The 2002 general election was my very first and was probably the first time I felt like a “proper” adult. I was living in Burnside, Christchurch with my grandparents, and my Nana took me along with her to a kindergarten on Langdons Road in Papanui to vote. 

She was on the Māori electorate roll, and I was on the general. 

I can’t recall why I didn’t opt for the Māori roll, I only vaguely remember registering to vote at all – when some electoral commission representative came to Taihape College the year prior telling us all about the importance of registering. 

Regardless, I think it was a point of pride for both of us – my Nana Taua (as she liked us to call her – Taua being the Ngai Tahu term for grandmother) taking her eldest moko along to his very first election. For me, it was the chance to feel like a proper adult – exercising a civic duty that I had seen my parents do throughout my childhood. 

But who to vote for? Being a larger young man myself, I recall seeing electoral advertisements when Nana drove me to my computer engineering course each morning. I remember seeing one with a large man with glasses – a bit like me. I remember thinking

“nobody’s going to vote for the fat man – I’ll vote for him!”

and I made a note of his name for when I voted. As for the party vote, a dear friend in my high school years was a member of the Alliance party, I remember looking them up before the election to see if they were a party I wanted to support – I was struck by how attractive their leader was – and thought they definitely have my party vote. So – my very first election, my first chance to feel like a responsible adult – and I voted for Gerry Brownlee because I thought nobody else would as he’s a large man, and I felt a sense of loyalty and comradeship with him as a result, despite having no idea that he was the sitting MP and this would be his third election. I gave my party vote to the Alliance because I thought Laila Harre was hot.

Responsible adult indeed. 

However, my point is to illustrate that from the very beginning of my voting history, I didn’t vote strategically. I mean, my vote wasn’t exactly well informed, but I could at least provide a reason as to why I made the choice I did, and why I stood by it at the time. I owned the choices I made, even if I would spend the next 24 years thinking how ridiculous (not to mention ironic) those choices were. 

On that point, recently, at the launch of their election campaign, Te Pāti Māori co-leader Debbie Ngarewa-Packer said[1]: 

“There's one plan, two votes; our plan has to be to focus on the candidate votes. We trust you with the party vote we trust and we see your love for our people, for our taiao. We trust that you will choose what is right. 

The only way we're going to get this government out, get more Māori in Parliament, and continue to be the loudest, unapologetic, independent Māori voice is to focus on giving our votes to Te Pāti Māori candidates.” 

I recently wrote about how I refute the assertion that a vote can be wasted simply because the candidate or party voted for fails to win[2]. I argued that the argument that votes can be wasted adopts an outcome-focused perspective, something I don’t use myself. I emphasised that voting can be considered a form of self-expression, as a statement of one’s values and loyalties. When I vote for an electorate candidate, I also factor in what values and loyalties the candidate themselves hold.

Ultimately, from this perspective, a vote cannot be wasted provided it is authentic – if it is a choice that is affirmed and stood by – no matter the underlying criteria motivating it. For me, that means that I don’t treat elections like a chess match. I can’t do that in good faith. I vote for who I believe in, not whether voting for “x” party or person contributes towards “y” outcome.

Being asked to split my vote by a party I might actually have supported, because they want my support, but only in a particular way, is like fitting a square peg into a round hole for me personally. It’s asking me to play a game I refuse to play. It’s asking me to stand by a choice I don’t think I can make in good faith. 

As I say, I don’t vote for a person in isolation. I consider who they stand for, and what that body stands for in turn. In other words, who a candidate chooses to stand with, is what helps me formulate which person I choose to endorse.

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For context:

I have been on the Māori electoral roll twice in my life. I joined it after the formation of the then Māori party twenty years ago, then, during something akin to a crisis of faith, I left that roll around 2013/14 because I did not think I could stay on the Māori roll while I was left unsure whether I actually supported the continued existence of it. However, when I returned to the Ilam electorate in 2015, I decided to re-join the Māori roll as soon as this was possible, as I refused to be represented by the then representative, Gerry Brownlee. I no longer felt sympathetic and loyal to a fellow big guy and was dismayed at the recent controversy where he attempted to bypass Christchurch airport security by barging through side doors, and intimidating staff, on top of his even more controversial actions during the Christchurch earthquake recovery. I have since made my peace with the existence of the Māori roll and will eventually write about how I consider it to be a mechanism of rangatiratanga as guaranteed in the Treaty.  

I supported Rino Tirikatene in the Te Tai Tonga electorate since I rejoined it in the 2020 election. However, in 2023, I felt that Labour was going through its usual process of taking its Māori electorate MPs for granted – and I noticed that Labour didn’t do anything with Tirikatene – despite continually being a shoe in every election in the largest constituency in the country. I felt sorry for him. Labour does this every 10-20 years – and the Māori electorates punish them when they do. I decided to vote for the TPM candidate because Tirikatene stood with a party that didn’t seem to respect him. So, Tākuta Ferris got my vote last election. I contacted him (or his office) asking for help navigating the MSD system. I never got a reply. I emailed him again in July this year. Still no reply.  Anyone who doesn’t engage with their constituents isn’t worthy of being a representative of those constituents. So, despite him being an independent this election, I will not be voting for him again.

