Speaker 1: Kyota. I'm Chelsea Daniels and this is.
Speaker 2: The Front Page, a daily podcast presented by The New
Speaker 2: Zealand Herald. The race is on for the Tamaki Makoto
Speaker 2: by election, sparked by the death of Tepati mali Mp
Speaker 2: Takatai tash Kemp. The Maulti electorate covers central and southern
Speaker 2: Auckland areas from the Waitakli Ranges to Buckland's Beach and
Speaker 2: Wahigi Island. Voting begins today for overseas voters. Advanced voting
Speaker 2: opens on August twenty fifth, and election day is set
Speaker 2: for September sixth. Today on the front Page, Victoria University
Speaker 2: of Wellington Associate Professor Lara Grieves is with us to
Speaker 2: give us a rundown of what you need to know
Speaker 2: about this sought after seat. First off, Lara, give us
Speaker 2: some background of this electorate. I understand it was quite
Speaker 2: hotly contested in twenty twenty three.
Speaker 1: Yeah, so what we found last time around was the
Speaker 1: Marii electorates were quite hotly and contested. It was a
Speaker 1: really close race kind of across the board and really surprising,
Speaker 1: not necessarily what a lot of political commentators as it
Speaker 1: had expected. I remember early on on election night suddenly
Speaker 1: looking up at the screens going wait, what to party
Speaker 1: Mahari is like fundamentally back. And there were two electorates
Speaker 1: that went down to the special votes, went down to
Speaker 1: a recount, and ultimately there were I think forty two
Speaker 1: votes in it for Tama Kimikoto with Party Marti flipping
Speaker 1: the seat. So very close electorate one that kind of
Speaker 1: people were then talking about penn Hannaday like will he
Speaker 1: continued to contest it? Does this mean he's not maybe
Speaker 1: leadership or ministerial material, you know, things are being read
Speaker 1: into it here and there, And ultimately, yeah, really close race.
Speaker 1: And just again like acknowledging the sadness of takutamiwan At
Speaker 1: tash Kimp's passing and how the unexpected that was and yeah,
Speaker 1: totally heart goes out to her father and her community
Speaker 1: and how terrible that was. But yeah, a very set
Speaker 1: of up and down events in this electorate over the
Speaker 1: last couple of years.
Speaker 2: Who's in the running this time this time.
Speaker 1: Around what we've seen as Pennie Hanna Day from Labor
Speaker 1: is going to contest the seat. In terms of when
Speaker 1: someone passes away an electorate. In a Madi electorate, you know,
Speaker 1: you do have to think will there be a race,
Speaker 1: will there be a contestation, Will the by election be
Speaker 1: like a full by election that is contested. In this case,
Speaker 1: Pena Hannadei has opted to contest a by election. You
Speaker 1: could see reasons why he might not. To Party Mahrti
Speaker 1: have had a selection contest. An odd Any Kuipitter, the
Speaker 1: former broadcaster, is now running for to Party Mahty in
Speaker 1: that electorate. So that's the main race that we're looking
Speaker 1: at here is Labor versus to Party Mahdi. There are
Speaker 1: a little there are a few other kind of minor
Speaker 1: candidates and independents running around the edges, just trying to
Speaker 1: really get a bit of a voice to their platform
Speaker 1: and shot to the debates and do bits and pieces
Speaker 1: and get some bot get some attention.
Speaker 2: Do you think Labour's decision to put Piano Henee up
Speaker 2: again kind of gives us any indication of what might
Speaker 2: happen next year and what might their process be.
Speaker 1: Well, yeah, I mean that's an interesting question because Farmaki
Speaker 1: Macoto have a very young electorate. It's one of the
Speaker 1: youngest electorates in the country in terms of the Auckland
Speaker 1: Mardi population in the median age is like somewhere in
Speaker 1: the twenties, you know it Compared to the rest of
Speaker 1: the country, it's much younger. So having these two candidates
Speaker 1: who are young but older than the population median in
Speaker 1: that space is an interesting battle. First off. The second
Speaker 1: thing for labor is labor now has to balance, you know,
Speaker 1: do you keep the old guard, the people who had
Speaker 1: ministerial positions in the Arduan government, the baggage they might
Speaker 1: be associated, wouldn't that the kind of has to be
Speaker 1: balanced with the experience that they have. So I mean
Speaker 1: for labor, it is interesting because it does seem like
Speaker 1: they haven't had that many retirements. It does seem like
Speaker 1: laborable contests and the election with a lot of that
Speaker 1: lineup of the ministers from the Ardurn years that are
Speaker 1: still in there, do.
