Nanaia Mahuta
Nanaia Cybelle Mahuta (born 1970) is a New Zealand politician. She is a member of the Labour Party. Mahuta was first elected to Parliament in the 1996 elections, when she became a list MP. In the 1999 elections, she won the Te Tai Hauauru electorate, and in the 2002 elections, she won Tainui. In 2004, she joined Tariana Turia, another Labour MP, in voting against the first reading of her party's legislation on the controversial foreshore and seabed issue. She did not, however, join Turia when she quit Labour to found the Maori Party. In the bill's second reading, she again voted against her party, but in the third reading, she changed her position and supported it, saying that while it had "serious flaws, ... at the end of the day, it was the right thing to do". Mahuta has announced that she will contest the next election as a Labour MP, but will not be on Labour's party list — she will only remain in Parliament if she holds her Tainui electorate seat.
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