Lending some star power to Mt Albert Labour candidate Helen White’s campaign launch last night, a former Prime Minister gave her unfiltered thoughts on run-up to the election
Former Prime Minister Helen Clark on Wednesday night returned to her seat of power, to rally the troops for Labour in her old electorate.
She told 50 or so red-shirted supporters who had gathered to kick off Helen White’s campaign to take Mt Albert that it was first time she’d been at the Sandringham Community Centre since 2009.
READ MORE:
* Loudest voices compete with the Chardonnay
* Michael Wood, in from the cold?
Clark endorsed the candidate and gave her two cents' worth on the election season so far.
“It’s a funny old election,” she said, before comparing it to her own nail biter against Don Brash in 2005.
She gave White’s volunteer corps a quick recount of her own well-known political history – first, winning against Jenny Shipley: “That wasn’t so hard.”
Then her win against Bill English in 2002. (“That was quite easy.”)
The challenge came in 2005 when Labour found itself facing off against Don Brash.
“Then they put up Brash, and everyone thought that Brash would be a pushover, but he was a very difficult opponent,” Clark said. “Because he was absolutely shameless.”
She went on to compare the tensions of 2005 to the relationship between the left and the right today.
“Brash was not afraid to scratch every itch, and that’s what we’re facing now.”
The comments come after an advertisement from the Council of Trade Unions appeared on Monday’s New Zealand Herald front page accusing National leader Christopher Luxon of being “out of touch” and “too much risk”.
The ad sparked a back and forth between National and Labour through the media over who had been meaner to whom, with Prime Minister Chris Hipkins printing off a dossier of supposed attack material from National and Chris Bishop blaming the presence of a derisive ad about the PM on his Twitter timeline on his “inveterate” posting habits.
“Please would they show Chris Bishop on TV some more,” Clark said at Sandringham.
It wasn’t the only dig at the other side the former PM made, calling David Seymour a “yapping dog” who keeps getting “sillier and sillier”, citing his recent claim Kate Sheppard would have voted Act as her evidence.
“We’re just in a totally silly season, but in a silly season we have to keep our heads and we have to keep to our core messages.”
But even the party faithful in the room were aware that a Labour victory could be a tough feat as the date of the election ticks closer and polls remain gloomy for them.
Clark said she’d done some calculating and figured in the past staying on for three terms was the norm, but did concede “it gets harder, because obviously the longer you are around the more people find to pick at”.
She said a lot of people remain undecided – a fact door-knockers from a range of different parties have backed up in the past few weeks.
“A lot of people haven’t made up their minds,” she said. “Yes, people get a bit sick of you, but in the end they’ve got to face well, are you just voting for change without even looking at what it involves, or are you going to stand back and say what are the issues here?”
Clark’s not the only recent Labour leader for whom Mt Albert is an old stomping ground – with both Jacinda Ardern and David Shearer also holding the seat.
White's selection means party faithful who are used to getting Labour royalty will instead have the option of number 47 on the list.
White’s a former employment lawyer who has lived in the area for 34 years. Last election, she took a tilt at Auckland Central, losing to Chlöe Swarbrick by just over a thousand votes.
Supporters in the crowd said there was a silver lining to their representative not being as high profile as Ardern or Clark.
One volunteer said having a local MP who also happens to be the Prime Minister could limits how much direct attention the local community receives.
“Jacinda was pretty busy these last few years,” one volunteer said.
But at the same time, White doesn’t have Ardern or Clark’s profile, so she’ll have to fight hard if she wants undecided votes.
It means the field may have opened up for parties like the Greens and National.
Climate activist Taitoa Wihone tried to take the electorate for the Greens in 2020, but tailed Jacinda Ardern by some 26,000 votes.
The odds have certainly evened at least a bit this time, and the Greens will be hoping for another Swarbrick story out of Mt Albert as they send 8th ranked Green MP Ricardo Menéndez March into the fray.
Other contestants include Melissa Lee, who has reliably been able to turn out around a fifth of the vote in past elections, Young Act President Ollie Murphy, TOP’s Ciara Swords and Julienne Johnston from New Conservative.
White said she felt optimistic but wouldn’t be drawn on whether the odds had evened out for other parties.
Nevertheless, Labour has held the seat since World War II – so if its dismal performance in the polls translates into movement on seats like this, October 14 could be an historic moment for the people of this central Auckland electorate.
