Green Party candidate and former Te Pāti Māori lawyer Tania Waikato says nobody should be surprised her bikini-clad photos are boosting her election campaign.
Waikato has spent the past 10 days running a “thirst-trap” campaign on social media, hoping to increase Māori roll enrolment by hooking people’s attention with scantily clad Māori models.
Waikato is up against Te Pāti Māori co-leader Rawiri Waititi in the Waiariki electorate. She makes no apologies for using Māori beauty to attract Māori votes, saying it’s “our absolute right” to use every available tool to win, even if that tool is unconventional.
Waikato says it’s hard to describe the success or the strategy of the campaign to someone who doesn’t speak “fluent internet”, and lets the numbers do the talking: 10 days, 891,000 views, and 3451 clicks on a link to enrol.
She’s not surprised it works: “People have been using women in bikinis to sell everything from bloody cars to Coca-Cola for decades. It’s not a new technique, all I’ve done is apply it in a new context.”
Waikato thinks that if the internet has become a political battleground, then it’s her responsibility to take advantage of the algorithm.
“I’m not here trying to convince people about the validity of the method. All I’m here to do is to be effective, and I know what’s effective,” says Waikato.
She’s relatively new to the social media game, but says she knows the rules. Two years ago, she started posting in response to the Treaty Principles Bill.
As a civil litigator with 20 years’ experience, Waikato says this was an unusual move. “This is not something that people in my profession do: we do not do public advocacy, especially against a live piece of legislation,” she says.
She felt the legislation was too egregious to stay quiet, so she started posting; her first video netted 20,000 views, and from there, she started building a following.
Waikato feels it’s her responsibility as a constitutional lawyer “to try and combat some of the damage that I know is being done, and will continue to be done, if this Government gets back in”, and she’ll use whatever tactics she needs to put up a fight – including so-called thirst traps: photos of attractive people wearing little clothing.
“Unfortunately for all of us, politics has descended into a cesspit, basically. And you can try and continue to play by the old rules and try to take the moral high ground and do all of those things. You can do that, and you’ll lose.”
Waikato says that’s all good if you’re okay with losing. “But for me, I will not get to the seventh of November – knowing what I know about the blatant and continuing demolition of our democracy that this Government is undertaking – without feeling like I’ve done absolutely everything in my power to stop it.”
She says it’s unusual for liberals to take these sorts of risks: “The left is too scared, too averse to criticism”. She thinks conservative voices tend to do better online because they aren’t afraid of backlash, but points to a few liberal figures as examples of good, intuitive posters: Greens co-leader Chlöe Swarbrick and Labour MP Kieran McAnulty.
McAnulty is surprised to hear the compliment: “Oh well that’s nice, isn’t it?” But he isn’t ready to go as far as Waikato has to win votes. “It’s definitely not a campaign tactic that I would use. I’m not sure I’d fit the bill,” he says.
Swarbrick says it’s unconventional, but “we’re living in a brave new world”. Waikato’s tactics were another way to try to get cut-through in the digital landscape, a strategy she likens to New Zealand First leader Winston Peters’ ability to make headlines out of controversy and attacks – a comparison Waikato makes as well.
Peters, the day before, had called the Greens “appallingly retarded” over their data centre policy.
Waikato says it’s “classic Winston playing to his choir, and doing it very well. He’s a dick, but you can’t fault him for his political messaging – he hits it every time.”
Peters has defended his own rhetoric in recent days. Asked Tuesday about the appropriateness of the data centre comment, he replied, “Of course, I just used it. People use the word ‘retard’ and when it comes to that sort of thing, they are retards, yes.”
Earlier, when presented with criticism of his personal attacks by Labour leader Chris Hipkins, Peters said it was “rubbish”.
With the deadline to enrol nearing, Waikato says she’s going to pivot the campaign. Already, it’s veered away from girls in bikinis – which brought in the majority of views and clicks – towards shirtless men, which aren’t drawing in as big a crowd.
Waikato says it was an intentional choice to shift to the tāne after hooking people’s attention with the wāhine, what she called the “initial ignition”.
The images, which are sourced from friends and family, are an attempt not just to win attention but to also shift the narrative on Māori representation online. She wants to show Māori as strong and healthy, “the absolute opposite of these stereotypes that this Government has been portraying us as”.
She expects pushback. Waikato says Hobson’s Pledge has targeted her online multiple times, and says she’s “not averse to criticism”. Recently, Waikato was fundraising by selling t-shirts with ‘Witch-hunter General’ emblazoned on them, a label Hobson’s Pledge gave her.
Waikato says that after spending a career in courtrooms and before judges – “arguing with facts and cases, not just making shit up like politicians do” – dealing with blowback online is “play time”.
For Waikato, any win is a win. She remembers someone who reached out after the posts started going up, who told her she helped them “feel Māori enough to go on the Māori roll”.
“I’ll put up with all the shit and all the criticism for that one person,” she says.
