WAATEA NEWS COLUMN: Tamaki Makaurau by-election earthquake demands new political strategy from Labour

The Tamaki Makaurau by-election result is an extraordinary political earthquake that demands a new strategy from the Labour Party if we are to have any hope of kicking out this terrible right wing Government.

The naked reality is that 70% of Māori are under the age of 40 and they live online.

The Māori Party’s Social Media First campaign was inspired.

They took the lessons from the Treaty Principles Referendum and leaned into their social media ‘relationshipinal’ relationships they have built online.

Māori have a ‘relationshipinal’ relationship with one another, they don’t have ‘interactions’.

The Māori Party have built a Digital Marae online and the next generation of Māori raised in total immersion classes know they never ceded sovereignty, know their history and know that they will not accept being second class citizens in their own country.

This is a demographic bubble that is erupting in all of the Māori Electorates, and it is one that must be acknowledged by Labour and should be the basis for a strategic rethink because right now there is an MMP tactic on the table that would not only win the next election, but it’s so powerful, it could give the Left a 3 term Government.

Imagine what we could do collectively with 3 terms of Government?

That MMP tactic is perfectly legal and is buried into the DNA of our MMP system.

Because we have a 5% threshold, the designers of our system built in rules that could empower an indigenous group or a regional culture. The designers for our MMP acknowledged that the 5% threshold cut off was democratically stifling (essentially to prevent fringe splinters from radicalising the political spectrum), but gave us Overhangs and electorate coat tailing to help incubate Political Movements to gaining over 5%.

The Overhang feature of MMP throughout the Māori Electorates could provide the Left with such a majority it would take the Right 3 terms to catch up.

What the Labour Party needs to do now is two things.

1 – Accept the demographic bubble of online Māori as a reality.

2 – Work with the Māori Party to maximise the MMP Overhang to kick out this terrible Government.

Labour need a Ratana 2 Pact with Māoridom again.

The original Ratana Pact saw Māori bound with Labour. A new Ratana 2 Pact would see Labour work with the Māori Party in the Māori Electorates with one very simple strategy:

Candidate vote Māori Party.
Party Vote Labour Party.

The Māori Party gained 3.1% in the last election which was wasted vote because they won 6 electorates. That 3.1% could have gone to Labour and been represented by more Labour MPs!

The Overhang could add 7 votes to our side PLUS the extra party vote going to Labour.

If centrists fear an alliance in the Māori Electorates would cost Labour middle voters, well the extra Party vote they get from the wasted Māori Party vote ALONGSIDE the overhang will make that up and then some.

The only barrier to this unique strategy that would allow us to beat this dreadful anti-Māori, anti-Treaty, anti-worker, anti-renter, anti-disabled, anti-beneficiary, anti-environment Government is the brutal sectarian triumphalism of the Māori Party.

During the campaign, Māori Party activists called Willie Jackson a ‘colonised’ traitor!

When Willie Jackson was a Minister, he brought 3 billion in extra funding for Māori specific development, that is the largest amount of extra funding Māori have ever achieved in any Government.

If Willie Jackson’s ‘Māoriness’ is not good enough, then no one will pass the Māori Party’s purity test.

The post by Tākuta Ferris attacking the ethnicity of Labour’s volunteers only provided Mike Hosking, Sean Plunket, Don Brash and David Seymour all the political ammunition they need to portray the Māori Party as sectarian and impossible to work with.

The Māori Party could win the by-election battle but cost us collectively the 2026 Election War.

That’s why it is so important that the narcism of petty difference and egos are put aside for the glaring truth of the common ground between us in the face of this dreadful anti-Māori, anti-Treaty, anti-worker, anti-renter, anti-disabled, anti-beneficiary, anti-environment Government.

This terrible right wing Government are passing voter suppression powers that will impact 450 000 voters by cutting special voting off by 12 days. They don’t give a damn, and if we on the Left want to win, we need to fight like the right do.

The Right have used MMP loopholes since MMP began.

We on the Left refuse to.

If Labour and the Māori Party cut a strategic deal in the Māori Electorates, they would gift us a Labour/Green/MP Government for 3 terms where we could actually do all the reform we need to remake this country.

The only thing stopping that is political ego.

We on the Left are here for the people, not sectarian grudges.

This dreadful anti-Māori, anti-Treaty, anti-worker, anti-renter, anti-disabled, anti-beneficiary, anti-environment Government musty be stopped.

Labour and the Māori Party working together strategically in the Māori electorates would do that.

Are we here to work for the people or not?