Speaker 2: You reckon this is a kind of testing ground to
Speaker 2: see how those other ministers would fare from the Ardun AIRSA.
Speaker 1: I'm not too sure about this electorate in this by election.
Speaker 1: I think we have to be a bit careful to
Speaker 1: not read too much into it because it's a fairly
Speaker 1: straightforward by election. You know, a labor versus party Mahdi,
Speaker 1: and ultimately it's like the Mahdi electorates are quite different
Speaker 1: to the general electorates in terms of how they work,
Speaker 1: in terms of the tea hunger, in terms of the
Speaker 1: unspoken cultural norms and ways that people engage with them,
Speaker 1: they're a bit different. So I think we're going to
Speaker 1: be a bit careful about reading in this electorate. The
Speaker 1: other thing, of course, is turnout will probably be quite low.
Speaker 1: Turnout and buy elections is really low. People have to
Speaker 1: re engage their brain, think about politics. Are they enrolled,
Speaker 1: They've got to show up, they've got to go and vote,
Speaker 1: they've got to felt the form, they've got to do
Speaker 1: all the things. And it's outside of an election cycle.
Speaker 1: So normally turnout as incredibly low. So we need to
Speaker 1: be a bit careful to not read too much into
Speaker 1: this by election, although you know we are only about
Speaker 1: a year out from the election. Easy to do so.
Speaker 3: Really, you would not have believed that a war went
Speaker 3: on in South Auckland for that money, for that Tamachi
Speaker 3: Marcoto seat. You would not believe how tough it was,
Speaker 3: the different sides, how passionate people were, and people would
Speaker 3: have thought that they would have been enemies forever, but
Speaker 3: therefore knowing the tongue of ties them forever in the day.
Speaker 3: And I think that's the difference between you know, with
Speaker 3: Maori politics, we will always be tied by our tutor,
Speaker 3: by our fucker puppa, and by our identity. And Penny
Speaker 3: hen Nadi and Tashkeb couldn't have been any closer.
Speaker 2: How do Malti seats differ from general electorate seats? Do
Speaker 2: you think in terms of that community engagement and voter turnout?
Speaker 1: Well, different Malori writers have written about this over the
Speaker 1: last yeah few decades at least, about how well the
Speaker 1: Mardi electorates represent something different than the general electorates. So
Speaker 1: people who run in the Mahdi electorates, people who vote
Speaker 1: in the Marti electorates, people who you can test them.
Speaker 1: People who represent the Mardi electorates are a bit different
Speaker 1: to people who marty and the general electorates, to people
Speaker 1: who choose to run in those general electorates. So generally
Speaker 1: it's like, if you're going to run in those electorates,
Speaker 1: you have a greater level of engagement with tikong Amari
Speaker 1: today Amari like just Marti customing practices language, culture, ways
Speaker 1: of doing things. That's been more something that you live
Speaker 1: and breathe when you compare people who've been an MP
Speaker 1: in a Maiti electorate to even Marty who've been in
Speaker 1: a general electorate. So that's just part and parcel of it.
Speaker 1: The other thing is is they're there like it's in
Speaker 1: the name Marti electorate, like you're there to represent Mardy,
Speaker 1: Like you have a slightly different mandate of the interests
Speaker 1: of the kind of values that you're there to stand
Speaker 1: for and represent, and that I mean that can be
Speaker 1: quite tricky for people, say who are Marty in the
Speaker 1: Labor Party. We've seen some struggle with that in the past,
Speaker 1: especially around the foreshore and sea being controversy. But that
Speaker 1: can be a bit tricky to balance those Marti electorate
Speaker 1: representational interests with what your party wants. So you've kind
Speaker 1: of got that tensional and that creates this mandate. So
Speaker 1: we know for my research that Marty electorate voters tend
Speaker 1: to be prouder of being Marty, tend to have a
Speaker 1: lot of like engagement or culture, and tend to really
Speaker 1: believe in the Madi electorates and their importance for representing
Speaker 1: Mardi representing Marty people, ideas to treaty you know, Copapa
Speaker 1: Mardi and bits and pieces like that. So they're very
Speaker 1: the seats are very Mardy through and through and engaged
Speaker 1: Marty ways of doing things in politics and kind of
Speaker 1: ways of being in the world and thinking about all
Speaker 1: of these issues. So there's that whole kind of cultural
Speaker 1: base that is sitting behind the Mahdi electorates. And there's
Speaker 1: such an interesting feature of representing like a specific indigenous
Speaker 1: population and culture that it's it's interesting seeing other countries
Speaker 1: now start to talk about them or think about, you know,
Speaker 1: these reserved seats as well. So yeah, it's quite a
Speaker 1: different rice, a different way of thinking about or doing politics.
