It’s one of the largest electorates in the country physically, stretching from East Cape to Wellington. It was virtually a lock for Labour until their candidate jumped to Te Pāti Māori. Now two strong candidates are vying for the seat of Te Ikaroa-Rāwhiti, which could influence who gets into government. Aaron Smale reports.
Gradually then suddenly. That’s how Meka Whaitiri ended up leaving the Labour Government. Her colleagues and the Prime Minister were blindsided, but she’d been falling out of love with the party for some time.
And she’s had some time. She won a by-election when her predecessor and mentor Parekura Horomia died while in office. While she’s dyed-in-the-wool Labour, she found herself drifting away from the party. Or maybe it was the party drifting away from the principles she’d grown up with.
Her switch to the Māori Party has blown open the contest for the Ikaroa-Rāwhiti seat on the Māori roll, with the experienced Whaitiri going up against Labour’s new candidate Cushla Tangaere-Manuel. While the seat is not getting a lot of headlines, if Whaitiri wins then it could lead to Te Pati Māori’s numbers increasing by enough to hold the balance of power in a tight general election. If Tangaere-Manuel wins it could help Labour scrape a victory.
But neither candidate sees the other as enemy, but rather as allies on different teams in representing a region – actually regions plural – that are facing more than their share of challenges.
There’s no question that Whaitiri’s abrupt move caught her colleagues and the Labour Party off guard. And her experience will undoubtedly boost the experience in Te Pāti Māori’s ranks. She said it wasn’t an easy decision but in the end it was a liberating one.
“You know how you have relationships you fall out of love in those relationships? Well, I'm not saying I fell in love with Labour. my whole family had been Labour. There isn't a whānau in Aotearoa New Zealand, apart from certain families, that's origins when it comes to politics has always been Labour. Mine is no different. I come from a freezing works family. We're a union whānau. So not just my parents, and five of us kids, and our kids, but my grandparents and my great grandparents. But at some point, you've got to say, how can we change a country that is inherently pushing systems, they have continuously failed Māori.
"I just couldn't. I could no longer in true honesty continue to sell something that I knew was not delivering. Absolutely proud of the achievements, under Labour in terms of the gains we have made. But in hindsight, any government should be doing their job."
When Labour pulled off an election victory in 2017, Whaitiri was optimistic about the direction the government led by Jacinda Ardern looked to be taking.
“Jacinda, if you remember one of her Waitangi speeches, she talked about being a transformative government. That excited me, because when you hear words about being transformative and being bold, I'm gonna get excited. That's my language, because you've got to be bold, if you want to effect the sort of changes you want. And so you totally believe in that.”
That optimism led to her drawing on her 16 years in the public service to write a paper about how to bring about the kind of change she thought Labour had an appetite for, hoping it wouldn’t get bogged down in bureaucracy. Instead it didn’t get any traction at all.
“It was about using that 16 years of experience to put up some viable options forward ... none of it got picked up. But that's okay.”
She insists there was not one thing that made her turn her back on Labour, more a cumulative set of little events that told her the Labour Government wasn’t listening.
She mentions how when the story of Oranga Tamariki trying to take a baby from his mother at a hospital in Hastings was exposed by Newsroom, her Labour colleagues retreated into a siege mentality that didn’t make any sense to her.
“As a local MP, you should know the lay of the land. If there's an issue, you try and sort out a solution that's going to uplift everyone's mana. Right, now that case, I did go to the children's minister and said, 'Listen, these people that are backing this young girl aren't Johnny come lately. Jean Te Huia, my cousin Des Ratima. I said these are well-respected kaumatua and they're telling me, that OT is trying to uplift this girl's baby'.
“I said, 'We've got to stop this crap. This is outrageous. I got an ultimatum. Meka you're either on our side, or you're against us. I said, what do you mean? And then I got told, this is all confidential. I'm trying to give you my intel. Can't discuss the case with you Meka because it's confidential. The girl signed an authorisation for me to be her advocate. I don't go in boots and all, I try and actually find a win-win. But if people don't want to listen to you, or think they know better, you've got to go boots and all.”
The death by a thousand cuts finally led to her wanting to get out of politics altogether.
“I made that decision in the space of six days. No, I wasn't scheming in the background. I wasn't plotting, I just come to the realisation, 'I can't do this anymore'. And then my option was actually to quit, to resign. But then I thought about the huge responsibility you have as an MP for a Māori electorate, and what that would do. So it went from, 'I can't do this any more', to quitting, to standing as an independent, to then looking across to see whether I could align myself somewhere else. So it started with me, not others. And then I spoke to my family who have been my inner circle. I trusted my older brother and sister and that's when we decided to approach Te Pāti Maori, and the president specifically. And then the position to announce I was leaving was literally four days later.”
If that moment was a sharp but logical turn in a long journey, the phone call Cushla Tangaere-Manuel received after Whaitiri’s resignation also seemed inevitable.
