Green Party MP Hūhana Lyndon is bringing the focus back to Māori representation, Te Tiriti and the future of the whenua as she reflects on a recent visit to Wharekauri and an increasingly fascinating battle for the Māori vote ahead of Election 2026.
Lyndon joins Waatea following her visit to Wharekauri, where the political conversation comes against a significant period for tangata whenua and the future of the islands.
Her reflections provide an opportunity to look at the issues raised during the visit, the aspirations she heard from communities and what political parties in Wellington need to understand about the realities of life on Wharekauri.
But back on the mainland, Lyndon is also at the centre of an unusual election strategy being promoted by Te Pāti Māori.
At its campaign launch in Tairāwhiti, Te Pāti Māori urged supporters to concentrate on electing its candidates in the Māori electorates while making their own choice with the party vote, including potentially backing the Greens or Labour.
The strategy is designed to exploit the way New Zealand’s MMP electoral system separates the electorate and party votes.
Te Pāti Māori co-leader Rāwiri Waititi has used Te Tai Tokerau as an example, arguing voters could elect Te Pāti Māori candidate Aperahama Edwards while potentially helping Green and Labour candidates enter Parliament through their respective party lists.
That makes Lyndon’s position particularly interesting.
She is herself standing for the Greens in Te Tai Tokerau, where she faces Edwards, Labour’s Willow-Jean Prime and former Te Pāti Māori MP Mariameno Kapa-Kingi in what has become one of the country’s most crowded Māori electorate contests.
The Greens announced Lyndon as their Te Tai Tokerau candidate at Waitangi earlier this year as part of a wider push to increase Māori representation. She joined Tania Waikato in Waiariki and Heather Te Au-Skipworth in Ikaroa-Rāwhiti among the party’s Māori electorate candidates.
That creates an obvious tension in Te Pāti Māori’s strategy.
While encouraging a Green party vote could strengthen the Greens’ representation in Parliament, asking voters to back Te Pāti Māori candidates directly puts those candidates into competition with Māori standing for the Greens.
It also raises questions about how the two parties intend to manage their relationship after the election.
Both parties position themselves strongly around Te Tiriti, Māori rights and environmental protection, and the Greens have substantially increased Māori representation within their 2026 candidate line-up.
But political cooperation at the national level does not remove competition at electorate level.
For Lyndon, Te Tai Tokerau puts that reality directly in front of voters.
The bigger question is whether Māori voters see the two votes as an opportunity to maximise Māori representation across several progressive parties, or whether they prefer to give both votes to the political movement they most strongly support.
From the communities of Wharekauri to the campaign trail in Te Tai Tokerau, Lyndon’s challenge is therefore about more than winning votes.
It is about demonstrating what Green Māori representation offers whānau, hapū and iwi — while navigating a relationship with Te Pāti Māori that could simultaneously involve electoral competition and cooperation after polling day.
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