Speaker 1: I mean it's still Westminster politics, still Parliament at the
Speaker 1: end of the day, but it's done a little bit differently.
Speaker 2: How significant is this seat when it comes to the
Speaker 2: wider picture, I mean, Tamiki Makoto is quite a small
Speaker 2: one in terms of the rest of the country. Right.
Speaker 1: It's interesting because there's definitely arguments you can see for
Speaker 1: where this by election, where this electorate could be something
Speaker 1: that we could look at and say, hey, well, like
Speaker 1: for example, if we see a huge labor landslide, right,
Speaker 1: that will be something that we're probably going to go, wow,
Speaker 1: that might mean that we see a Layo landslide next election,
Speaker 1: or if we see Departi Marti increase their lead by heats,
Speaker 1: we will all think of, oh, it could be this
Speaker 1: could be that, it could be the other thing. Ultimately,
Speaker 1: it is a by election and quite a specific part
Speaker 1: of the country. We have to notice, well that for
Speaker 1: many years now the right wing parties haven't run in
Speaker 1: the seat, although National did run a candidate in the
Speaker 1: last election, so it's just got a different party dynamic
Speaker 1: as well. That's the other thing to kind of note.
Speaker 1: So yeah, there's definitely things we could read into, but
Speaker 1: generally it's just kind of its own standalone contest. The
Speaker 1: other thing is that I'm not sure about, and I've
Speaker 1: talked to different Mardi voters and the electorate about their
Speaker 1: thoughts on this is yeah, rarely whether it feels right
Speaker 1: to vote and to create it make it this contest stuff.
Speaker 1: If someone who's passed on and what that means you're
Speaker 1: respecting their legacy, there might be another thing that people
Speaker 1: are thinking about in the voting book and thinking about
Speaker 1: honoring Kent's legacy. Honoring to party Mardi and honoring their
Speaker 1: continued presence in that scene. So it's pretty hard. There's
Speaker 1: a lot going on there. I mean, there will be
Speaker 1: things we read into it, but it's ultimately not like
Speaker 1: a microcosm of the broader country in any way.
Speaker 2: Why don't those more riot? I mean, your national, your act,
Speaker 2: your news Zealand first, why don't they generally contest multi seats?
Speaker 1: Well, went through this period of politics around the infamous
Speaker 1: Dom Brash auto or speech to the early two thousands
Speaker 1: that was really a kind of turning point for what
Speaker 1: people were calling race relations at the time, or Marti
Speaker 1: crime relations, or politics in this country.
Speaker 4: So let me begin by asking what sort of nation
Speaker 4: do we want to build? Is it to be a
Speaker 4: modern democratic society embodying the essential notion of one rule
Speaker 4: for all in a single nation state, or is it
Speaker 4: the racially divided nation with two sets of laws and
Speaker 4: two standards of citizenship that the present labor government is
Speaker 4: moving us steadily towards.
Speaker 1: Around that time, I think it felt quite hypocritical for
Speaker 1: national to be running in those seats when they also
Speaker 1: one of them abolished. There was an early period in
Speaker 1: nineteen ninety six when New Zealand First had won all
Speaker 1: the electorates. So New Zealand First and the Marti sexts
Speaker 1: that history as a whole other kind of hittle of fish,
Speaker 1: can of worm, whatever, whole other episode, whole other episode.
