Polls good news for Maori Party

NEW ZEALAND HERALD: The Maori Party's hopes of winning all seven Maori seats in this year's election have been boosted by two opinion polls released today.

They show the party's candidate in Te Tai Tonga, Rahui Reid Katene holding a slender lead over sitting Labour MP Mahara Okeroa while in Hauraki-Waikato, Customs Minister Nania Mahuta was almost dead-heating with the Maori Party's Angeline Greensill.

But the DigiPoll surveys carried out for TV One's Marae programme also showed the party vote moving strongly towards Labour in Hauraki-Waikato and Te Tai Tonga.

In the Te Tai Tonga candidate vote, Mrs Katene rated 46.1 per cent against Mr Okoroa's 40.4 per cent while in Hauraki-Waikato Ms Mahuta rated 50.3 per cent against Ms Greensill's 49.7 per cent.

The margin of error for the polls which questioned 400 voters and were conducted between October 8 and October 21 was plus or minus 4.9 per cent.

Although the polls showed close races in both electorates, the swing in the party vote was back towards Labour.

In Hauraki-Waikato Labour was almost dead-heated with the Maori Party 41.3 per cent to 41 per cent. This reversed an almost 11 percentage point gap in the Maori Party's favour in a July poll.

In Te Tai Tonga Labour increased its lead to 14 percentage points to 44 per cent after both parties were within one percentage point of each other in the July poll.

In the 2005 election throughout the Maori seats, party votes went overwhelmingly to Labour and created a situation which would have made it very difficult for the Maori Party to support a National-led government.

A strong party vote for the Maori Party would give it more flexibility in dealing with the main parties after this year's election.

The Maori Party won four of the seven Maori seats in 2005 and hopes it can capture all of them this year.