GRAHAM ADAMS: Media in damage control after by-election

The predicted groundswell after hikoi didn’t materialize.

Last Saturday’s Tāmaki Makaurau by-election in which Te Pāti Māori’s Oriini Kaipara trounced Labour’s list MP Peeni Henare has sparked references to November’s hikoi as a turning point in engaging Maori voters. Yet the extremely low turnout indicates the very opposite.

Māori activists and their sympathisers in the media have feasted long and hard on the hikoi, repeatedly presenting it as a harbinger of the dominant political force they insist disaffected Māori are becoming. 

From the day the first protesters stepped out in opposition to David Seymour’s Treaty Principles Bill, mainstream journalists have frequently inflated the numbers who took part as well as offering sycophantic coverage to the Toitū te Tiriti movement organised by Te Pāti Māori that led it.

Now the results are in for the by-election and they have been caught out. But instead of accepting that the extremely low turnout proves they were wrong, journalists have doubled down by pretending it confirms their prognostications.

On TVNZ’s Q&A on the Sunday morning after the byelection, 1News’ political editor, Maiki Sherman, told Jack Tame the results “speak to the fact that Te Pāti Māori has made it cool to be Māori and a lot of people have got in behind that. You know we’ve seen the movement, the hikoi against the government… and that Toitū te Tiriti movement has essentially been run by Te Pāti Māori, and they have definitely capitalised on that and people are getting in behind them…

“Oriini Kaipara represents that sort of excitement a lot of Māori are getting behind… A unique brand of Māori that a lot of Maori are getting behind.”

How the political editor of any media outlet can claim “a lot of Māori” got behind Kaipara’s win and have thus fulfilled the promise manifested in the hikoi beggars belief. Winning only 6000-odd of the preliminary votes from a pool of 44,000 dedicated Maori voters — or roughly 13 per cent — is in fact a stunning failure for Kaipara and Te Pāti Māori, especially given its well-funded campaign and the relentless boosterism of the nation’s mainstream media.

Jack Tame’s soft-ball interview with Kaipara on Q&A before the byelection showed just what an easy ride our mainstream journalists often give Te Pāti Māori representatives. Kaipara’s claim that her party had been busy repealing laws in Parliament — and then scrambling to find evidence for her bizarre assertion on her mobile phone that she hadn’t carried with her — elicited no more than a puzzled look from Tame rather than an opportunity to press her on her stunning ignorance. Anyone vaguely acquainted with politics will know that while governments can and often do repeal laws, Opposition parties can only do so with the support of a majority in the House.

Given journalists’ indulgence of Te Pāti Māori’s subversive and separatist agenda, it is perhaps inevitable they should have felt the need to double down after Saturday night’s dismal showing. Certainly, they have been loath to admit that apathy was the winner on the night.

RNZ was determined that none of its audience should come to that conclusion. Its political reporter Lillian Hanly opined: “The result is a clear signal that, in Tāmaki Makaurau at least, voters see a need for strong Te Pāti Māori representation… Turnout in the by-election was 27.1 per cent, far from impressive. But low turnout does not necessarily signal apathy.”  

In RNZ’s upside-down world, the lowest turnout for a by-election in living memory still somehow represents “a clear signal” in support of Te Pāti Māori and in no way should be interpreted as the party’s failure to significantly engage with voters. 

However, Waatea News — which faithfully promotes the views of TPM’s president John Tamihere — won the contest for trying to make a silk purse out of a sow’s ear. The fact it devoted 800 words to explaining just why the by-election should be viewed as a stunning victory for Te Pāti Māori rather than a failure is a signal that the party fears a common-sense interpretation of the results might ruin its perpetual narrative of native triumphalism.

A column — titled “No-show, is not a no-vote: The meaning of abstention in Tāmaki Makaurau” — argued that “On the surface, such a low turnout suggests apathy. A closer look, however, points to a different possibility: abstention as strategy.”

Apparently, would-be Labour voters stood aside to let the Te Pāti Māori candidate win.