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The point of this background context is to further illustrate that I vote based not only on principle, but on a sense of whanaungatanga or relationships they themselves hold.

Returning to the TPM context, it seems to me that they have given the appearance of giving us the choice of party vote. However, you only have to read those two sentences in order:

we trust you with the party vote,
but then, immediately,
the only way we’re going to get this government out …

They trust us to do the right thing, but then immediately tell us what the “right” thing is.

They want their potential supporters to allocate their vote to whichever parties and candidates can oust the current government. That means the criterion underlying our voting choices has been decided by them before they generously hand us the freedom to choose – provided that choice does what they want it to do.

In essence, they’re saying that votes are purely instrumental, and to play the game this is how to make sure the bloc that they assume we must also support – will win. This isn’t a new phenomenon. National and ACT have demanded that the voters in Epsom play this game for 20 years. If I was in that electorate, I dare say I would have published this criticism much earlier. But this is the first time it has happened in a way that is applicable to my voting situation.

I'd have considered giving TPM my party vote. They've told me in advance they don't want it and asked me to redirect it on their behalf. So, there's nothing left for me to support them with, even if I wanted to.

I'm being asked to play a game that I refuse to play, which ultimately alienates voters like me from even considering giving TPM any support at all.

I’m aware plenty of people, maybe most, vote tactically and can own and stand by the choices they make. That’s admirable and I respect that. My objection isn’t that strategic voting doesn’t work; it’s a solid strategy – I’m simply saying it’s not an approach that’s appealing to me in the slightest.

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Addressing a common objection to TPM’s position:

I want to address an objection I’ve heard several, including Michael Laws, express recently in response to this strategy. The objection claims is that the strategy merely illustrates why the Māori electorate seats should be abolished. Before I address this directly, I think a bit of further context is needed.

Before 1996, we used the First Past the Post system – where everyone had a single vote for their electorate MP. The candidate with the most votes won the electorate, and the party with the most electorate MPs formed the governing majority. However, two elections in a row – Labour had received more cumulative votes across the country than National, but National had the most electorate MPs so were the governing majority. This is what drove the preference for MMP (despite its accidental introduction – if you know your history, you’ll know the comical mishap that led to a referendum on MMP). Now we have the MMP system, where your party vote determines the overall percentage by which each political party is represented in parliament.

This is calculated by a specific equation – which sometimes results in what’s call an “overhang” – where the 120-seat limit in parliament is increased to ensure there is a balance between electorate representatives and overall party vote. If a party wins more electorates than its party vote share indicates it should have, more seats are added to parliament to balance things out. Last election, TPM won six electorates with only 3% of the party vote, resulting in the addition of 2 extra seats to the house. The strategy that TPM is now proposing capitalises on something they’ve already benefitted from – and is simply maximising the benefits from a calculation we’ve been using for decades.

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Any criticism of TPMs strategy would more appropriately be aimed at the MMP arrangement, and the calculation by which seat overhang is calculated. As I pointed out earlier, National and ACT have used similar tactics for twenty years, by gaming the system to guarantee the parliamentary presence of an old ally. I don’t recall seeing anyone declare that the Epsom electorate must be abolished. I’d consider joining their chorus if they did – if only to satisfy my savage-like desire to eat the rich.

While I say that I will write later about the relation between the Māori electorates and the Treaty (while also being well aware of the original intent of their creation, and how that might be read differently today), I’ll point to my submission on the Treaty Principles Bill in the meantime[3]. In the light of that submission, it could be said that the electorates are not there to produce fair outcomes, they act as a guarantee. Judging their existence by whether they produce acceptable outcomes commits the same mistake as interpreting the Treaty as some document of racial equality – assuming an instrument is supposed to serve a purpose that it does not and arguably was never intended to serve.

In the absence of my forthcoming argument justifying the seats, the fact that over 300,000 Māori have chosen to be registered on the Māori electoral roll ought to be read as a sign of consent by Māori that the seats are justified and legitimate[4]. That is a greater indication of consent and endorsement than I suspect has ever been sought for the justification of any electorate in the general roll.

To conclude, I abhor any treatment of electoral voting which assumes something is valuable only insofar as the outcomes it produces. Not all of us bend that way. I certainly don’t. Anyone who assumes that I do, or must, loses my interest altogether.

I’m sorry to say, Te Pāti Māori, but you’ve alienated me entirely this election. And I suspect I’m not the only one.

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[1] https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/politics_election-2026/1011909/te-pati-maori-reveals-election-strategy-as-campaign-launches-in-gisborne

[2] https://www.ashcatton.com/posts/5713-why-there-is-no-such-thing-as-a-wasted-vote

[3] https://www.ashcatton.com/posts/3319-harmful-and-unnecessary

[4] https://elections.nz/stats-and-research/enrolment-statistics/enrolment-by-general-electorate/maori-enrolment