![Te Tai Tonga electorate since 2020 (detailed)](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/b/ba/Te_Tai_Tonga_electorate_since_2020_%28detailed%29.svg)
Te Tai Tonga is a New Zealand parliamentary
Māori electorate, returning one Member of Parliament to the New Zealand
House of Representatives
House of Representatives is the name of legislative bodies in many countries and sub-national entitles. In many countries, the House of Representatives is the lower house of a bicameral legislature, with the corresponding upper house often c ...
. It was established for the
1996 general election, replacing
Southern Maori
Southern Maori was one of New Zealand's four original parliamentary Māori electorates established in 1868, along with Eastern Maori, Western Maori and Eastern Maori. In 1996, with the introduction of MMP, the Maori electorates were updated, an ...
. The current MP for Te Tai Tonga is
Rino Tirikatene
Rino Tirikatene (born 1972) is a New Zealand politician and a member of the House of Representatives, representing the Te Tai Tonga electorate since the . He is a member of the Labour Party. He comes from a family with a strong political histor ...
of the
Labour Party.
Population centres
Te Tai Tonga is geographically by far the largest of the seventy-one electorates of New Zealand, covering all of the
South Island
The South Island, also officially named , is the larger of the two major islands of New Zealand in surface area, the other being the smaller but more populous North Island. It is bordered to the north by Cook Strait, to the west by the Tasman ...
,
Stewart Island
Stewart Island ( mi, Rakiura, ' glowing skies', officially Stewart Island / Rakiura) is New Zealand's third-largest island, located south of the South Island, across the Foveaux Strait. It is a roughly triangular island with a total land ar ...
, the
Chatham Islands
The Chatham Islands ( ) (Moriori: ''Rēkohu'', 'Misty Sun'; mi, Wharekauri) are an archipelago in the Pacific Ocean about east of New Zealand's South Island. They are administered as part of New Zealand. The archipelago consists of about te ...
, all the islands in the
Southern Ocean
The Southern Ocean, also known as the Antarctic Ocean, comprises the southernmost waters of the World Ocean, generally taken to be south of 60° S latitude and encircling Antarctica. With a size of , it is regarded as the second-small ...
and a large part of the
Wellington
Wellington ( mi, Te Whanganui-a-Tara or ) is the capital city of New Zealand. It is located at the south-western tip of the North Island, between Cook Strait and the Remutaka Range. Wellington is the second-largest city in New Zealand by me ...
urban area, namely
Wellington City
Wellington City Council is a Territorial authorities of New Zealand, territorial authority in New Zealand, governing the country's capital city Wellington, and ''de facto'' second-largest city (if the commonly considered parts of Wellington, ...
as far as
Churton Park
Churton Park is an affluent suburb 1.5 km north of Johnsonville in Wellington, the capital city of New Zealand. It was established in the 1970s.
The suburb includes Churton Park Reserve which includes a recreational sports field, two prim ...
, and
Lower Hutt City
Lower Hutt ( mi, Te Awa Kairangi ki Tai) is a city in the Wellington Region of New Zealand. Administered by the Hutt City Council, it is one of the four cities that constitute the Wellington metropolitan area.
It is New Zealand's sixth most ...
south of
Naenae
Naenae (, occasionally spelled NaeNae) is a suburb of Lower Hutt. It lies on the eastern edge of the floodplain of the Hutt River, four kilometres from the Lower Hutt Central business district. A small tributary of the Hutt, the Waiwhetu Strea ...
and west of
Wainuiomata
Wainuiomata () is a large suburb of Lower Hutt, in the Wellington Region of New Zealand's North Island.
Origin of name
The word 'Wainui-o-mata' is a Māori name made up of the words Wai = water, Nui = big, O = of, and Mata – which could refer ...
. Besides Wellington, the main centres in Te Tai Tonga are
Nelson
Nelson may refer to:
Arts and entertainment
* ''Nelson'' (1918 film), a historical film directed by Maurice Elvey
* ''Nelson'' (1926 film), a historical film directed by Walter Summers
* ''Nelson'' (opera), an opera by Lennox Berkeley to a lib ...
,
Christchurch
Christchurch ( ; mi, Ōtautahi) is the largest city in the South Island of New Zealand and the seat of the Canterbury Region. Christchurch lies on the South Island's east coast, just north of Banks Peninsula on Pegasus Bay. The Avon River / ...
,
Timaru
Timaru (; mi, Te Tihi-o-Maru) is a port city in the southern Canterbury Region of New Zealand, located southwest of Christchurch and about northeast of Dunedin on the eastern Pacific coast of the South Island. The Timaru urban area is home to ...
,
Oamaru
Oamaru (; mi, Te Oha-a-Maru) is the largest town in North Otago, in the South Island of New Zealand, it is the main town in the Waitaki District. It is south of Timaru and north of Dunedin on the Pacific coast; State Highway 1 and the railway ...