Like Whaitiri, she’d been mentored by Horomia. It seems like he cultivated a number of successors who could step into his shoes. Now two of them are in the running.
While she doesn’t have the experience of Wellington’s machinery that Whaitiri has under her belt, Tangaere-Manuel has been in a job that’s about as flax-roots as you can get – chief executive of East Coast Rugby. Keeping a bunch of stroppy Natis on the same waka is a task that would test the skills of the most seasoned politician.
“It was probably a bit over 20 years ago now Parekura Horomia had asked my brother and I to consider succeeding him one day. I always thought it would be my brother. But then I carried on with life. And so when I got the phone call asking if they could nominate me I actually didn't need time to think about it. I thought everything I've done in my life has prepared me for now. And I said yes."
She’s gone all in on the electorate seat and is not on Labour’s list. She says if she gets in, Wellington doesn’t phase her.
“Someone actually said to me, 'It's a big leap from rugby to politics', I said, 'Not at all'. From the iwi base, you've got to acknowledge the Mana motuhake of every club, make sure they all feel heard, and represented. And then I also worked for New Zealand Rugby Union for a year before I accepted this nomination. And so that's just like a small Parliament, you've got the provincial unions, et cetera. And that was a really cool opportunity for me to help take non-Māori on the journey with us. Standing as MP is because it's important to have a strong Māori voice in the decision-making table. And so I had the opportunity to influence that at New Zealand Rugby as well.”
She sees her role in rugby and now politics as a continuation of public service whether that's teaching at kohanga reo or working in the media.
Both their campaigns have started in the places where they are grounded. Whaitiri made her announcement at Waipatu Marae near Hastings which has a connection to the Kotahitanga movement. Ratana is also a strong influence in her whānau.
For Tangaere-Manuel she made sure to start in Ngāti Pōrou territory so they knew from her what was happening.
"When I accepted this nomination, my priority was to sort out my own backyard first, you know, so I went to all our small communities in the Ngāti Pōrou, knowing full well that I'd have to sort out my own backyard before I got out to the rest of Ikaroa-Rāwhiti to where I don't have name or face recognition. So I'm pleased to say I've done that, in the short time I know there's still time to go I'm concentrating, making as much effort as I can to spend time in each region, just so people can suss me out. And so I can listen to what matters to them."
But broadly speaking they’re in agreement on some of the issues facing the voters in their electorate and the importance of listening to those on the ground, not just holding official roles.
Whaitiri shifts tone when talking about what Hawkes Bay and East communities are facing, the sadness seeping out of her voice.
“Cyclone Gabrielle has ripped through our Māori communities, particularly Omahu, Waiohiki, Petane, Tangoio, Te Karaka up in Gizzy. And then you go to Tokomaru Bay which was kind of isolated but around Uawa, Mangatuna. And of course Wairoa. We haven't recovered. It's now seven months on the back of two years of Covid.
“Our people are tired. They're just tired, have had a bad run. And now I'm trying to get them up to vote. It's just people are preoccupied with recovery stuff on top of cost-of-living stuff.
"In 2020 and 2017 iwi ran candidate debates, Ngāti Pōrou ran one at Poho Rawiri marae, Kahungunu ran several throughout the electorate. (This time) not a single one has been run, not because they don't want to, but the iwi are busy, they're busy in the recovery space."
She believes it's crucial to get the unfiltered views of people on the ground to understand what is going on in the electorate.
“People on the ground are different and so when I talk about giving people the time of day it's not just the top end or the leadership end, they're important but it's coming down to the freezing workers, the fruit pickers, the people that keep our maraes running because their views are quite different."
Tangaere-Manuel is also hearing the same themes emerge – people are facing massive challenges but also have answers and want to be supported and resourced to implement those solutions.
“No matter where I go, the issues are the same to varying degrees. Cyclone recovery is obvious. It's an obvious one of fixing the roads and etcetera, which is important because that's what connects us. Housing is a huge one. Cost of living is coming up. That's coming up in all communities across Aotearoa. But honestly, the thing that's coming up over and over again and I'm seeing in the organisations – the kaupapa organisations that I'm visiting, whānau, hapū, iwi, and marae – have solutions and they want to be involved from the outset.
“No matter what the issue is, whether it's housing, whether it's cyclone recovery, whānau wants to be involved from design to delivery. What we've learned from Covid and the cyclone is the iwi response was amazing. It was effective and it was stood up really fast, with the input of government putea. But now, as we move forward with these lessons, we've learned whānau want to be involved in the design of prevention and new response plans.”
They both demur somewhat when talking around whether it's a party or person that voters will turn out for.
Tangaere-Manuel puts a bob each way.
“I'm hearing two schools of thought. A lot of you know, on the ground, a lot of people are saying to me, 'That's a Labour seat. It's a Labour seat'. And I've been, 'It's been quite surprising to me the amount of people who don't know me who've met me who are Labour's strong supporters and go, 'Are you our girl?' So there was definitely a sense of that.
