Peeni Henare fails to woo back Tamaki Makaurau electorate
Saturday, 6 September 2025
The Post is on the ground at Labour HQ in Point Chevalier this evening and will bring you the latest results as they come to hand. Live results are available on the Electoral Commission website.
Labour’s Peeni Henare has conceded defeat to Te Pāti Māori’s Oriini Kaipara in the Tāmaki Makaurau by-election, and says the result sends a message to the Labour Party: “We’ve got work to do”.
With about 95% of the votes counted, Kaipara has nearly double the votes of Henare and leads by a margin of 2810.
But voter turnout was even lower than expected, with fewer than 10,000 cast despite over 40,000 enrolled voters in the Māori electorate.
“In the 2023 election, I got over 10,000 votes,” said Henare. “This turn out is extremely low. The numbers haven’t fallen our way, and we’ll have to continue to work hard to represent the many people that don’t vote.”
Henare spent the evening at Labour HQ in Point Chevalier, joined by fellow MPs Kieran McAnulty, Willie Jackson and Shanan Halbert.
Addressing his supporters, Henare said he was “really proud” of the campaign he had run.
“The number one opposition in this campaign was this terrible Government,” he said.
He already has his sights set on next year’s general election. “At the start I said it would take all of us to beat them. Guess what, we’ve still got another opportunity to do that.”
He continued: “What tonight has done has inspired me and given us even more motivation as a collective to do something about it next year.”
Henare thanked his volunteers. “In this waka you are all welcome, all shapes, all sizes, all races, all creeds.”
The campaign had been “positive and inclusive”, added Henare.
Henare also paid tribute to Georgie Dansey, the Labour candidate that would have become an MP if Henare had won.
Concluding his concession speech, Henare said he did not want to dwell on the result and that he had enjoyed the campaign. “It brought out the best in me,” he told the crowd.
The by-election was triggered by the death of Te Pāti Māori MP Takutai Tarsh Kemp, with some believing it a litmus test ahead of next year’s general election, with Labour hoping to reclaim the electorate it lost by just 42 votes in 2023.
But it was apparent from early on in the night that the result would not be falling in Henare’s favour.
Speaking to The Post, Henare said this was the first time he’d ever been behind another candidate on an election night - and believed low voter turn out could be to blame.
“We always knew voter turnout was going to be a challenge. The weather was pretty garbage today [and there’s] a lot of disillusionment with politics in general.”
He also believed some people were confused by the local government elections running concurrently.
“I knocked on a few doors and they’re like ‘oh you’re running for mayor’ and I’m like ‘no I’m not - not yet’.”
Labour’s Willie Jackson told reporters he was really proud of Henare’s campaign. “There were probably two or three things that counted against us. You can’t dismiss the brand that Te Pāti Māori has - and we congratulate Oriini”.
At Te Pāti Māori’s headquarters, as it appeared she had won, Kaipara and her supporters sang a waiata and paid tribute to Kemp, whose photo was prominent at the celebrations.
Kaipara addressing the crowd said: “Thank you, thank you all, not just for being here but for working hard, for your toil, your efforts, your support, but more than anything your belief.”
Turnout of enrolled voters for the Tāmaki Makaurau electorate at the 2023 General Election was 63.4% - the lowest of all seven of the Māori electorates.
A Labour supporter at Henare’s by-election gathering believed Henare had run a better campaign but thought Labour voters might have got “complacent, thinking he already had it in the bag”.
'I thought he was more vocal, his messaging was clear and personally I think he accommodated for the average person that's struggling with daily living costs,' he said.
Labour leader Chris Hipkins said on Wednesday he was determined to take back Tāmaki Makaurau and believed Henare should have won it in 2023.
“We're going to be competing very vigorously in all of the Māori electorates at the next election, and that starts with this by-election campaign. We want to win the seat back,” Hipkins said on Wednesday.
Tāmaki Makaurau is an urban electorate, extending from the Waitākere Ranges to Bucklands Beach, and includes most of the southern and eastern Auckland suburbs along with Waiheke Island.
It has historically been a closely fought seat between Labour and Te Pāti Māori; even in 2020, when Labour swept through the country and took power with an historic majority, the party only secured Tāmaki Makaurau by a majority of 972 votes.
Other candidates were Hannah Tamaki, of Destiny Church, who by 9pm had 142 votes, independent Sherry-Lee Matene, 30 votes, and Kelvyn Alp - founder and former host of alt right media, Counterspin, running with New Zealand Loyal, on 22 votes.