Speaker 1: But now they've New Zealand First attended to move away
Speaker 1: from those seats and so acts. So if you think,
Speaker 1: if you're a political party and you're saying, well, ethnicity,
Speaker 1: you know, tatidity doesn't matter for this or that, then
Speaker 1: running in those electorates doesn't really marry up well with
Speaker 1: your ideology. So generally it's a case of both parties
Speaker 1: saying we don't believe in these seats, we're not going
Speaker 1: to run in them. National over the John Key years
Speaker 1: and being government of the Marti Party kind of softened
Speaker 1: on them a bit and didn't run for a while there,
Speaker 1: but kind of weren't actively looking to abolish them. So
Speaker 1: the whole party and the way they thought about the
Speaker 1: Marti electorates changed this last time round. They ran free
Speaker 1: candidates in the Marti electorates, So perhaps are understanding that
Speaker 1: you know, an electorate race, an election, even if you're
Speaker 1: not going to win, is an opportunity for you to.
Speaker 1: So the rooster's right outside is.
Speaker 2: A rooster, isn't it?
Speaker 1: Yeah, you want me to try and take it away,
Speaker 1: exciting it. So what National has kind of realized over
Speaker 1: this past election is, you know, say you're going into
Speaker 1: a seat, you're not going to win that seat, but
Speaker 1: it's a good opportunity to really push your views, to
Speaker 1: really argue from your position, to really show an alternative
Speaker 1: to voters. And at the end of the day, you know,
Speaker 1: in an MMP system, it all comes down to party vote.
Speaker 1: So National has been running in these electorates. They've been
Speaker 1: running some candidates and putting forward their arguments, their policies,
Speaker 1: and perhaps more campaigning for the party vote, but using
Speaker 1: it as an opportunity to expose their ideas to a
Speaker 1: much wider range of voters. All of this is occurring
Speaker 1: against this broader kind of demographic trend we're seeing of
Speaker 1: They're basically being a higher proportion of the population being Marty.
Speaker 1: By twenty forty, a further of the children in this
Speaker 1: country will be of Marti descent. We're seeing in different
Speaker 1: surveys that people are really proud to be Marty and
Speaker 1: proud of Malti culture. Tongue, tid t Marty politics of
Speaker 1: their nature. So running in the electorates and making relationships
Speaker 1: with Marty is like a good investment in the future,
Speaker 1: especially for National Is the center right party.
Speaker 2: What are the major policy issues or concerns for voters
Speaker 2: in Tamiki Makodo right now.
Speaker 1: Well, from what we've seen as we've see more continuation
Speaker 1: of that cost of living, poverty and equality housing type theme,
Speaker 1: so we know that all around the country. You know,
Speaker 1: one of the big things in the media has been
Speaker 1: you know, things like the price of butter, but house
Speaker 1: prices and being able to afford like a warm, dry,
Speaker 1: safe home that you can afford. It's like one of
Speaker 1: those big core issues continues to be in any kind
Speaker 1: of polling that I've seen and always is an important
Speaker 1: set of issues in the Marti electorates because you know,
Speaker 1: on average, we know that Marty have less intergenerational waff
Speaker 1: less socio economic resources, and so that continues to be
Speaker 1: a huge issue. So we've got that broad set of
Speaker 1: economic issues in equity issues that I think will be
Speaker 1: key to this campaign, and we've seen the candidates talk
Speaker 1: about these and really signal the emphasis on these issues.
Speaker 1: There's also the broader set of issues around Marty feeling
Speaker 1: under attack from the government. Obviously the most recent one
Speaker 1: being the use of tada ra mahti in school books
Speaker 1: as an example, but it seems like there's another example
Speaker 1: every week or so. So those kind of political, kind
Speaker 1: of culture issues, they seem to be less of it
Speaker 1: in terms of when we poll people, when you do
Speaker 1: public opinion polling, they seem to be less of a
Speaker 1: huge issue for many voters, but it's still an issue,
Speaker 1: and it's an issue for a lot of Marty when
Speaker 1: you speak to Marty about whether you know they I
Speaker 1: kind of agree with the government on that. However, a
Speaker 1: lot of those culture issues perhaps less contested in this
Speaker 1: electorate because again we see labor into party Marty running
Speaker 1: against themselves. But that's that broader background of Marty feeling
Speaker 1: under attacked by the current government and putting a lot
Speaker 1: of effort, a lot of energy into opposing different changes
Speaker 1: at the moment, So that broader political context is sitting
Speaker 1: there as well.
