The general election is shaping up as an unpredictable nailbiter. There’s a lot of talk about overhang, which I admit confuses me. Te Pāti Māori (TPM) has all but self-destructed during this term and is limping to survival by putting all its limited resources into campaigning for the electorate votes (aka candidate votes) in the Māori Seats, perhaps more so than in the past. To my knowledge, TPM or its various predecessors have never scaled the 5% electorate mountain-like threshold. (NB The Opportunity Party (TOP) may or may not pull off this feat but it appears quite unlikely that they’ll win an Electorate Seat, e.g., Mt Albert)
Unsurprisingly, mostly people on the Right frown furiously on this deliberate tactic because it could be advantageous to the Left bloc. Although it sounds like scare-mongering and/or intimidating threats, some more fair-minded (?) folk have argued that it could undermine the legitimacy of the Māori Seats.
To avoid such accusations and undesired consequences, there’s a way out for TPM.
There’s another significant lever Te Pāti Māori could pull instead: Not submit a list at all.
Due to a quirk in the Electoral Act, a party that doesn’t submit a list doesn’t create an overhang. Instead, the remaining parties receive proportions of 120 seats, less the number of electorates won by independents or parties without a list.
TPM has 5 days left to make up their minds and compete in a ‘clean’ fight, as Nomination Day is 8 October by when parties will have to submit their party lists.
I’d argue that National should also take this avenue because 5 of its current 49 seats are List Seats with 44 Electorate Seats.
Some Right-whiners are so outraged at the prospect of TPM, or any party that’s not unequivocally Right for that matter, ‘gaming’ the system that they (conveniently?) forget the murky deal in a shady coffee shop in a leafy suburb that kept ACT alive.
I used Wikipedia to see which election under MMP resulted in an overhang in Parliament. These were in 2005, 2008, 2011, 2014, and 2023. Only once (2005) did TPM or its predecessor support a Labour-led Government; in 2008 and 2011 they supported the Fifth National Government led by John ‘Dirty Man’ Key; in 2014 the one-seat overhang was United Future that, together with the Māori Party, supported Fifth National Government. In 2023, TPM created an overhang of 2 seats but, of course, it didn’t support Luxon’s Coalition. In other words, on balance, in the past, the Māori Seats have favoured the Right more than the Left, so the cries to abolish the Māori Seats are biased and self-serving. However, it provides ammunition for the loud and proud anti-Tiriti campaigners.
Some clever clogs of the Right have suggested that National adopt a Trumpian-style approach to win the election and game the system hard and on mass scale by trying to create an overhang of and for its own. The Wikipedia information shows that National has never achieved this feat, not even in in the disastrous (for National) election in 2002 when they (National) only got 27 seats in total of which 21 were Electorate Seats. In all but 2023, National’s allocation of Electorate Seats has hovered around 70% of total seats. National came close in 2023, though (i.e., 90%). So, mate, you’re dreaming!
None of the above necessitates and includes an in-depth look at hotly contested and/or marginal seats. I have no knowledge of National Electorate MPs who perform well locally in their electorate, akin Labour MP Helen White who’s by all accounts an outstanding local MP but almost invisible in Parliament, which causes the ire of many an impatient Labour-supporter alike. There may indeed be the National outlier who will be the exception that proves the rule and defies the odds of holding on to their electorate when their flailing leader Luxon flaps his wingless arms and crashes down to grassroots ground. In any case, reading all those local and national polls plus all those commentaries and ‘analyses’ and the chances of shock-jocks getting elected gives me brain strain for no obvious gain.
Thus, I’d argue that National should also take the avenue of not submitting a list at all because 5 of its current 49 seats are List Seats with 44 Electorate Seats and on current polling none of its limpet List candidates will get into Parliament. Unless they really believe that it’ll be easier to create an overhang of their own by holding on to more electorates whilst their party vote is dropping like a diving albatross AND lead Coalition Mark II!
So, to overhang for TPM or a hangover for National, that’s the more exciting & fascinating question. It’s up the voters.
"Te Pāti Māori (TPM) has all but self-destructed during this term and is limping to survival by putting all its limited resources into campaigning for the electorate votes (aka candidate votes) in the Māori Seats"
This is not "limping" this is, finally, diving down deep into the puna and grasping the tuna by the tail.
They will succeed in this strategy and it will change everything.
Absolutely right Mercurio. Funny how talk of whats fair only ever emerges when its Maori doing the lever pulling. Act played this game for a long time till they got above 5%.
