Maori seat stoush ahead

According to the Herald on Sunday, National is expected to announce a boycott of the Maori seats this week, in line with its policy calling for their abolition. (Sorry the article isn't available on line.) The Herald also reports on a Marae/Digipoll which shows National polling a rather tiny 2.2% in the Maori electorates - pretty easy to decry standing in them with those kinds of figures.

But what was really interesting about the story, despite the focus on National, were the figures showing that 39.6% of those polled said they would vote for a Maori Party local candidate, ahead of the 34.1% for a Labour candidate (National candidates would get 1.4%). This is before the Maori Party candidates have even been picked, with the exception of Pita Sharples for Tamaki Makaurau, and with sitting MPs for Labour in all the seats. There's a lot of time to run on this one (in particular, a lot of water to flow back and forth across the foreshore and seabed) but the Maori Party must be feeling quietly confident of picking up several more seats next year.

As the minors and minnows don't generally contest the Maori seats, this is going to be a case of those on the Maori roll accepting or rejecting Labour's approach to them in recent years. Sadly I don't think there will be much scrutiny of the Maori Party - they will be the alternative to Labour in the way that NZ First was in the past, before they stuffed up.