Te Tai Tonga () is a New Zealand parliamentary MÃÂori electorate, returning one Member of Parliament to the New Zealand House of Representatives. It was established for the 1996 general election, replacing Southern Maori. It covers all of the South Island, Stewart Island, the Chatham Islands, and parts of both Wellington City and the Hutt Valley. The current MP for Te Tai Tonga is TÃÂkuta Ferris a former member of the Te PÃÂti MÃÂori but is now an independent.
Te Tai Tonga is geographically by far the largest of the seventy-one electorates of New Zealand, covering all of the South Island, Stewart Island, the Chatham Islands, all the islands in the Southern Ocean and a large part of the Wellington urban area, namely Wellington City as far as Churton Park, and Lower Hutt City south of Naenae and west of Wainuiomata. Besides Wellington, the main centres in Te Tai Tonga are Nelson, Christchurch, Timaru, Oamaru, Dunedin, Queenstown, and Invercargill.
As a MÃÂori electorate, Te Tai Tonga overlaps with the sixteen South Island electorates, as well as Rongotai and Wellington Central, and parts of à ÂhÃÂriu and Hutt South.
Te Tai Tonga's size was marginally decreased after a review of boundaries in 2007, when the suburbs of Naenae and TaitÃÂ were moved into Ikaroa-RÃÂwhiti. The 2013/14 redistribution did not further alter the boundaries of the electorate. The 2019/20 redistribution adjusted the north-east boundary to align with the northern boundary of Hutt South. The 2025 redistribution saw the Lower Hutt suburbs of Petone and Eastbourne transferred to Ikaroa-RÃÂwhiti.
The main iwi of Te Tai Tonga are NgÃÂi Tahu/KÃÂi Tahu, KÃÂti MÃÂmoe and Waitaha, and in the North Island, Te ÃÂti Awa ki Whakarongotai, NgÃÂti Toa Rangatira and NgÃÂti Poneke, that latter of which is not iwi in the traditional sense, but an urban pan-tribal grouping. The Chatham Islands was invaded by members of NgÃÂti Mutunga and NgÃÂti Tama, and their descendants live there today, alongside the indigenous Moriori.
Te Tai Tonga was established for the 1996 general election, replacing Southern Maori which had existed since the first MÃÂori elections in 1868. The 1996 election was the first to use the Mixed Member Proportional (MMP) voting system and a new formula for calculating the number of electorates, which resulted in an increase in the number of MÃÂori electorates from four to five.
The main difference involves the separation of the Wairarapa and Hawke's Bay into seats wholly located in the North IslandâÂÂinitially Te Puku O Te Whenua, and since 1999 Ikaroa-RÃÂwhiti.
Whetà « Tirikatene-Sullivan had served as Southern Maori's representative in Parliament since 1967âÂÂduring the terms of five different governments and nine Prime Ministers. However, the New Zealand First Party challenger Tà « Wyllie tipped her out of the seat in 1996, as sixty years of Labour Party control of the MÃÂori electorates ended.
In 1999 New Zealand First lost its electoral footing after an unpopular term in office, firstly as junior government-coalition partner and then following an internal split in the party, with much of the party's original parliamentary caucus leaving the party ("waka-jumping") to prop up the government of Jenny Shipley (although Wyllie himself did not join the breakaway group). Along with a drop in the New Zealand First vote from thirteen to four percent nationwide came the return of the MÃÂori electorates to Labour and the election of Mahara Okeroa to Parliament as the Labour Party MP for Te Tai Tonga.
A political difference of opinion between many MÃÂori and the Labour Party emerged in 2004, when Helen Clark's Labour government introduced the Seabed and Foreshore Bill, claiming the coastline for the Crown and in the process providing the catalyst for the launch of the MÃÂori Party (7 July 2004), which went on to win four of the seven MÃÂori seats (but not the plurality of the party votes cast in those seats) at the 2005 general election. Te Tai Tonga did not form part of this electoral sea-change, with Okeroa's majority slashed from 8,000 to around 2,500 despite his facing two fewer contenders than in 2002.
Rahui Katene won the electorate for the MÃÂori Party in the , defeating the incumbent. She was defeated after a single term; Rino Tirikatene, the nephew of Tirikatene-Sullivan, won the electorate in with a margin of 1,475 votes. He was returned in the 2014 and 2017 elections with increased majorities.
Key
Members of Parliament elected from party lists in elections where that person also unsuccessfully contested the Te Tai Tonga electorate. Unless otherwise stated, all MPs terms began and ended at general elections.
Electorate (as at 26 November 2011): 31,933
Refer to Candidates in the New Zealand general election 1999 by electorate#Te Tai Tonga for a list of candidates.