Te Tai Tonga

Te Tai Tonga is a New Zealand Parliamentary Māori electorate, returning one Member of Parliament to the New Zealand House of Representatives. The current MP for Te Tai Tonga is Mahara Okeroa of the Labour Party. [ [http://www.parliament.nz/en-NZ/MPP/MPs/MPs/c/9/0/48MP30591-Okeroa-Mahara.htm New Zealand Parliament - Mahara Okeroa MP] ] He has held this position since 1999.

Te Tai Tonga is by far the largest of the seventy 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. Its huge size was marginally decreased after a review of boundaries in 2007, when the suburbs of Naenae and Taita were moved into Ikaroa-Rāwhiti. Besides Wellington, the main centres in te Tai Tonga are Dunedin, Christchurch, Nelson, Timaru, Invercargill, Queenstown and Oamaru.

The main iwi of Te Tai Tonga are Ngāi Tahu/Kai Tahu, Kāti Mamoe and Waitaha, and in the North Island, Te Ati Awa ki Whakarongotai, Ngāti Toa Rangatira and Ngāti Poneke [ [http://www.tpk.govt.nz/en/region/te-whanganui-a-tara/ Te Puni Kōkiri - In Your Region - Te Whanganui ā Tara] ] ., 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 descendents live there today, alongside the indigenous Moriori.

History

The boundaries of Te Tai Tonga have a lot in common with the seat of Southern Māori that it superseded with the introduction of Mixed Member Proportional voting in 1996. The main difference is the separation of the Wairarapa and the 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 Māori voters to proportional representation: Whetū Tirikatene-Sullivan, who was Southern Māori's representative in parliament through five different governments and nine Prime Ministers was tipped out of office by New Zealand First challenger Tū Wyllie in 1996, as a sixty year Labour Party hold on the (then) four Māori seats was ended.

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

A second difference of opinion between Māori and Labour emerged in 2004, when the Labour government introduced the controversial Seabed and Foreshore Act, claiming the coastline for the Crown and in the process providing the catalyst for the launch of the Māori Party, who went on to win four of the seven seats (but not the party votes of Māori) at the 2005. Te Tai Tonga was not part of this electoral seachange, with Okeroa's majority slashed from 8,000 to around 2,500 despite facing two less 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 re-elect the Labour government (possibly due to the campaign stance of National Party leader Don Brash).

Members of Parliament for Te Tai Tonga

sourced from [http://2005.electionresults.govt.nz/electorate-68.html electionresults.govt.nz]

References

External links

* [http://www.parliament.nz/NR/rdonlyres/3D13426D-6E80-40D1-8597-7B2434E154B2/210/Te_Tai_Tonga1.pdf Electorate Profile] "Parliamentary Library"