The Act Party deputy leader wants to take over one of National's bluest and safest seats in Parliament, and is shaking up local politics in Auckland's east, writes Tim Murphy
Brooke van Velden cuts like a knife when asked at a public meeting why she is trying to unseat Simon O'Connor, the incumbent MP in the long-held National seat of Tāmaki.
"Some people have told me they don't feel like the person here exists," the deputy leader of Act begins. "Some people are 'So when I do hear from him, I wish I hadn't'."
The 30-year-old, first-term MP claims voters she talks to "do not feel represented".
Van Velden is talking up her chances in the ultra-blue stronghold.
Which is brave, or delusional, in a seat held by National since Rob Muldoon took it in 1960 and with O'Connor maintaining an 8000 vote majority in 2020, despite the nationwide Labour landslide taking 11 percent out of his personal vote from the election before.
It is an intriguing internecine battle of the right, between two parties already wedded to a post-election attempt to form a new centre-right government.
And it's awkward politics. For Act, a chance to raise van Velden and the party's profile, but for National an irritation and a distraction.
O'Connor is the incumbent, establishment, male conservative against van Velden, the young, female, liberal. Classic National blue against the flashes of yellow and pink of Act.
O'Connor has held the seat since 2011 but is an MP whose positions on moral and culture war issues have alienated some of the 64,000 Tāmaki constituents. On local neighbourhood social media chat groups, his name provokes instant reaction, negative and positive, even talk of campaigns to move him on.
Van Velden, a driving force behind the passing last term of the End of Life Choice law, tells voters at her public meeting that she stands for "choice in every aspect of people's lives".
She's taking on O'Connor because "a huge number of people have put up their hand to me and said 'Brooke, please do it'".
Voters in the electorate, which runs from Ōrakei around the eastern bays and through Glendowie, Glen Innes, Meadowbank and Ellerslie North, will get to enjoy or endure something of a sideshow to the two parties' major play of winning enough party votes to change the government.
So far, the two MPs have been duelling beyond each other's sight.
On Friday last week, they were reaching out for votes from different hemispheres.
O'Connor held an online question and answer session for voters, which had been promoted on billboards on the streets of Tāmaki. But he did so from his holiday in ... New York City. He and wife Rachel, sister of former National leader Simon Bridges, are in the Big Apple during Parliament's recess to see her three oldest children.
In 38 degree heat, swigging from a water bottle, O'Connor pressed ahead with his 35-minute session, welcoming by name six people who participated.
He shared his views on the cost-of-living crisis ("Over here in the States things are so much cheaper than in New Zealand. Labour has tanked the economy"), prisons and crime ("The only target Labour have achieved is reducing the prison population by 30 percent. Soft, sarcastic clap for them") PM Chris Hipkins in China ("Probably it was a good trip, at some levels it was successful") and the polluted waters of Mission Bay.
He had not, he told a questioner named Braxton, sought meetings with any US political contacts in New York. "No, I'm happy, literally, just for a few days to see the kids, and Rachel and I want to maximise the time with them. Family comes first."
Except for during this particular half hour with his constituents. O'Connor scolded Labour over the growing public debt and then had a glancing comment for National's competitors on the right.
"It's just getting worse and worse. Only National can fix this and only National has got the credentials to do the balance right ... You've got the profligate spenders in the likes of Labour and then you have the nutters in the Greens who want to tax you more and more and more on the little that you already have.
"And then on the other side of the fringe, doesn't matter whether you are dealing with New Zealand First or Act, they can't run the economy well either, because the economy just becomes about individuals rather than how we actually better serve individuals in the community, which is much more a National Party perspective. So only Christopher Luxon and National can sort that out."
O'Connor repeated several times that he is just in New York for a couple of days/several days and then will be back onto the streets of Tāmaki, and to Parliament until it rises at the end of August.
Self-described as "an exceptionally prolific" user of social media, this election has also spurred a slew of public meetings advertised on hoardings around the electorate, plus "coffee catch-ups".
But he seems to sense some criticism about his availability to voters.