Speaker 2: We've spoken about labors, Piano Hannade and Tabati Mali's or
Speaker 2: any Kaipra. Of course, there are three other people putting
Speaker 2: their hat into the ring as well, you've got New
Speaker 2: Zealand loyals At Kelvin Alp, who is the founder of
Speaker 2: counter Spending Media, a conspiracy website that popped up over
Speaker 2: the protest the Parliament protest in twenty twenty two. Then
Speaker 2: we've got Vision New Zealand's Hannah Tamaki, wife of Brian
Speaker 2: Tarmiki Destiny Church. And then we've got an independent Sherry
Speaker 2: Lee Martiner. Now you mentioned before these three kind of
Speaker 2: the thought of a Kelvin out running for a Maori
Speaker 2: seat obviously is.
Speaker 1: Disingenuous.
Speaker 4: Do you think are what are there?
Speaker 2: What's the point of them running?
Speaker 1: Well? In the late nineteen sixties the law changed because
Speaker 1: before so previously the marti electorates you had to be
Speaker 1: marty'd run. Over the sixties and seventies the law changed
Speaker 1: away by being based on it used to be based
Speaker 1: on blood puontum and whether someone was a half caste
Speaker 1: or free quarter elect that they used the date language.
Speaker 1: So all of those laws changed in the nineteen sixties
Speaker 1: and nineteen seventies, and part of those law changes opened
Speaker 1: up the marti electorates for anyone to run in the
Speaker 1: marty electorates, and any marty to run in the general electorates.
Speaker 1: Because before the nineteen sixties Marty, there was this rule
Speaker 1: around blood quantum where if you were half you could
Speaker 1: choose which role you were on. And so it's this
Speaker 1: whole colonial legacy that didn't dis enfranchise a lot of people.
Speaker 1: So that's a bike product of those law changes in
Speaker 1: the sixties and see fatigue. That meant that Marty could
Speaker 1: run in whatever seat. And then on the foot side
Speaker 1: it changed so non Marty could run in whatever seat.
Speaker 1: And so yeah, any it doesn't matter what fucker popper
Speaker 1: you are, you can run in a Marti electorate. Yes,
Speaker 1: there could be conversations about whether that's appropriate or not.
Speaker 1: I don't think that this is a political time or
Speaker 1: environment to have that unnecessarily, but these are the current
Speaker 1: roles and so anyone is free to run. And ultimately,
Speaker 1: you know what it comes down to at the end
Speaker 1: of the day is the voters can decide. The voters
Speaker 1: they have to be of Maori descent, they have to
Speaker 1: declare they're of Marty descent. The voters on the Maldi
Speaker 1: roll they get to decide who they elect. Hypothetically Marty
Speaker 1: and a Marty electorate could could elect a non Marty
Speaker 1: if they chose to and if that was their choice, again,
Speaker 1: it's over to them. It's probably very very very exceptionally
Speaker 1: unlikely to happen, but it could happen. It's a free
Speaker 1: choice there. So for these candidates it's a matter of
Speaker 1: like making their political points, you know, getting a bit
Speaker 1: of a platform, getting a bit of attention, getting mentioned,
Speaker 1: and seeing what comes with it. That's the kind of
Speaker 1: main agenda there. It's like when we you know, soon
Speaker 1: we'll open our little books and look at all the
Speaker 1: Merril candidates and sometimes we have a good laugh. Sometimes
Speaker 1: we'll go, well, who's that. Sometimes we'll be offended. It's
Speaker 1: the same sort of thing in a democracy. In this case,
Speaker 1: in the Mahdi electorates. Anyone can run, and anyone is running.
Speaker 1: Thanks for joining us, Lara, Suanna. Thank you.
Speaker 2: That said for this episode of the Front Page. You
Speaker 2: can read more about today's stories and extensive news coverage
Speaker 2: at NZADHERLD dot co dot nz. The Front Page is
Speaker 2: produced by Jane Ye and Richard Martin, who is also
Speaker 2: our editor. I'm Chelsea Daniels. Subscribe to the Front Page
Speaker 2: on iHeartRadio or wherever you get your podcasts and Tune
Speaker 2: in tomorrow for another look behind the headliness