Analysis

Parliament returns this month. After coming back on February 11, the House will sit for just 36 more days before rising and being dissolved for the general election.

That’s not a lot of time, in the scheme of things, to make a pitch to voters, who will head to the polls on September 19.

The raging furies of election-year politics are never far away, especially not the week-long commemorations at Waitangi, which function as the last of a series of events that kick off the political year.

The Prime Minister will spend most of the week in Waitangi, setting the agenda for 2020 in politics. She’ll be making a particular pitch to Ma¯ ori, who helped propel Labour to victory in 2017, but who may smart at being taken for granted by the party, which now holds all Ma¯ ori seats for the first time since it lost them in 2005.

The formalities start tomorrow with the unveiling of a statue of Dame Whina Cooper at Waipuna Marae. Cooper was the first president of the Ma¯ ori Women’s Welfare League. She was also a leader of the 1975 Ma¯ ori land march to put a halt to the further erosion of Ma¯ ori land ownership.

Also present will be Pania Newton, one of the leaders of the occupation at Ihuma¯ tao.

Newton sometimes draws comparisons between her own movement and the land march.

‘‘(Cooper) is someone who inspired the kaupapa at Ihuma¯ tao,’’ she said.

The sight of Newton and Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern together at the event could be awkward for Ardern, representing a Government that has repeatedly frustrated the protesters at Ihuma¯ tao. In other times, she might be able to channel the legacy of Cooper. The reality is murkier. The Government isn’t confiscating any land, but hasn’t exactly moved heaven and earth to please the occupiers.

Things seem to have simmered in recent weeks, with news that a deal is close.

Newton still plans to join the hikoi from Paihia to Waitangi. Whether or not she does so in a ‘‘spirit’’ of protest depends on whether the impasse at Ihumatao is resolved. She appears hopeful.

‘‘I can’t really say anything at the moment,’’ she said, although she was buoyed by the fact the Kı¯ngitanga had left the consultation process ‘‘where they are comfortable’’.

‘‘We’re looking forward to the Government and council signing things off.’’

As in previous years, the main political events will be held on February 4, leaving Waitangi Day for the traditional dawn service and breakfast barbecue.

The main event will be held at Te Whare Runanga, the upper marae, which has become the favoured site since commemorations were moved there in 2017 when Te Tii, the lower marae, lost the right to host the dawn ceremony. Celebrations have become more placid since the move.

Although there were some tensions in 2018, a full-scale protest of the kind seen in previous decades – think Don Brash having mud hurled at him in 2004 – seems unlikely. That’s not to say there aren’t political tensions. The beginning of the political year has been marked by a revival in the fortunes of Labour’s beˆ te noire, the Ma¯ ori Party. Former Green candidate Jack McDonald threw an endorsement behind Ma¯ ori Party candidate Debbie Ngarewa-Packer, who is running in Te Tai Haua¯ uru, which Labour hold by just a few thousand votes.

Tau Henare knows what it’s like to take a Ma¯ ori seat off Labour. In 1993, he became the first nonLabour candidate to win a Ma¯ ori seat since A¯ pirana Ngata, then a National Party MP, lost Eastern Ma¯ ori in 1943. Henare won Northern

Ma¯ ori for NZ First by just 416 votes, after splitting the vote three ways.

But Henare said stealing a Ma¯ ori seat from Labour usually required ‘‘the stars to align’’ and for voters to coalesce around a series of issues.

‘‘There are a couple of issues that are bubbling away: Oranga Tamariki, Ihuma¯ tao, Wha¯ nau Ora,’’ Henare said.

Henare is watching Ta¯ maki Makaurau, which takes in most of Auckland, where there are rumours of John Tamihere, former Labour minister and unsuccessful Auckland mayoral candidate, eyeing up a run for the Ma¯ ori Party.

‘‘My money is still on them holding the seats – but not a lot of money. I wouldn’t bet my house on it, I’d certainly put my garden shed on it.’’

Labour’s Ma¯ ori MPs have one card up their sleeve: making the Ma¯ ori-electorate MPs run list only.

Meka Whaitiri, the co-chair of Labour’s Ma¯ ori caucus, has left open the option of keeping Labour’s seven Ma¯ ori electorates off the party list at the 2020 election.

The strategy worked in 2017 to force the hand of voters in the Ma¯ ori seats, many of whom had been splitting their votes, giving Ma¯ ori Party MPs an electorate vote, while giving Labour a party vote.

‘‘To be honest, that was a clear strategy around forcing the hand of Ma¯ ori voters,’’ Whaitiri said.

In 2017, Ma¯ ori Party candidates polled more than double their party’s party vote in each of the Ma¯ ori seats.

Henare thinks Labour’s strategy of staying