This might make sense if Labour’s leaders had suggested — subtly or directly — that its followers might want to do the decent thing and stand aside. But everyone from Chris Hipkins and Willie Jackson to Peeni Henare himself had made it abundantly clear how important it was for Labour to win Tāmaki Makaurau for themselves. (Interestingly, Hipkins’ YouTube videos backing Henare no longer seem to be available on line.)

Nevertheless, Waatea News argued valiantly that “[Labour voters] choosing not to vote was… less about indifference and more about calculation. By sitting out, many Labour-aligned whānau effectively allowed Te Pāti Māori to retain Tāmaki Makaurau, preserving six kaupapa Māori voices in the House. Abstention became a strategy: a no-show was not a no-vote, but a way of shaping the overall balance of representation.”

And just in case anyone had missed the point, the column concluded: “The Tāmaki Makaurau by-election result is not proof of apathy. It is evidence of Māori voters recalibrating their power under MMP. In 2025, silence became a strategy — one that returned Te Pāti Māori via Oriini Kaipara with a decisive mandate, while keeping Peeni Henare in Parliament as Labour’s seasoned list MP.”

Reading the column, a cynic might recall the quip from the Soviet bloc era: “I never believe anything until it is officially denied.”

In among the indulgence from the mainstream media, last week Platform host Michael Laws showed his audience what a skilful interview looks like.

Talking with Māori academic Ella Henry, he listened patiently as she recited the mantra that rangatahi — which apparently include Māori from the ages of 18 to 36 — are a burgeoning force that has the power to profoundly reshape New Zealand’s politics, as the hikoi demonstrated.

Laws, however, wouldn’t let Henry get away without backing her assertions with a figure.

Laws: “What do you regard as success in terms of turnout [at the by-election] so you can say: “Ah, well, [Māori] are starting to engage”?

Henry: “Tāmaki Makaurau has the highest population of Māori in the country — and therefore in the world — and so anything over 50 per cent I would consider to be a very successful campaign in terms of activating Māori to vote.”

Unfortunately, the total turnout for the by-election including special votes has been calculated to be 27 per cent. In short, the view that Māori have been energised by the hikoi and are poised to be an even more influential and engaged voice in national politics has been delivered a serious blow.

You won’t find the mainstream media telling you that — any more than they will acknowledge that in 2023 only one in six Māori voters on both the Māori and general rolls gave their party vote to Te Pāti Māori.

Reading most media coverage, however, you’d imagine the minor party spoke for most Māori everywhere.

Unfortunately, journalists’ tacit support for Tamihere’s crew seems to have not done them a lot of good. Reporters from RNZ, TVNZ, Stuff, and the Sunday Star Times were barred from attending Te Pāti Maori’s post-election celebrations at Te Atatu Peninsula on Saturday night.

When party co-leader Rawiri Waititi was asked about the implications for democracy in denying the media access to elected representatives, he said Māori hadn't had “a fair shot at democracy since democracy was implemented in this country”.

This astonishing assertion comes from a leaders of a party that is the beneficiary of the most outrageous gerrymander in New Zealand’s history, which currently guarantees Māori at least seven seats in Parliament alongside the extensive representation they accrue via the general roll.

To add insult to injury, Waititi added: “We owe mainstream media nothing.”

The ramifications of that claim were made clear to 1News’ viewers on Sunday night. They were treated to a clip of Waititi’s wife, Kiri, physically blocking Maiki Sherman’s access to Kaipara as she left a cosy interview with Miriama Kamo on taxpayer-funded Marae in which she was seated beside her handlers, Rawiri Waititi and Debbie Ngarewa-Packer, presumably to ensure she didn’t embarrass them further.

If Sherman ever thought her public support for Māori activism on a state-owned broadcaster would guarantee her access to not only an elected politician but one whose public profile rests entirely on her career as a former political journalist and colleague, she was sadly mistaken.

She has just been reminded that the left’s famous circular firing squad is always waiting in the wings.

Graham Adams is a freelance editor, journalist and columnist. He lives on Auckland’s North Shore. This article first appeared at The Platform