The Chatham Islands |
 Life on the Chathams: As a political scientist, I was intrigued to find that even though we were there in the middle of the 2020 general election campaign, there were no election billboards or hoardings whatsoever in the Chatham Islands. However, I did find this advertisement on the back page of the Chatham Islands’ telephone book. Several points need to be made about it. First, Paul Eagle is not the only Member of Parliament representing the Chatham Islands: in addition to being in the Rongotai general electorate, the islands are also in the Te Tai Tonga Maori electorate. As a result, Rino Tirikatene can also claim to be “Your Member of Parliament for the Chatham Islands”. What is more, it is worth noting that Paul Eagle won only 32.1 percent of the candidate-votes in Rongotai that were cast in the Chatham Islands in 2017. His National Party opponent in the electorate, Chris Finlayson, garnered 55.7 percent of general electorate votes in the Chathams. It’s also fascinating to compare Eagle’s performance with that of Labour’s Norman Kirk in the 1966 general election, which was the last time Kirk was elected in Lyttelton (which used to be the general electorate whose boundaries included the Chatham Islands). On that occasion, Kirk won 88.3 percent of the votes. |