Hipango goes for Te Tai Hauāuru

The Herald reports:

Scandal-prone National MP Harete Hipango is withdrawing from the contest to be selected as National’s candidate for the Whanganui electorate, a seat she once held but which is now represented by Labour’s Steph Lewis.

Instead she will seek selection in the the Māori seat of Te Tai Hauāuru, currently held by Labour but which is fiercely contested by Te Pāti Māor co-leader Debbie Ngarewa-Packer.

The seat has not voted for National since the party was formed. In 1931, Western Māori, as it was then known, elected Taite Te Tomoa, an MP from the Reform party, one of the two parties that formed a coalition and later merged to become the National Party.

Hipango will almost certainly lose that electorate if she is selected as the candidate, meaning her only chance of re-entering Parliament is by securing a good position on the party list.

It is hard at this point to estimate how many List MPs National will get. On current polls they look like getting 15 or so more MPs, but if they win say 12 electorates then that would be only three more List MPs.