Te Tai Tonga

Population centres

Te Tai Tonga is by far the largest of the seventy-one electorates of New Zealand, covering all of the South Island, Stewart Island, the Chatham Islands, all the islands in the Southern Ocean and a large part of the Wellington urban area, namely Wellington City as far as Johnsonville, and Petone, Lower Hutt and Eastbourne from the Hutt Valley. Besides Wellington, the main centres in te Tai Tonga are Dunedin, Christchurch, Nelson, Timaru, Invercargill, Queenstown and Oamaru.

Te Tai Tonga's size was marginally decreased after a review of boundaries in 2007, when the suburbs of Naenae and Taitā were moved into Ikaroa-Rāwhiti. The 2013/14 redistribution did not further alter the boundaries of the electorate.

The main iwi of Te Tai Tonga are Ngāi Tahu/Kai Tahu, Kāti Mamoe and Waitaha, and in the North Island, Te Āti Awa ki Whakarongotai, Ngāti Toa Rangatira and Ngāti Poneke, which is not iwi in the traditional sense, but an urban pan-tribal grouping. The Chatham Islands was invaded by members of Ngāti Mutunga and Ngāti Tama, and their descendants live there today, alongside the indigenous Moriori.

History

The boundaries of Te Tai Tonga have a lot in common with the seat of Southern Maori that it superseded in 1996 with the introduction of Mixed Member Proportional (MMP) voting and an increase in the number of Māori electorates from four to five. The main difference involves the separation of the Wairarapa and Hawke's Bay into seats wholly located in the North Island - initially Te Puku O Te Whenua, and since 1999 Ikaroa-Rāwhiti. The voting patterns of Te Tai Tonga reflect the adaptation of Te Tai Tonga voters to proportional representation. Whetū Tirikatene-Sullivan had served as Southern Maori's representative in Parliament during the terms of five different governments and nine Prime Ministers, but the New Zealand First Party challenger Tū Wyllie tipped her out of the seat in 1996, as sixty years of Labour Party control of the (then) four Māori electorates ended.

In 1999 New Zealand First lost its electoral footing after an unpopular term in office, firstly as junior government-coalition partner and then following an internal split in the party, with much of the party's original parliamentary caucus leaving the party ("waka-jumping") to prop up the government of Jenny Shipley (although Wyllie himself did not join the breakaway group). Along with a drop in the New Zealand First party vote from thirteen to four percent nationwide came the return of the Māori electorates to Labour and the election of Mahara Okeroa to Parliament as the Labour Party MP for Te Tai Tonga.

A political difference of opinion between many Māori and the Labour Party emerged in 2004, when Helen Clark's Labour government introduced the Seabed and Foreshore Bill, claiming the coastline for the Crown and in the process providing the catalyst for the launch of the Māori Party (7 July 2004), which went on to win four of the seven Māori seats (but not the plurality of the party votes cast in those seats) at the 2005 general election. Te Tai Tonga did not form part of this electoral sea-change, with Okeroa's majority slashed from 8,000 to around 2,500 despite his facing two fewer contenders than in 2002. At the same time, voters in the seat used the left-hand side of the ballot paper to up Labour's share of the party vote from 52 to 57 percent and to help re-elect Clark's Labour government (possibly due to the campaign stance of National Party leader Don Brash).

Rahui Katene won the electorate for the Māori Party in the 2008 election, defeating the incumbent. Tirikatene won the electorate in 2011 with a margin of 1,475 votes. Tirikatene significantly increased his majority in the 2014 election.

Members of Parliament

Key

  NZ First     Labour     Māori     Green  

List MPs

Members of Parliament elected from party lists in elections where that person also unsuccessfully contested the Te Tai Tonga electorate. Unless otherwise stated, all MPs terms began and ended at general elections.

2011 election

Electorate (as at 26 November 2011): 31,933