,
Dunedin
Dunedin ( ; mi, Ōtepoti) is the second-largest city in the South Island of New Zealand (after Christchurch), and the principal city of the Otago region. Its name comes from , the Scottish Gaelic name for Edinburgh, the capital of Scotland. Th ...
,
Queenstown, and
Invercargill
Invercargill ( , mi, Waihōpai is the southernmost and westernmost city in New Zealand, and one of the southernmost cities in the world. It is the commercial centre of the Southland region. The city lies in the heart of the wide expanse of t ...
.
As a Māori electorate, Te Tai Tonga overlaps with the sixteen South Island electorates, as well as
Rongotai
Rongotai is a suburb of Wellington, New Zealand, located southeast of the city centre. It is on the Rongotai isthmus, between the Miramar Peninsula and the suburbs of Kilbirnie and Lyall Bay. It is known mostly for being the location of the We ...
and
Wellington Central, and parts of
Ōhāriu and
Hutt South
Hutt South is a parliamentary electorate in the lower Hutt Valley of New Zealand. It is held by Ginny Andersen of the Labour Party following the 2020 election. It was previously held by Chris Bishop of the National Party Bishop's victory was t ...
.
Te Tai Tonga's size was marginally decreased after a review of boundaries in 2007, when the suburbs of
Naenae
Naenae (, occasionally spelled NaeNae) is a suburb of Lower Hutt. It lies on the eastern edge of the floodplain of the Hutt River, four kilometres from the Lower Hutt Central business district. A small tributary of the Hutt, the Waiwhetu Strea ...
and
Taitā were moved into
Ikaroa-Rāwhiti
Ikaroa-Rāwhiti is a New Zealand parliamentary Māori electorate. It was formed for the and held by Parekura Horomia of the Labour Party until his death in 2013. A by-election to replace him was held on 29 June 2013 and was won by Labour's Me ...
. The 2013/14 redistribution did not further alter the boundaries of the electorate. The 2019/20 redistribution adjusted the north-east boundary to align with the northern boundary of Hutt South.
The main iwi of Te Tai Tonga are
Ngāi Tahu
Ngāi Tahu, or Kāi Tahu, is the principal Māori (tribe) of the South Island. Its (tribal area) is the largest in New Zealand, and extends from the White Bluffs / Te Parinui o Whiti (southeast of Blenheim), Mount Mahanga and Kahurangi Poi ...
/Kāi Tahu,
Kāti Māmoe
Kāti Māmoe (also spelled Ngāti Māmoe but not by the tribe themselves) is a historic Māori iwi. Originally from the Hastings area, they moved in the 16th century to the South Island which at the time was already occupied by the Waitaha.
A ...
and
Waitaha, and in the North Island,
Te Āti Awa
Te Āti Awa is a Māori iwi with traditional bases in the Taranaki and Wellington regions of New Zealand. Approximately 17,000 people registered their affiliation to Te Āti Awa in 2001, with around 10,000 in Taranaki, 2,000 in Wellington and arou ...
ki Whakarongotai,
Ngāti Toa
Ngāti Toa, Ngāti Toarangatira or Ngāti Toa Rangatira, is a Māori ''iwi'' (tribe) based in the southern North Island and in the northern South Island of New Zealand. Its ''rohe'' (tribal area) extends from Whanganui in the north, Palmerston N ...
Rangatira and
Ngāti Poneke
Iwi () are the largest social units in New Zealand Māori society. In Māori roughly means "people" or "nation", and is often translated as "tribe", or "a confederation of tribes". The word is both singular and plural in the Māori language, an ...
, that latter of which is not iwi in the traditional sense, but an urban pan-tribal grouping. The Chatham Islands was invaded by members of
Ngāti Mutunga
Ngāti Mutunga is a Māori iwi (tribe) of New Zealand, whose original tribal lands were in north Taranaki. They migrated from Taranaki, first to Wellington (with Ngāti Toa and other Taranaki Hāpu), and then to the Chatham Islands (along with ...
and
Ngāti Tama
Ngāti Tama is a historic Māori iwi of present-day New Zealand which whakapapas back to Tama Ariki, the chief navigator on the Tokomaru waka. The iwi of Ngati Tama is located in north Taranaki around Poutama. The Mōhakatino river marks their ...
, and their descendants live there today, alongside the indigenous
Moriori
The Moriori are the native Polynesian people of the Chatham Islands (''Rēkohu'' in Moriori; ' in Māori), New Zealand. Moriori originated from Māori settlers from the New Zealand mainland around 1500 CE. This was near the time of the ...
.
History
Te Tai Tonga was established for the 1996 general election, replacing Southern Maori which had existed since the
first Māori elections
The first Māori elections were held in 1868 in four newly formed Māori electorates during the term of 4th Parliament.
All subsequent Māori elections were always held as part of the general elections.
History
New Zealand's parliamentary his ...
in 1868. The 1996 election was the first to use the
Mixed Member Proportional
Mixed-member proportional representation (MMP or MMPR) is a mixed electoral system in which votes cast are considered in local elections and also to determine overall party vote tallies, which are used to allocate additional members to produce ...
