{"id":264755,"date":"2026-02-03T01:57:09","date_gmt":"2026-02-03T01:57:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/264755\/"},"modified":"2026-02-03T01:57:09","modified_gmt":"2026-02-03T01:57:09","slug":"peeni-henare-not-contesting-tamaki-makaurau-at-election","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/264755\/","title":{"rendered":"Peeni Henare not contesting T\u0101maki Makaurau at election"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Peeni<\/p>\n

\n

Photo: RNZ \/ Angus Dreaver\n<\/p>\n

Senior Labour MP and former minister Peeni Henare won’t be contesting the T\u0101maki Makaurau seat in the election this year.<\/p>\n

Henare did not put his name forward to be the party’s candidate in the M\u0101ori seat, and the deadline for candidate nominations has now passed.<\/p>\n

It’s unclear whether Henare intends to run as a list-only candidate, or bow out of politics all together.<\/p>\n

Henare told RNZ “it takes a lot” to contest an election and everyone should ask themselves if they have the energy to do so.<\/p>\n

He said the way things went in his last two attempts were in the back of his mind as he made the decision, “but I’m satisfied that nine years as the MP for T\u0101maki Makaurau has been fulfilling”.<\/p>\n

“I’m a firm believer of bringing in new talent, so that’s what we’ll be looking to do.”<\/p>\n

He said he wouldn’t get ahead of himself when asked about running as a list-only candidate, but “Labour will go through its process pretty soon and that’ll be what it’ll be.”<\/p>\n

He would not say who the Labour candidate might be for T\u0101maki Makaurau, but mentioned a “young fella” who had shown some interest.<\/p>\n

The news comes as the party finalises its candidate selections and in the wake of the resignation of another Senior Labour MP, Adrian Rurawhe, from politics.<\/p>\n

Henare entered Parliament in 2014, winning the the T\u0101maki Makaurau seat over the M\u0101ori party. He held onto the seat for nearly a decade, before being ousted by Te P\u0101ti M\u0101ori’s Takutaki Tarsh Kemp in 2023 by a slim margin.<\/p>\n

He contested the seat in the T\u0101maki Makaurau by-election in 2025, following Kemp’s death, but lost to Oriini Kaipara<\/a> who received around twice as many votes.<\/p>\n

During the by-election he batted away suggestions of a Labour leadership bid, but didn’t rule it out<\/a>.<\/p>\n

At the time Henare said the current leader Chris Hipkins had his full support.<\/p>\n

During the previous Labour government, he held portfolios such as Defence, Wh\u0101nau Ora, Civil Defence, Tourism and ACC.<\/p>\n

Sign up for Ng\u0101 Pitopito K\u014drero<\/a>, a daily newsletter curated by our editors and delivered straight to your inbox every weekday.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Photo: RNZ \/ Angus Dreaver Senior Labour MP and former minister Peeni Henare won’t be contesting the T\u0101maki…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":264756,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[48,47,42,43,49,46,44,45,40,38,41,39],"class_list":{"0":"post-264755","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-headlines","8":"tag-audio","9":"tag-current-affairs","10":"tag-headlines","11":"tag-news","12":"tag-podcasts","13":"tag-public-radio","14":"tag-radio-new-zealand","15":"tag-rnz","16":"tag-top-news","17":"tag-top-stories","18":"tag-topnews","19":"tag-topstories"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/264755","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=264755"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/264755\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/264756"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=264755"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=264755"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=264755"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}