Hope he gets a good ranking

Radio NZ report:

Te Tai Hauāuru MP and Speaker of the House Adrian Rurawhe will not stand for the Māori electorate in October’s general election and will instead move to the Labour Party list.

Rurawhe contested and won Te Tai Hauāuru three times. He was elected as Speaker mid-term in August last year, replacing Trevor Mallard.

Because they must remain politically neutral, Speakers are typically in Parliament as list MPs rather than as representatives of electorates.

“Since taking up the role of Speaker I’ve had to consider what I will do in the future,” Rurawhe said.

“Since MMP, no sitting Speaker has contested a seat. I’ve thought long and hard about whether I should do that or not, and had lots of conversations with friends, family, iwi.”

Rurawhe is liked and respected as Speaker. The decision is a logical one, but it does carry some risk. On current polls Labour could lose up to 25 MPs. Unless they lose a dozen or more electorate seats (which is possible) then only the very highest ranked candidates will get in.

Te Pāti Māori announced at the Rātana celebrations this week that its co-leader, list MP Debbie Ngarewa-Packer, would contest the Te Tai Hauāuru seat again.

Party president John Tamihere said Ngarewa-Packer would take back the electorate for Te Pāti Māori and strengthen the movement for equality and rangatiratanga.

Ngarewa-Packer, who was based in South Taranaki, hotly contested Te Tai Hauāuru in 2020, losing to Rurawhe by 1053 votes.

Unless Labour select an amazing candidate, my default assumption is Ngarewa-Packer will win the seat. This could create an overhang if the Maori Party get less than 1.2% party vote.