(MMP) voting system and a new formula for calculating the number of electorates, which resulted in an increase in the number of
Māori electorates
In New Zealand politics, Māori electorates, colloquially known as the Māori seats, are a special category of electorate that give reserved positions to representatives of Māori in the New Zealand Parliament. Every area in New Zealand is ...
from four to five.
The main difference involves the separation of the
Wairarapa
The Wairarapa (; ), a geographical region of New Zealand, lies in the south-eastern corner of the North Island, east of metropolitan Wellington and south-west of the Hawke's Bay Region. It is lightly populated, having several rural service ...
and
Hawke's Bay
Hawke's Bay ( mi, Te Matau-a-Māui) is a local government region on the east coast of New Zealand's North Island. The region's name derives from Hawke Bay, which was named by Captain James Cook in honour of Admiral Edward Hawke. The region is ...
into seats wholly located in the North Island—initially
Te Puku O Te Whenua
Te Puku O Te Whenua or "the belly of the land" was one of the five new New Zealand parliamentary Māori electorates created in 1996 for MMP. It was replaced in the 1999 election.
Population centres
The electorate included the following populati ...
, and since 1999
Ikaroa-Rāwhiti
Ikaroa-Rāwhiti is a New Zealand parliamentary Māori electorate. It was formed for the and held by Parekura Horomia of the Labour Party until his death in 2013. A by-election to replace him was held on 29 June 2013 and was won by Labour's Me ...
.
Whetū Tirikatene-Sullivan had served as Southern Maori's representative in Parliament since 1967—during the terms of five different governments and nine Prime Ministers. However, the
New Zealand First
New Zealand First ( mi, Aotearoa Tuatahi), commonly abbreviated to NZ First, is a nationalist and populist political party in New Zealand. The party formed in July 1993 following the resignation on 19 March 1993 of its leader and founder, Winst ...
Party challenger
Tū Wyllie tipped her out of the seat in 1996, as sixty years of Labour Party control of the Māori electorates ended.
In
1999
File:1999 Events Collage.png, From left, clockwise: The funeral procession of King Hussein of Jordan in Amman; the 1999 İzmit earthquake kills over 17,000 people in Turkey; the Columbine High School massacre, one of the first major school shootin ...
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
In New Zealand, waka-jumping is a colloquial term for when a member of Parliament (MP) switches political party between elections, taking their parliamentary seat with them and potentially upsetting electoral proportionality in the New Zealand ...
") to prop up the government of
Jenny Shipley
Dame Jennifer Mary Shipley (née Robson; born 4 February 1952) is a New Zealand former politician who served as the 36th prime minister of New Zealand from 1997 to 1999. She was the first female prime minister of New Zealand, and the first woma ...
(although Wyllie himself did not join the breakaway group). Along with a drop in the New Zealand First 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
Helen Elizabeth Clark (born 26 February 1950) is a New Zealand politician who served as the 37th prime minister of New Zealand from 1999 to 2008, and was the administrator of the United Nations Development Programme from 2009 to 2017. She was ...
'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
Māori or Maori can refer to:
Relating to the Māori people
* Māori people of New Zealand, or members of that group
* Māori language, the language of the Māori people of New Zealand
* Māori culture
* Cook Islanders, the Māori people of the Co ...
(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
File:2002 Events Collage.png, From left, clockwise: The 2002 Winter Olympics are held in Salt Lake City; Queen Elizabeth The Queen Mother and her daughter Princess Margaret, Countess of Snowdon die; East Timor gains East Timor independence, indepe ...
.
Rahui Katene
Rahui Reid Katene ( Hippolite, born 1954) is a New Zealand politician. She was elected to the 49th New Zealand Parliament at the 2008 New Zealand general election, 2008 general election representing the Māori Party in the seat of Te Tai Tonga, ...
won the electorate for the Māori Party in the , defeating the incumbent. She was defeated after a single term; Rino Tirikatene, the nephew of Tirikatene-Sullivan, won the electorate in with a margin of 1,475 votes.
He was returned in the
2014
File:2014 Events Collage.png, From top left, clockwise: Stocking up supplies and personal protective equipment (PPE) for the Western African Ebola virus epidemic; Citizens examining the ruins after the Chibok schoolgirls kidnapping; Bundles of wat ...
and
2017 elections with increased majorities.
Members of Parliament
Key
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.
Election results
2020 election
2017 election
2014 election
2011 election
Electorate (as at 26 November 2011): 31,933
2008 election
2005 election
1999 election
Refer to
Candidates in the New Zealand general election 1999 by electorate#Te Tai Tonga for a list of candidates.
1996 election
Notes
References
External links
Electorate Profile ''Parliamentary Library''
{{coord, 43.6000, S, 172.0000, E, source:wikidata, display=title
Māori electorates
1996 establishments in New Zealand