GUEST BLOG: Shane Te Pou – Why the Seats matter this Election

Before I get too deep into the analysis, I know what the political diehards will say: seats don’t matter, it’s the party vote that decides everything under MMP. That’s true — sort of. Hear me out and I’ll explain my thinking.

Good campaigners and great campaign teams don’t just win marginal seats — they drag the party vote up with them.

Auckland at the last election was full of examples, and the biggest upset of the night by miles was Mt Roskill, where National’s Carlos Cheung turned over a seat Labour had held since 1999. West Auckland told a similar story — tight, hard-fought contests in New Lynn and Te Atatū that could easily have gone either way. That’s what strong local campaigning does — it doesn’t always win you the seat, but it drags the party vote with it. I think those West Auckland seats swing back to Labour next time, and comfortably — not squeakers like last time, but decent majorities.

Now, I’m a political junkie. I love the cut and thrust of electorate politics. Interesting, intriguing, unpredictable — call it what you like, it’s also bloody good fun to watch. And across the last three elections, the most intriguing seats by far have been the Māori seats.

Few picked a young Turk named Tamati Coffey to roll Te Ururoa Flavell in Waiariki in 2017, ending the Tariana Turia–built era of the Māori Party in that seat. Then, of course, more recent history: Rawiri Waititi wrestled Waiariki off Coffey and Labour in 2020, and from there a genesis was born that led to Te Pāti Māori winning six of the seven Māori seats in 2023.

Well, I’ll tell you now why Waiariki is a seat to watch again. The kūmara vine is running hot, and it’s telling me Waititi has become part of the establishment he once ran against — and that people are genuinely tired of the infighting and the lack of direction Te Pāti Māori has shown recently. I bet at this point someone’s thinking, “yeah, old Labour man Te Pou’s going to say Labour will win the seat.” I’m not saying that at all. I think the Greens’ Tania Waikato can win this seat.

She’s spent the last 18 months building her profile with campaign tactics that are, let’s say, audacious. Her “bikini and bods” push has raised a few eyebrows, but more importantly it’s driven serious traffic to the Electoral Commission and pushed real numbers onto the Māori roll.

Our people love a scrapper. We love a big personality. Waikato is both — she’s got a genuine track record of advocacy, she’s not afraid to take on the establishment, Pākehā and Māori alike, and she delivers a serious message without ever taking herself too seriously. That combination gives her real traction.

The other seat where I think an upset is on the cards is the north — Te Tai Tokerau. Nobody does rohe politics better than the North. It’s given us some of the greatest political personalities of the last 50 years: Winston Peters, Shane Jones, Dover Samuels, Tau Henare, Hone Harawira and of course Matiu Rātā.

Remember how close the last one was — Mariameno Kapa-Kingi took the seat for Te Pāti Māori in a nail-biter over Kelvin Davis. That was essentially a single Te Pāti Māori bloc vote landing in one place.

This time round I think that bloc splits — pretty evenly, between Kapa-Kingi, now running under her own Te Tai Tokerau Party banner, and Te Pāti Māori’s new pick, Aperahama Edwards. Split it down the middle and you open the door for Labour’s Willow-Jean Prime and the Greens’ Hūhana Lyndon. Four into one seat — it’s the WWE equivalent of a royal rumble.

Te Tai Tokerau has form for a whatitiri — the Māori word for thunder, and a fitting one for a seat that keeps producing jolts out of a clear sky — and I think it might deliver another one. My money’s on Lyndon. She’s a former iwi leader — ex-CEO of the Ngātiwai Trust Board, and before that the Ngāti Hine Forestry Trust — with a genuinely solid profile. She’s respected and she’s respectful, and she offers whānau the kind of attentiveness that counts for a lot up north. Add it all up, and I think those factors could see Lyndon take the seat for the Greens.

There’s another factor working in her favour, and it’s a demographic one. The Greens do well with younger voters, and the Māori seats are a young population. It’s a generation of rangatahi now shaping the political landscape their elders once forged — and that shift alone should worry anyone banking on the old certainties.

Column space is always limited, and I haven’t studied this seat in particular detail, but folks are telling me that Labour’s Te Tai Tonga candidate, Mananui Ramsden, has a great campaign team and did really well in his first televised debate on Marae. Whānau, I’ll study this seat a bit more and write about it in more detail later.

We’ve got just under 100 days to go before the election. Hold onto your tarau — it’s going to be a wild one, and at times pretty bloody ugly. But if you’re looking for the intrigue, keep an eye on these seats I’ve written about today.

Shane Te Pou is a political commentator and Māori broadcaster. It is TDBs privilege to platform his political analysis for the Election.