Andrew Geddis: Otago University Law Professor on Mariameno Kapa Kingi's split from Te Pāti Māori

An election law expert says it could work in Labour's favour for it to not win many Māori electorate seats. 

Te Tai Tokerau MP Mariameno Kapa-Kingi has announced she is splitting from Te Pāti Māori and forming her own party. 

Otago University Law Professor Andrew Geddis says there could be overhang seats if either party wins electorates with a relatively small party vote.  

He says told Ryan Bridge it would then increase the number of MPs needed for a majority. 

Geddis says winning the Māori electorates could mean Labour falls short of being able to form a government. 

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Mariamino Kappa Kingi.

Speaker 2 (00:01):
This is the Tapati Mali MP now going to run
essentially as an independent under the banner of Tita Tokodo.

Speaker 1 (00:07):
That's her elected up north.

Speaker 2 (00:09):
There are loose suggestions that she could have others joining her.
She says she's open to calls from either side of
the aisle this.

Speaker 3 (00:15):
Morning, despite political preference and party and so on. If
you see a moment where people are genuine and I
want to be genuine, you make the most of those moments.

Speaker 2 (00:28):
Andrew gettis is Otanga University law professor joins us this morning.

Speaker 1 (00:31):
Andrew, good morning, great to have you on the program.

Speaker 4 (00:34):
Yeah, good morning, Ryan.

Speaker 1 (00:35):
So what does this mean for Parliament.

Speaker 4 (00:39):
At the moment? Nothing, Mona Minokapa Kinghi has I mean,
technically she's still a Tippati Mari MP as a result
of the High Court decision overturning her expulsion from the party.
But she's basically been acting as an independent. She hasn't
been caucusing with the Tapati Mari. She's been in an
office sort of, not with the rest of the caucus.

(01:00):
So at the minutes she'll remain in Parliament essentially as
an independent, which is what she's been even though she's
still under the Teparty mari label, and they're.

Speaker 1 (01:09):
Not going to walker jump her because it's too close
to the election, right.

Speaker 4 (01:13):
Yeah, Well, first of all, they'd have to expel her
from the party again, so they'd have to go through
their internal constitutional processes, and as the High Court showed,
their constitution is a mess and it's actually very hard
for them to use their expulsion powers, so they'd have
to do that first, and then they'd have to go
through the walker jumping processes in Parliament, and by that
time parliament's probably broken to the election anyway. So there's

(01:35):
pretty much no point.

Speaker 2 (01:37):
There's a perverse sort of outcome to this, isn't there
The Party Marii overhang benefits the left blank. If Labor
sweeps up the Marty seats, some or all of them,
that overhang doesn't happen.

Speaker 4 (01:48):
Yeah. Well, so there's two bits of that. First of all,
there's if Labor wins all the Maori seats, then any
votes that are cast for to Party mari or for
this new Tote Grow Party or any other party within
Mariy basically a wasted they just vote count, and that
could be you know, two percent three percent, it could

(02:09):
be enough for the close election to basically you know, switch.
Then the other bet is that if to party Mari
or another Maris party win the electorate seats with a
very low party vote, those seats could become overhang seats,
which increases the size of Parliament, which then increases the
number of MPs you need for a majority. So there

(02:31):
is this oddness that year Labor would love to get
the Marti seats back, but if they do, that could
sort of come at the cost of them having enough
seats overall to be able to form government.

Speaker 1 (02:43):
Interesting stuff.

Speaker 2 (02:44):
Andrew get Us at Tagi University law professor with us
this morning.

Speaker 4 (02:48):
For more from earlier edition with Ryan Bridge.

Speaker 1 (02:50):
Listen live to News Talks.

Speaker 4 (02:52):
It'd be from five am weekdays

Speaker 1 (02:54):
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