Greens could threaten Labour's hold on Wellington seats

Monday, 30 January 2023

Green Party co-leader James Shaw and Marama Davidson say they'll be pushing for free public transport, a better climate response and wealth redistribution in 2023 - after 2022 proved to be a year of true highs and lows.

Dave Armstrong is a playwright and satirist based in Wellington.

OPINION: Whatever your political persuasion, you probably found the last election night as boring as I did. At our place, that Labour would win around half of the vote became apparent soon after the Glad Wrap was taken off the National Party club sandwiches and the Labour sausage rolls came out of the oven.

As for the Labour clean sweep of Wellington seats, the only interest was how big each Labour super majority would be. The few Tories in our lounge took solace in Labour losing Auckland Central to the Greens and cheering on Te Pāti Māori to win its two seats.

But last week things got a little more interesting. With Paul Eagle standing down, we, in the safe Labour seat of Rongotai, assumed that a new candidate would be selected – the present hot favourite being ex-Paekawakawa/Southern Ward councillor Fleur Fitzsimons – and that although Labour’s majority would be less than Eagle’s nearly 20,000 votes, it would be substantial.

* Grant Robertson not contesting Wellington Central at election

* Green MP Julie Anne Genter will contest Wellington's Rongotai electorate

Deputy prime minister Grant Robertson, finance minister, Labour Party, Stuff generic

* Election 2020: How Chloe Swarbrick won the campaign of a lifetime and turned a blue seat Green

The Green Party list MP Julie Anne Genter has been selected as her party’s candidate for the Rongotai seat.

But then high-profile Green Julie Anne Genter, a former associate minister of transport who now lives in Berhampore, was selected as the Green Party candidate. Genter put her hand up for Rongotai during the mayoral election campaign when anti-Eagle sentiment was at peak pique.

Does Genter stand a chance of winning? At this stage, I’m far from convinced. Then again, I thought the same about Tory Whanau winning the mayoralty eight months out and was proved entirely wrong.

National Party deputy leader Nicola Willis has announced she will run in the Ōhāriu electorate.

Like Whanau, Genter has declared early so is at present the only Rongotai candidate, which will give her time to better establish her local credentials. Yes, she will alienate cycleway haters and some motorists, but they were never going to vote Green anyway.

If you look at urban seats in Australia, the Greens are turning some central and inner-city electorates into strongholds. Chlõe Swarbrick has already taken Auckland Central, and I can’t see her losing it this time.

0322022 Photo: JERICHO ROCK-ARCHER/STUFF Mugshot Dave Armstrong. Stuff staff mugshot Feb 2022.

If Genter can attract the same sort of young and enthusiastic pro-cycling, pro-housing intensification grassroots support that Whanau and Lambton Ward councillor Tamatha Paul utilised in their successful campaigns, she could do very well. And if the wheels fall off the campaigns of her opponents, as they did for Whanau’s rivals, then Genter will be the beneficiary.

However, Labour has its grassroots teams and party organisation, too. If Fleur Fitzsimons wins the nomination, her background as a popular local councillor will make her the favourite. She has the same liberal credentials as Genter, as well as strong links with union, immigrant and sporting communities. And she didn’t stand for the council this time around, so won’t force an expensive by-election if she wins a parliamentary seat.

Let’s not also forget that there is also strong National support out in the eastern suburbs. Back in the day, National held, albeit marginally, the Miramar electorate.

Soon after Genter’s selection, Wellington Central MP Grant Robertson dropped the bombshell that he wouldn’t be contesting the seat. His argument was that being finance minister meant that his workload is too heavy for him to be effectively doing electorate work as well.

National pollster David Farrar reckoned Robertson was going on the list so that he could bail without causing a by-election when Labour inevitably loses in October, but Robertson argued that his finance predecessors, Bill English and Michael Cullen, did exactly the same thing.

Wellington Central could turn into a fascinating three-way race. Even though National received only 14% of the party vote last time, it’s been a National and even ACT seat in the past. I wonder if Nicola Willis is kicking herself for already announcing her Ōhāriu candidacy? Then again, she’s probably the favourite for that seat on present polling, and Chris Bishop would be in with a chance in Hutt.

The Greens got over 30% of the party vote in Wellington Central last time, and with more than a few lefties becoming disenchanted with Labour, James Shaw, assuming he is selected again, must be in with a great chance.

Even though the Greens sit to the left of Labour on policy, their candidates are often more middle class than their Labour opponents. If the National candidate in Wellington Central is polling well behind the Labour and Green candidates, expect right-wing liberals to fall in behind the Greens to ensure Labour loses.

What will also be interesting is how the Wellington Labour and Green candidates interact. If they win more votes than National and ACT – unlikely on present polling, but we live in interesting times – they will have to work more closely than at present. This will mean playing nice, remembering that in the rest of the country, National and ACT are their main opposition.

Given that the party vote is the crucial one under MMP, are seats of any importance at all? Yes, for, although not as crucial as under FPP, they can show trends and determine who the stars of a party are.

We must thank Eagle, Genter, Robertson and Willis for making this election even more interesting that it was promising to be.