The call TPM has made for electorate votes is fantastic strategic nous. They see it as necessary to get rid of the racist coalition and to protect Te Tiriti and the Waitangi Tribunal.
I think the left should be standing witth them and applauding a strategy that if successful will go a long way to consigning the coalition to history and Luxon as the first one term National PM.
Mauri ora, e hoa!
Cheers, Sub. I appreciate your clarity of vision.
"TPM has 5 days left to make up their minds and compete in a ‘clean’ fight"
Too late, he hoiho e haere ana (apologies etc.)
Maōri already know what to do.
We shall see e whai ake nei.
I think you made a textbook mistake there: TPM ≠ Māori.
Māori who vote TPM know what to do. So do Māori who don't.
My actual mistake was putting the emphasis on the "o" 🙂
I get that you get it, but not everyone gets it, so …
As of 1 Oct 2026, 55% of all enrolled Māori have enrolled on the Māori roll.
Voters on the general roll cannot vote for candidates standing in Māori electorates.
All voters can vote for whichever party they choose unless that party decides not to submit a party list by 8 Oct 2006.
My point is that TPM doesn’t speak for or represents all Māori, no party does.
Well, ACT speaks for all soul-less ghouls. Am I right?
True dat. Caught Willis out early on in her reign in an interview, when she said "Of course we'll do X [whatever it was]. That is what our supporters want". Wily obfuscator, Willis didn't say "those who voted for us". Those who paid for our election, more like.
So, not even ghouls, but literally, corps.
[Take it to OM. In any case, Willis is National, not ACT – Incognito]
Ghastly woman! 🙂
Mod note
ACT has just announced that they will exorcise all spiritual and religious influence & effects from our society, so make of that what you will. However, this has got nothing to do with my OP!?
Is that going to be the excuse not to work with TPM?
The only governments TPM have helped form (via its overhang) from have been led by National.
TPM have won only one seat off the list when trying to in 7 elections.
All seats apart from that one have come from Maori roll seats.
Any Maori overhang in 2026 will be little changed from past elections. I'm guessing they win 3 seats this time and only earn two seats on the party list. Thus only one overhang seat.
This election, TPM have been clear, they want to change the government.
I agree, they are likely to win at least 3 seats.
If it results in a overhang and Labour require them to form a government, will Hipkins still question the legitimacy of the government being formed?
So, they've put one person on their list. What happens if their party vote gets them 5 MPs and they win 3 electorates?
Where does the 5th person come from?
Under s 193(4) of the Electoral Act, if a party is entitled to more list seats than it has candidates available on its list, the extra seats simply aren't filled.
So, basically, an underhang.
It's certainly a bold move by TPM. But it appears to be quite deliberate: they're going all-in on the electorate vote and explicitly encouraging their supporters to give their party vote to Labour or the Greens.
do you know the difference between what TPM have done (list with one candidate) and no list? Aren't they better off with no overhang but more seats?
I assume the one-person list is partly insurance against the unlikely possibility that TPM wins only one electorate but still receives enough party vote to be entitled to another MP. They're probably assuming they won't receive enough party vote to be entitled to three.
But I think there's also a more fundamental political logic to it.
From TPM's strategic perspective, being directly elected by Māori voters in the Māori electorates is important. Their claim to represent Māori interests and tikanga in Parliament rests, at least in part, on having that direct electoral mandate. A list MP can represent those interests too, obviously, but it isn't quite the same political proposition as being chosen by the voters of Te Tai Hauāuru or Tāmaki Makaurau to represent them.
The fact that their sitting MPs aren’t seeking list places reinforces that. They’re effectively saying “back me or sack me”: we’re putting ourselves before our electorates, and if those voters don’t want us representing them, we don’t get back into Parliament through the list.
Seen that way, the Māori electorates aren't merely one route among several for getting TPM MPs into Parliament. Winning them is central to the party's raison d'être and to the legitimacy it claims as an independent Māori political voice — whether alongside Labour or in opposition to it.
That also makes the one-person list and split-vote strategy more coherent. A larger list arguably works against what they're trying to achieve. If voters give TPM their electorate vote but Labour or the Greens their party vote, those party votes help determine the size of the wider left bloc while TPM retains whatever Māori electorate seats it wins.
The resulting overhang is therefore less the purpose of the strategy than a potentially very useful consequence of it. TPM gets its representation from a direct Māori electorate mandate, while Labour and the Greens get the party votes that determine proportional representation across the wider Parliament.
