Ele Ludemann: Not paid to campaign

What are we paying these MPs to do?:

As a small party (six MPs), made up entirely of electorate MPs with large electorates to cover, Te Pāti Māori MPs were often absent from the House during sitting days.

They are also often absent from select committees and size is not an excuse MPs of large general electorates use for absence from the house.

I haven’t been able to find the current area of electorates but they won’t have changed much since 2008 :

Name                               Area sq.km
Te Tai Tonga                    161,443
Clutha-Southland              38,247
West Coast-Tasman         38,042
Te Tai Hauauru                 35,825
Waitaki                              34,888
Ikaroa-Rawhiti                  30,952
Kaikoura                           23,706
Waiariki                            19,212
Te Tai Tokerau                  16,370
Hauraki-Waikato               12,580
Tamaki Makaurau                 730

Te Tai Tonga is the largest electorate, covering the whole of the South, Stewart and Chatham Islands with a little bit of the lower North Island.

But the general electorates of Clutha Southland and West Coast-Tasman cover larger areas than all the other Māori electorates. Te Tai Hauauru is next in size, then the general electorate of Waitaki followed by Ikaroa-Rawhiti and the general electorate of Kaikoura which is bigger than all the other Māori electorates.

Tamaki Makaurau and Hauraki-Waikato are outliers, being much smaller than the others.

In 2008, 21 general seats covered larger areas than those. That won’t have changed much, nor will the expectation that MPs are in the house on sitting days and at select committees.

It is not unusual for only Kapa-Kingi, or just a couple of Te Pāti Māori MPs, to be seen in Parliament in the second half of the sitting week as others got out into their electorates. The co-leaders were almost never in Parliament on a Thursday, as was convention for leaders of most parties. . . .

It is conventional for leaders to be absent from parliament on Thursdays but unless there is a very good reason for their absence they will be there every other sitting day.

While Ngarewa-Packer said the change was a procedural one to allow MPs to get campaigning underway ahead of the 2026 election, it comes at a time of heightened scrutiny and discussion around the party. . .

TPM have not had nearly the scrutiny every other party would have got had its MPs behaved as TPM’s do.

MPs are paid to be MPs, to serve all the constituents in their electorates and to contribute in parliament. They are not paid to campaign.

This is yet another example of TPM showing disdain for parliament, the democratic process and taxapyers’ money.

Ele Ludemann is a North Otago farmer and journalist, who blogs HERE - where this article was sourced.