"One of the ironies is people say 'We haven't seen you around, Simon'. This is in Mission Bay, or GI or Ōrakei, and I say 'Oh yeah, well actually you elected me to go to Parliament'. So that's one of the ironies."
He's looking forward to campaign debates. "They're usually a chance for me to speak clearly and frankly, and to show up the opposition parties for their failings."
Back in Meadowbank, Tāmaki, Auckland, New Zealand, Brooke van Velden was also campaigning on Friday. She has that Act penchant for profile grabbing, with her electorate HQ taking over the former police station house at the bottom of St Heliers Bay Rd and her campaign car all ablaze with Act's free market colour palette.
On a bleak night, around 50 people showed up to her well-advertised meeting at St Chad's Church hall and the would-be usurper promised to respect their personal freedoms from the get-go.
"I don't want to interfere too much in your lives so I will try to keep it to an hour."
She spells out her backstory ("My last name sounds very foreign .. but my ancestors are all the way from Ireland before the Treaty was signed"), her family and education ("Mum, Dad, three older brothers .. who are quite boisterous and try to keep me humble" and "they worked very hard to send me to Cornwall Park Primary School and St Cuthbert's College") and her being asked by Act leader David Seymour to go to Parliament to work on the euthanasia legislation.
At Auckland University, where she studied international trade and economics, she began to understand "anyone can step up on a podium and talk about kindness and goodwill but it doesn't have any basis unless it's backed up by good policy".
Her introductory comments ranged from her opposition to co-governance and support for equal rights, no matter who a person is or what their race, through to the importance of education and her distaste for cancel culture, applied against those of different viewpoints.
But why stand now, after two and a half years safely on Act's list and with a relatively successful record keeping cohesion and discipline as the party whip, in an electorate seat, and why Tāmaki?
She says she wants to represent more people, beyond just those who gave Act their party vote. "I want to be someone who listens, tries to find out what the problems are and then finds the solutions.
"I really would like to advocate for people in a geographic area who I believe share my values. I want to be a hardworking local advocate."
Van Velden says she's already started helping people with their local issues and will do so "no matter what personal belief you have".
She does not mention O'Connor by name but tells the crowd "if you're willing to take a chance and change things in Tāmaki for the first time in 63 years, then I will be the person who is willing to work here for you."
One man worries she might split the right's vote, letting someone else (Labour?) through.
But she claims the vote between National and Act averaged over the past five elections was around 70 percent of the electorate vote. "Look, this seat will never go to Labour. Even if we split 50/50 there's actually no way Labour get in."
She puts the 'third party' label on Labour, saying with around 20 percent last time, they have no show.
But her calculations on the centre-right's huge margin are somewhat misleading. In those elections, National has won 66 percent, 68, 69.5, 63, and in the Labour Covid election landslide, 51. Act's contribution to the 70 percent average has been 4.4, 2.4,1.3, 1.4 and in 2020, 5.2 percent.
Act's performance to date has been vastly inferior to Labour and even the Greens in every one of those polls.
So, latching onto National's dominance as some kind of shared centre-right dominance might sound a bit cheeky, or desperate.
Van Velden doesn't seem to be one to let the past stand in her way. Or to recognise the similarities between Act and National on several issues raised in the twin sessions on Friday.
She and O'Connor share very similar opinions, and suggested solutions, on Labour's economic management and spending, law and order, co-governance and Auckland housing intensification.
One man at the St Chad's meeting wanted to know in what ways Act and National were distinct.
Van Velden: "I would consider us, in some ways, more right-wing than National," citing the economy and property rights, but being more liberal through "everybody having choice to how they live their lives".
"I genuinely don't care," she told the audience "what any of you get up to in your spare time".
Spelling out the distinctions between Act and National, she said National still supported Kāinga Ora building public houses whereas Act believed the government should not be involved in building houses.
And recalling National's promises of rural bridge upgrades during one campaign in Northland, van Velden said: "There's no way an Act Party politician would ever say if you vote for me you would get a certain type of infrastructure."
Still, the parties could work together. "We do want to work with National but we sometimes take a bit of a tougher line or hold them accountable."
Working together in Tāmaki, however, is not on the table. Not for the next 95 days.
