Te Tai Tonga debate offers voters four versions of the left

Summarised by Centrist

Te Tai Tonga’s four candidates agreed their immediate task was to change the government, while broadly supporting greater wealth redistribution, Māori-specific institutions and a central role for Te Tiriti in public decision-making.

The differences were largely over delivery and party branding. None offered centre-right voters a programme centred on economic growth, limited government, equal citizenship or public-sector accountability.

Labour’s Mananui Ramsden said the electorate’s most pressing environmental issue was “the protection of Te Tiriti o Waitangi”. He proposed three free GP visits funded through a targeted capital gains tax.

Independent MP Tākuta Ferris also named Te Tiriti as his non-negotiable. He called redirecting the government’s supposed $3 billion annual “landlord tax cut” a “simple solution” for funding Māori health and social services.

However, Treasury estimated restored interest deductibility would cost about $2.9 billion across several years, not each year. Allowing a business expense to be deducted is also not the same as paying landlords cash.

Green candidate Lisa Te Morenga promised “clear, evidence-based, strategic thinking”. She offered the most detailed programme, including a wealth tax, mobile health clinics, free primary care, rent caps and rental warrants of fitness.

Te Pāti Māori candidate Lisa-Marie Murch proposed free health and dental care, iwi-led housing and a Māori Education Authority.

“Education isn’t just about the classroom, it’s about the future,” she said.

Editor’s note: Some ideas, particularly mobile clinics and locally led housing, could help remote communities. But the candidates largely equated making services free with making them available, without addressing workforce shortages, productivity or performance. There was little discussion of business, farming, energy, crime or the economic growth needed to finance the promises.

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