Could the Tāmaki Makaurau by-election be a two-person race?
Friday, 11 July 2025
It appears the battle for the Tāmaki Makaurau Māori seat may be a two-person race.
This week Te Pāti Māori (TPM) confirmed broadcaster Oriini Kaipara will run in the upcoming by-election for the electorate, after the death of MP Takutai Moana Natasha Kemp in June.
And The Post understands just one Labour candidate could be up for the job when internal party candidate nominations close at midnight on Friday: former Tāmaki Makaurau MP Peeni Henare.
That would come as no surprise - Henare previously held the seat from 2014 until 2023, until he was ousted by TPM’s Kemp by a narrow margin at the last election.
The Labour Party will go through its formal processes over the weekend, sources say, and is expected to announce its candidate early next week.
Kemp narrowly bested Henare to win the seat in 2023 by just 42 votes. A month after the election, Henare applied for a judicial recount, which confirmed the margin.
On July 9 the Electoral Commission published the official notice of the Tāmaki Makaurau Māori electorate vacancy in the New Zealand Gazette, triggering a 21-day period for the prime minister to announce the by-election date.
It means in the next three weeks, the closing date for candidate nominations and the by-election date will be announced, as well as the elected candidates.
National and ACT have ruled out putting anyone in the race.
Tāmaki Makaurau electorate covers the central Auckland isthmus and Waiheke Island, but not does include some areas that are managed by Auckland Council: namely, Papakura, which is is the Hauraki-Waikato electorate, and Great Barrier Island and Rangitoto, which are in the Te Tai Tokerau electorate.
Who is Peeni Henare?
Labour MP Peeni Henare was the third ever MP for Tāmaki Makaurau, from 2014 until 2023.
It was the beginning of the 45-year-old’s political career. After losing his seat in 2023 he stayed on in the Labour Party as a list MP, and today is the party’s spokesperson for five portfolios: defence, economic development, foreign affairs, health and Māori Crown relations.
He comes from a political family: Henare’s great-grandfather Taurekareka Henare held the Northern Māori seat between 1914 and 1938, one of Aotearoa’s first four original parliamentary Māori electorates established in 1868, which was eventually replaced with the Te Tai Tokerau seat after the establishment of MMP.
His grandfather James Henare stood for the National Party five times between 1946 and 1963, and his father Erima Henare was head of the Māori Language Commission.
In Henare’s first term in government, he was Minister for Whānau Ora until 2019, then moved to be Minister of Civil Defence. His second term saw him return to lead Whānau Ora and the Ministry of Defence, as well as a host of associate minister portfolios.
As Defence Minister, he made the first visit to Ukraine by a New Zealand Cabinet minister since Russia’s invasion in February 2022, travelling to the region that November.
His final jobs after a 2023 cabinet reshuffle were to be the Minister for ACC, Tourism and Environment, and Associate Minister for Health with a responsibility for Māori.
The Tāmaki Makaurau electorate was formed in 2002, and its first representative was John Tamihere, today the president of Te Pāti Māori.
He was succeeded the following election in 2005 by Pita Sharples, who held the seat for Te Pāti Māori for three terms, until his retirement from politics in 2014.
In 2014, Rangi McLean ran for TPM and lost to Henare.
Who is Oriini Kaipara?
Kaipara is an award-winning broadcaster, and hails from Ngāi Tūhoe, Ngāti Awa, Tūwharetoa, Ngāti Rangitihi.
She was raised on Hoani Waititi Marae in West Auckland and worked in news and on television until late 2023, when she announced she would leave TV3 to become the New Zealand Olympic Committee’s Māori cultural lead.
Kaipara has been working in news since 2004. She started as a newsreader at Mai FM, then became a reporter and director on TVNZ’s Waka Huia programme.
Since then, she presented Māori Television’s Native Affairs, TVNZ’s Te Karere and 1News, Three’s Newshub Live at 4.30pm and co-hosted Newshub Nation. In 2019 she became the first person with a moko kauae – a facial tattoo for women – to present mainstream television news.
The broadcaster even has acting roles to her name, in the anthology film We Are Still Here and in Muru, a drama loosely based on the 2007 police raids against Ngāi Tūhoe. Both were released in 2022.
In a statement released on Thursday, Kaipara shared her campaign goals: to tackle the cost of living crisis, to focus on housing, youth homelessness and food prices, and to advance her party’s Mana Motuhake policy package, which includes offering mana whenua first right of refusal over culturally significant cultural land.
“To every whānau in Tāmaki Makaurau, I am standing because our seat deserves to remain strong, grounded in te ao Māori, and guided by the voices of our people, united, determined, and unapologetically Māori,” Kaipara said.
“Māori are being attacked left, right and centre for purely existing. It’s vile and it’s not good enough. My role now is to move from covering the story to changing it.”
Auckland mayoral candidate and current councillor Kerrin Leoni says the next MP for the electorate has to focus on economic development, opportunities for rangatahi and managing the rising cost of living in the supercity.
Leoni said she expected Henare will run again, and that a match between the former leader and the rookie politician Kaipara would make for an exciting campaign.
“Oriini Kaipara is a dynamic wahine who has been in journalism a long time, and has a lot of name recognition in the city, as does Peeni Henare,” she said.
“There was only a 40 or so vote difference in the last election, so I am sure this will also be very close.”
She hopes having local body elections hot on the heels of the by-election will encourage greater participation, particularly among Māori: with over 250,000 tangata whenua and 19 mana whenua iwi in the supercity, proper representation at the voting booth is essential, she said.
Leoni may even host some “crossover” campaign events with Māori leadership, hoping to increase the 37% voter turnout to be closer to the 80% turnout rates for central government elections.
The next Tāmaki Makaurau MP, whoever they are will have to address the rising cost of living in Auckland, she said, and incentivise teachers and health workers, among other key workers, to stay in the supercity rather than move to Australia.
Leoni said a regional tourism plan, more infrastructure plans and economic development plans have to be top of the list, and plans which give rangatahi hope they will have meaningful work opportunities in their city after school.
New figures showed the country has seen the largest loss across the ditch since 2012: 30,000 people moved to Australia from New Zealand in 2024.
Is anyone else standing?
The Green Party confirmed it will not be standing a candidate, and said it doesn’t have the resources to spare on the campaign.
“The Green Party remains fully committed to advocating for people and our planet throughout Aoteaora, including in Tāmaki Makaurau. We will continue our flaxroots origins as a community-led party,” co-leader Marama Davidson said.
“We thank our supporters and members for understanding this decision.”
Davidson previously ran for the electorate in 2020, 2017 and 2014.
The ACT Party press secretary Connor Molloy said the party won’t be running in the electorate or any other Māori electorate, “because we don’t believe New Zealand should have different seats in Parliament based on race.”
National Party CEO and secretary Jo de Joux confirmed the party would not be standing a candidate.
New Zealand First was approached for comment.