“I have known Meka a long time and I did another interview this morning and was asked about, that was a very respectful exchange. Why? Well, I don't consider the Māori Party to be our opposition, I consider National to be our opposition. And our whānau are very smart. They realize they've got an opportunity to have two representatives here.”
Whaitiri is slightly more pointed, emphasising that the seat doesn't belong to any one party or person.
I’ve heard on this campaign that this is Parekura’s seat and I’ve had to say respectfully, 'No, it’s the seat of the people of Ikaroa-Rāwhiti'. I think it’s a play to reach Labour voters. But I’ve said, 'No, the electorate belongs to the voters and they will make a determination on October 14th
The communities that make up the Ikaroa-Rāwhiti electorate sit within regions that cover six general seats. The subject of race-baiting that has characterised the right-wing parties is a question that is unavoidable, particularly the repeated use of the term co-governance as a bogeyman.
Whaitiri has been around long enough to be familiar with the tactic.
“Some people are using co-governance to race bait voters that Māori are gonna get more than they deserve, or we should be all one people, you know, blah, blah, blah. And so it's been used as a tool to scratch the itch of the racism that we currently have in this country.
“It's a distraction, the use of co-governance. It's an interpretation on partnership, and evolution of partnership and people still use term partnership, including Māori. And now our new term is co-governance. The Treaty of Waitangi doesn't talk about partnership.
“It's to create dissension in Pākehā society that these bloody Māoris are getting too much. Why are they getting special treatment? That's all that is. That's what Act is doing. Act is just scratching that itch. Winston's trying to outplay him with his dumb statement about Māori not being Indigenous, and yet they preach around us being divisive. It's reaching out to the blue rinse brigade. But if you ask their kids and their grandkids, that generation below will have a different view."
Tangaere-Manuel is equally unimpressed by the rhetoric attacking Māori.
“I'm glad that declared the position because our people deserve to know. We've often been lulled into a false sense of security only to find that parties are not empathetic at all to whakaaro Māori. I actually think they're a dying breed. I've encountered non-Māori rangatahi, who speak, utilise our reo freely, and they appreciate the window to our world that our reo gives them because once they learn the reo, they start to learn our tikanga. And they realise how applicable it is to everyone. And all our processes are around connection. You know, even when someone's running out, doing a wero they're just sussing you out saying you come in, let's connect, but it's about connection. So in terms of how I'll deal with it, I actually wouldn't be surprised if I'm confronted with it. But I know that my presence will be a way of dealing with it, because apparently, I'm everything they oppose. And yet I know how to integrate both worlds.”
Whaitiri says there is an increasing unwillingness from all the mainstream parties to actually address the causes of some of the issues facing not just Māori but the country at large.
“Poverty is such a real life challenge and issue for many Māori. Poverty has been driving crime and poverty that drives crime is propping up the prisons. The major parties just want to build more prisons, Labour wants to lock up 12-year-olds.
"There are more left-leaning voters in this country than right leaning, it's just that the left-leaning are made up of põhara, homeless, disengaged. So it's in the right side's interests that we perpetuate an uneven system of lack of information, no civics education. That's how they get in."
The notion that Māori are somehow getting some kind of special treatment is completely at odds with the actual statistics, particularly in many of the communities that make up the Ikaroa-Rāwhiti electorate. If National wants to talk about the squeezed middle, many of the votes in Ikaroa-Rāwhiti belong to those who are being crushed at the bottom. But those standing for the general seats seem to be either oblivious or deliberately ignoring Māori on the general roll who live in their general electorate, despite it having one of the largest Māori populations in the country.
Ōtāne community hall is packed with a mix that probably reflects the area. A solid bunch of Pākehā farmers tending toward the grey end and a bunch of Māori curious about what the politicians haven’t got to say for themselves.
Their individual spiels are tailored to the voters they are targeting while sidestepping those they aren’t.
The National and Act candidates in particular are focused on farmers and crime and gangs. Presumably they mean Pākehā farmers because they don’t mention the kinds of challenges facing Māori-owned land, such as perpetual leases.
Both happily pop off their talking points about the dangers of two different health systems, but then get flustered when asked by several Māori in the room how they are going to address the inequities of the health system that has failed Māori for decades.
I can’t help it, and ask how many gang members they actually know. Both their heads drop and they look at the floor. Silence. Are they aware that many gang members, including ones just up the road, have been through the welfare homes where they were victims of crimes committed against them by the state when they were children? Will they be taking responsibility for those crimes if they become ministers of the Crown, the Crown that is the perpetrator? The Act candidate rambles about their youth policy, but gets interrupted by a kaumatua at the back who says they’re not answering the question. The National candidate still says nothing and seems fascinated by something on the floor.
However the votes fall, the deciding votes between a Labour or National government could rely on Māori voters whether they vote for Labour or Te Pāti Maori. The Ikaroa-Rawhiti electorate that is not in the headlines now could be the difference on October 14 between being in opposition or being in government.
