Tāmaki is a parliamentary electorate, returning one Member of Parliament to the New Zealand House of Representatives.

The electorate is represented by Brooke van Velden, the deputy leader of the ACT New Zealand party.

The 1941 New Zealand census had been postponed due to World War II, so the 1946 electoral redistribution had to take ten years of population growth and movements into account.

Tāmaki is the home of a selection of New Zealand's emblematic historical moments: Ngāti Whatua activism at Bastion Point (sparking a chain of events leading to the modern Treaty of Waitangi grievance settlement process) occurred inside the seat's boundaries, a seat at the time represented by the contentious Robert Muldoon, the Prime Minister responsible for the Crown's response to the occupation of Bastion Point.

Among other Ngāti Whatua land taken through governmental application of public works legislation is Paratai Drive, once New Zealand's most expensive street.

The National Party held Tāmaki in all its various incarnations from 1960 until 2023, their domination beginning when future Prime Minister Robert Muldoon (later Sir Robert) began his parliamentary career by ousting the Labour Party's Bob Tizard.

Muldoon's departure caused a by-election in 1992, where candidate Clem Simich won despite fierce competition in an environment where both major parties were out of favour with the electorate.

Simich gave up his seat ahead of the 2005 election to high school principal Allan Peachey.

From 2005, Tāmaki was represented by Allan Peachey, who announced his retirement at the end of the parliamentary term in 2011 for health reasons, and subsequently died shortly before the election.

[3] O'Connor won the seat comfortably in the general elections held in 2011, 2014, 2017 and 2020 but later stirred controversy with his conservative views.

O'Connor was one of only eight members of parliament to vote against the Conversion Practices Prohibition Legislation Act 2022,[4] published a Facebook post welcoming the United States Supreme Court's overtuning of Roe v. Wade[5] and made comments in Parliament that linked a mass shooting in the US to remarks that Marama Davidson, co-leader of the Greens, had made about white cisgender men.