I think TPM will win @ least four seats, Ngarewa Packer, Waititi, Te Maipi Clarke, Edwards (up north) and the Tamaki Makaurau seat will be a doozey as the Labour candidate could win this based on the interview I watched on Marae yesterday. And if Māori strategically vote as called for by TPM they could also win Ikaroa Rawhiti (the electorate I am in) as Cushla is high on the Labour party list. It depends on who comes out on the big day to vote. I do believe we should vote for the best candidate and their parties' policies but sometimes there is very little separating them.
That only counts if Epsom and Seymour never happened. Too late, rule-benders will always trump the too-nice and the fussy. Bad strategy for Labour to ignore possibilities.
I can't figure out why Hipkins would potentially sabotage (by putting into question its legitimacy) forming a government with TPM?
You can’t figure out your own straw man? It figures!
""Too late, rule-benders will always trump the too-nice and the fussy.
Yeah na , by that set of morals you wont mind mind me kicking your door in and stealing your shit, because there's other people out there that do it.
Have a look in the mirror and examine you morals
There is a good discussion about the whole overhang debate on BHN which includes Hipkins response.
Hipkins specifcally states that the structure of MMP means that voters make two decisions every time they vote. Once to determine who they believe is the best candidate for their electorate and again to determine which party would be the best to run the govt. In other words, he acknowledges that two ticks for the same paty is just one option.
Where Hipkins takes issue, is with members of the billionaire class, the Mowbray family, bringing their wealth to bear on the Right strategy of electorate votes for National and party votes for NZ1st or ACT. It is this that he is calling immoral and corrupt.
On Willie Jackson, he explains that there is no way that they could throw their Maori electorate candidates under the bus and expect to have any future in the Maori electorates. There would be no trust left.
So TPM have made a legiitimate call, that contains risk, but under the current situation and likely extreme anti Maori legislating by a second term CoC, they see as the best way towards doing what they can, to end the CoC.
Discussion begins at 1:40:15
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=lbqhO0LW4zU
Sigh
Why on earth would Hipkins want and/or need such an excuse?
https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/politics_election-2026/1062576/willie-jackson-expresses-doubt-labour-can-win-all-seven-maori-seats
That answers your question and you should put it to bed now, at least under my OP.
I don't think so.
TPM has never set out to manufacture an overhang. It just seems to generate one as it's much better at winning electorate seats than it is party votes.
I think this discussion massively overstates the ability of political parties to tell their voters what to do.
An overhang isn't really a strategy. It's an emergent, contingent side-effect of MMP: it occurs when the electorate seats a party actually wins exceed the number of seats its party vote would otherwise entitle it to.
Parties can certainly influence the conditions that might produce one. They can target particular electorates, encourage split voting, decide whether to submit a list, and so on.
But voters aren't chess pieces.
Even relatively well-known tactical voting arrangements are difficult to organise, and they generally work, to the extent that they do, because they're localised. "Give your electorate vote to X in Epsom" is a reasonably simple message directed at a particular group of voters for a particular purpose.
Trying to engineer an overhang nationally is an entirely different proposition.
You would need large numbers of voters to understand the strategy, agree with it, and then split their votes in the desired direction. You'd need that behaviour distributed appropriately across electorates, while simultaneously getting the required nationwide party-vote result. And all of this happens while several million other voters, other parties and local candidates are making independent decisions of their own.
You don't control turnout. You don't control polling error. You don't control marginal electorate results. Most importantly, you don't control your own voters.
National could tell its supporters to candidate-vote National and party-vote ACT, NZ First, or whoever. That doesn't mean National voters would actually do it. Some would. Some would vote National twice. Some might follow the first half of the instruction but give their party vote to Labour. Some would have no interest whatsoever in participating in an elaborate attempt to optimise the composition of Parliament.
The same applies to TPM. Concentrating resources on winning the Māori electorates and encouraging supporters to give their party votes elsewhere is a comprehensible strategy. Whether voters actually behave that way, and what parliamentary arithmetic consequently emerges, is another question entirely.
If the resulting electorate and party votes produce an overhang, then you get an overhang.
But the overhang is the consequence, not the strategy.
That's why I think much of the breathless discussion about parties "gaming" MMP gets this backwards. Tactical voting exists, particularly at the electorate level. But deliberately engineering a national overhang requires a degree of voter coordination and party control that simply doesn't exist.
Ironically, the last sentence of the post gets closest to the point: "It's up to the voters."
Quite.
Concentrating resources on winning the Māori electorates and encouraging supporters to give their party votes elsewhere is a comprehensible strategy. Whether voters actually behave that way, and what parliamentary arithmetic consequently emerges, is another question entirely.
They already do behave that way. It's well known in the Maori media, and of course ignored in much of the mainstream media.
