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The contest for the Northland electorate in 2023 features some high-profile candidates, and something of a re-run between the two politicians whose battle for the seat in 2020 produced the closest finish of any race nationwide.
The electorate stretches from the top of the North Island to a line from the upper Kaipara Harbour across to Mangawhai, but excluding Whangārei and its environs. It covers the entire Far North and Kaipara districts, and parts of the Whangārei district.
Northland is being contested by six candidates, including the two whose duel three years ago ended when the Labour challenger, Willow-Jean Prime, unseated the National incumbent, Matt King, by a mere 163 votes.
Now defending her seat, Prime is again facing King, although this time he’s running on the ticket of Democracy NZ, the party he established after the anti-vaccination/anti-mandate occupation at Parliament.
In what has long been regarded as a safe National seat, Prime faces her strongest challenge not from King, but from National’s new flagbearer, Grant McCallum, a Maungaturoto beef and dairy farmer and former vice president of Federated Farmers’ Northland branch.
McCallum is 68th on the National party list and must win the electorate if he’s to enter Parliament. A September 12 poll suggests he will do this with ease, putting him at 43 per cent to Prime’s 18 per cent.
Prime is number nine on Labour’s list, so would return to the Beehive even if National retakes Northland.
Prime, a former Far North district councillor who first entered Parliament as a list MP in 2017, serves as Minister for Youth and Conservation in the current government.
Another familiar candidate in Northland in Shane Jones of NZ First, who placed third in 2020 with 11.4 per cent of the vote. Jones, who held several cabinet posts in the Labour-NZ First coalition government in 2017-2020, is 2nd on his party’s list.
Mark Cameron of ACT, fifth-placed in 2020, is also running again. The Ruawai dairy farmer has been an ACT list MP since 2020, and on current polling, he will be back in Parliament after the election whatever happens in Northland, based on his high (7th) party list placing.
Given NZ First’s polling at press time, Jones also looks likely to return to Parliament, whether or not his party wins an electorate.
Rounding out the Northland field is Greens candidate Reina Tuai Penney (24th on list). She is described by the party as a Mangamuka-based advocate for social justice and for climate change adaption policies.
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