it ran a one-tick campaign, there’s no guarantee it would pick up all seven seats – or even enough to produce an overhang. And Labour’s aggressive campaign to retake the electorates only worsens those odds.
