Senior Labour Māori Minister Nanaia Mahuta has taken herself off the party’s list and will focus all her attention on being re-elected in Hauraki Waikato.

Mahuta said she was unaware if other Labour MPs running in the Māori seats were planning to do the same.

The move means if Mahuta doesn’t win the seat she doesn’t have the fallback option of entering Parliament as a list MP.

But the move also puts more pressure on any candidate Te Pāti Māori decides to run.

In 2017 Labour decided to take all of its Māori electorate MPs off the list in a bid to boot Te Pāti Māori out of Parliament, sending a clear signal to voters that if they wanted those MPs in Parliament, they needed to back them.

Labour Māori seats campaign chair Willie Jackson previously told the Herald such a campaign this election would be unlikely, with polls indicating Te Pāti Māori will at least claim Waiariki and the Labour would likely need their support in any future governing arrangement.

While Labour has not yet decided its final list rankings, Mahuta said she had asked to be off the list.

“I think that this election, because of the significance of the decisions that voters have to make, and certainly in my electorate, I’m putting quite squarely in front of voters that I am up for the next set of challenges.”

Mahuta said Labour had made a lot of progress for Māori - including health reforms, rates remissions and council decision-making and representation - and if they wanted it to continue they needed to back another Labour government.

“I know the changes we have made have progressed issues for Māori in a positive way.”

She said she was unaware if any of her colleagues were considering also coming off the party list.

Mahuta has held the seat since 2008.

The seat was established in 2007, largely replacing Tainui, a seat Mahuta had also held between 2002 and 2008.

Mahuta won the seat in 2020 with a 68 per cent share of the vote - more than double second-placing Te Pāti Māori candidate Donna Pokere-Phillips at just under 26 per cent.

She had an even larger majority in 2017, claiming nearly 72 per cent of the vote, the last time she came off the Labour Party list.

Mahuta also came off the list in 2005 when running for the-then Tainui seat, shortly after the foreshore and seabed debacle.

Te Pāti Māori has not yet announced its candidate in the electorate.

Labour’s Ōhāriu MP Greg O’Connor has also signalled his desire to stay off the list at the election.

He told Newstalk ZB’s Nick Mills this month that he had asked the party to keep him off the list, going as far as to say if that didn’t happen and he didn’t win the seat he wouldn’t take up the list spot.

“I only want to be the MP for Ōhāriu, the local cop, doing the mahi on the ground,” the former police officer and Police Association president said.

National Party deputy leader Nicola Willis is also contesting the seat.