Misryoum examines how Te Pāti Māori’s seat outcome could shape coalition options for the centre left.
Two mainstream media articles point to the precarity of the centre left this election.. One from Glenn McConnell at Stuff gives an analysis of Te Pāti Māori and whether internal issues will affect its ability to hold the Māori seats.. Pressure is also likely to be put on Chris Hipkins about whether TPM are a suitable coalition partner.. The right will of course run lines about instability and the scary Marries, and perceptions of competency
are a significant part of how New Zealand elections play out, but the MSM doesn’t have a good history of understanding and reporting on Māori politics and I’d like to see analysis from Māori media.. The other piece is from Marc Dalder at the Newsroom, where he points out that the left may lose the election if TPM don’t return to parliament.. Labour have just said they intend to win all the Māori seats.. Fair
enough, that’s always been their position.. However, It all makes Te Pāti Māori look like a messy partner for Labour.. Hipkins said last year the party needed to sort itself out before he would consider working with it and declined to say whether it had done so when asked on Wednesday.. It has also prompted the party to slip from regularly polling above the 5 percent threshold to fluctuating between 1 and 3 percent.. The
latest 1News-Verian poll showed that, if Te Pāti Māori won at least one seat, the Opposition would hold 62 seats between them (or more if Te Pāti Māori wins three or more seats and creates an overhang).. If, however, Te Pāti Māori misses out on all seven seats, the poll delivers a hung Parliament, with Labour and the Greens on 60 seats and the coalition splitting the other 60 between them.. Again, I’d like to
see Māori media analysis on this, but we should be thinking about this hard in what we campaign for.. The centre left have no affection for Te Pāti Māori.. But it’s worth remembering that one potential outcome for the election is a Labour/Green coalition with confidence and supply from TPM, rather than a three way coalition.. To my mind this is a far better outcome than a rerun of 2017 with a Labour/New Zealand First
coalition with confidence and supply from the Greens.