Twofers could help

The Greens and Ma¯ori Party have turned up the volume about twofer votes, a two-forone chance to get more Ma¯ori representation into Parliament through the Ma¯ori electorates and party votes.

The last Parliament had the highest number of Ma¯ori MPs in history with representatives in Labour, Greens, NZ First, National, independent Jami-Lee Ross and ACT’s David Seymour.

This election, the Greens are again standing candidates in some Ma¯ori electorates including coleader Marama Davidson in Ta¯maki Makaurau. Davidson says she’s after two ticks but other Green contenders are pushing for the party vote only, which they’ve done in the past.

In 2017, the Greens received 9805 ticks from the Ma¯ori roll or 6 per cent of its overall total party vote.

NZ First and National don’t stand candidates in the seven seats, yet received more votes than the Greens; 13,740 or 7.4 per cent of NZ First’s total party vote came from the Ma¯ori electorates.

In 2017, the Greens got eight list MPs into Parliament with 6.3 per cent of the party vote and are currently polling around the same again.

If they can increase the party vote and win Auckland Central with Chloe Swarbrick, it could bring in the ninth-placed candidate Dr Elizabeth Kerekere, who is standing again in IkaroaRa¯whiti, the eastern Ma¯ori seat.

Kerekere attracted 1143 party votes when she stood in the seat in 2017, 12 ticks more than National and hundreds less than NZ First.

The Ma¯ori Party candidates have been pushing the message that if the 254,303 people enrolled on