November 07, 2023
Right time to be Te Pāti Māori candidate
Māori Party president John Tamihere rates Tarsh Kemp’s win in Tāmaki Makaurau as one of the party’s greatest-ever achievements.
Special votes gave the Manurewa Marae chief executive the seat by four votes over Labour’s Peeni Henare.
Mr Tamihere says the Henare name represented a major challenge to overcome.
“Peeni is a good person. Peeni is a good man and he’s a good politician and it wasn’t about Peeni. It was about Tarsh being in the right party, saying the right things, doing the right things at the right moment in time,” he says.
Other Māori Party MPs increased their majorities with the special votes.