Māori electorates a masterclass in strategic voting as electors split vote | Stuff
The only difference is that TPM are saying out loud what their voters already know. Which is why it finally made headlines in the rest of the media.
To understand the particular nature of what Te Pati Māori are doing we have understand the term, "kumara vine".
I don’t think it’s particularly ignored by the mainstream media, and neither do I see much evidence that this behaviour is the result of some kind of secret TPM strategy.
If anything, the causality seems to run the other way. This pattern of voting in the Māori electorates long predates TPM’s current strategy. TPM appears to have recognised how its electorate already behaves and adapted its campaign accordingly.
And I’m not sure “strategic” or even “split” voting quite captures what is happening.
Both terms tend to presuppose that a voter really wants Party A but votes for Party B instead in order to achieve some other electoral outcome.
But that isn’t necessarily what these voters are doing.
A voter can quite sincerely prefer a Labour-led government and therefore party-vote Labour, while also sincerely believing that a TPM candidate will better represent their interests in their electorate and giving that candidate their electorate vote.
Nothing has actually been “split”. They’ve been asked two different questions and given their preferred answer to each.
That’s not gaming MMP. That’s pretty much MMP working as designed.
TPM has certainly learned to use that pattern of voting to its advantage. But recognising and exploiting an existing pattern of voter behaviour isn’t the same thing as manufacturing it.
And that’s why I’m sceptical of all this discussion about parties “engineering” overhangs. Parties can campaign, encourage and adapt to voter behaviour.
They don’t get to allocate people’s votes.
The electorate does.
I have very little time for willis goldie or bishop. But it's a scary thought, a coc government without them as ministers, if they are the cream of the crop, what the fuck will replace them .
Oh, crop.
I was getting my vowels mixed up.
Vote splitting is already causing headaches for the Right if not (yet) a hangover.
https://newsroom.co.nz/2026/10/04/goldies-never-needed-a-personal-vote-more-might-he-get-it-despite-himself/
Be careful what you ask for when the genie is out.
TPM is digging in and still holding on to a party list that’s much-reduced.
https://www.stuff.co.nz/politics/361042156/te-pati-maori-reinforces-strategic-voting-call-sparse-party-list
I want Te Pati Māori in the Labour/Green-led coalition 🙂
I like their style and their kaupapa.
Yeah – they are formalising what was previously unstated but well understood by their voters (as RP discusses above).
This is a declaration to the electorate that your Party Vote is of no use to us – use it for someone else. It requires a relatively complex understanding of MMP from the voters, and I imagine a degree of ideological cohesion among voters that is relatively rare. Those factors have been present in Epsom for years, but it seems unlikely that they would apply in more run of the mill general electorates.
Voters who have a more collective culture hear, give us your candidate vote, give your other one to The Greens. It's pretty straight-forward. No need for subtle, arcane political knowledge 🙂
TPM announcement yesterday of one person list, electorate vote TPM, party vote L/G, seems to be aimed at changing the government. They're basically saying 'vote for us' and 'vote left'.
https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/politics_election-2026/1715173/te-pati-maori-announces-one-person-party-list-for-2026-election
my emphasis.
Righty Liam Hehir said on twitter yesterday that system stability should take precedent over tribes grabbing power, to which I said I agree with this theoretically, but we already have Epsom, large donations, and Winston Peters. Threshold is too high as well.
https://x.com/wekatweets/status/2106825635469627517
Three things:
Given the very narrow range of circumstances in which an overhang can both be deliberately engineered and determine the composition of the next government, I'm not convinced the juice is worth the squeeze.
An overhang wouldn't matter if either bloc were comfortably ahead. It only becomes potentially decisive because the electorate is closely divided.
Which makes some of the outrage rather odd. You don't get to design an electoral system on the assumption that voters will distribute themselves in a way that's convenient for you, then complain about “system stability” when they don't.
If the right is concerned that a handful of Māori electorate seats might determine who governs, there is always the traditional democratic solution: make a better case to voters and win enough votes that they don't.
It is an absurd non issue.
*ACT and NZF oppose there being Maori seats.
*They know that TPM is not a party that would win seats off the party list – and does not do so even when they try (6/7 fail).
*The play by the TPM is part of a strategy to hold onto their electorate seats (they are at risk of losing some/many).
*Jackson is using the issue to win the seats for Labour.
*ACT & NZF are using it to steal an election for the right and further their campaign against Maori electorates at the same time.
*Given the Epsom seat, little wonder Seymour is off his game with an undeniable hypocrisy choke.