Labour's Helen White on a red backdrop
Labour’s Helen White (Image: FB, design: Archi Banal)

PoliticsOctober 17, 2023

Helen White says Greens split Mt Albert vote as results remain too close to call

Labour's Helen White on a red backdrop
Labour’s Helen White (Image: FB, design: Archi Banal)

For the first time in history, the Labour stronghold is on a knife edge with preliminary results showing the party’s candidate has just a lead of just 106 votes over National’s Melissa Lee. 

The presumptive MP for Mount Albert has blamed the Greens for splitting the vote in the electorate after an unexpectedly nail-biting race for the once safe Labour seat.

On the preliminary count, Helen White has a razor-thin 106-vote majority over National’s Melissa Lee, who held an early and surprising lead for much of election night. White ultimately pulled in 9,997 votes, while Lee finished with 9,891. This was the sixth campaign in Mt Albert for Lee, who has been a list MP since 2008.

Green Party candidate Ricardo Menendez March polled third with 6,012 votes, over-performing when compared to previous Green candidates in Mt Albert, but still securing fewer votes than the party did in the seat.

Famous as a Labour stronghold, Mt Albert has never been held by any party other than Labour and was previously represented by party leaders Jacinda Ardern, Helen Clark and David Shearer. In 2020, Ardern trounced Lee by 22,000 votes. 

After polls closed on election night, National’s Melissa Lee had an early lead in the seat. She told The Spinoff at the time that she believed she was a “beneficiary” of an overall swing to the right. 

National snatched up a number of previously red electorates across the country, including other Labour fortresses like Mt Roskill and New Lynn. The shift against Labour in Auckland was particularly remarkable, as detailed by The Spinoff’s Duncan Greive. 

But White told The Spinoff that it was less about a swing away from the left. “The obvious [factor] is that the Greens and Labour split some of the vote,” said White. 

“If you add up the vote [between Labour and the Greens] it’s pretty good. I respect the right for the Greens to stand, that’s their absolute right. But that’s an obvious issue in the electorate.”

On preliminary votes, the combined Labour and Green vote in this election was 16,009 from preliminary voter turnout of 28,251.

In 2020, when Ardern received more than 29,000 votes, the Greens’ candidate Luke Wijohn returned 2,299 votes – a combined total of about 31,500. 

Lee’s result on Saturday night was roughly in line with what she received in 2017. In that election, Ardern pulled in more than 24,000 votes and turnout in the seat was close to 39,000.

Roughly 20% of votes across the country were cast as special votes and are yet to be included in the total tally. 

Chris Hipkins and Helen White at the Big Gay Out the day after White was selected as Mt Albert candidate (Photo: Toby Manhire)

This was White’s first campaign in Mt Albert, having stood as Labour’s candidate for Auckland Central in the last election. That race saw a high-profile challenge from then Green list MP Chlöe Swarbrick who ultimately won the seat. During that campaign, White publicly suggested Swarbrick step aside in order to avoid vote splitting on the left. Despite her electorate loss, in 2020 White’s list ranking of 48 earned her a seat in parliament. This year, with Labour’s share of the party vote collapsing and White at number 47, she’s not even close, so maintaining a majority in Mt Albert is her only route to parliament.

Asked whether she would have preferred March chose not to run in Mt Albert, White said she had no control over what other parties did. “I think that’s politics,” she said.

Despite the close result and the risk of losing a safe Labour seat, White said she remained “incredibly proud” of her Mt Albert campaign. “You’ve got to remember that some of the other seats that I would have expected my long-term friends in the Labour Party to win… lost on the night,” said White. “So I couldn’t be prouder of my team – it was a wonderful thing that they did. They got out, they door knocked… and that’s why we are 106 votes ahead. I’m really proud of it.”

 

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White said she had no regrets about her campaign and couldn’t pinpoint anything she would have done differently. “I was absolutely working my socks off and the reality is with every campaign you’re always thinking if you had more time, what could you do. But I worked really hard,” she told The Spinoff. 

“I think Mt Albert knows me now, a lot of people in Mt Albert know me because they’ve met me and they’ve had communications with me. I want to be the person who can listen and can zealously advocate for Mt Albert. That campaign was a really good part of doing that.”

Special votes are expected to be counted by November 3. White said she’d be a “fool” to try to predict the result. “I just have to wait and see,” she said. “I’m getting a lot of emails [from] people saying they support me from overseas, that’s a delight.”

White said she had done “everything” she could during the campaign. “If it doesn’t go my way, I’ve had an amazing experience connecting with my community,” she said. 

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Winston Peters, Christopher Luxon and David Seymour dressed for a wedding
Three men and a political baby (image: Archi Banal)

OPINIONPoliticsOctober 17, 2023

Five reasons Luxon should call Peters now – before he really needs to

Winston Peters, Christopher Luxon and David Seymour dressed for a wedding
Three men and a political baby (image: Archi Banal)

As of today, Christopher Luxon doesn’t need Winston Peters. That makes this the best time to get a deal done.

The line is a good one, and it goes: once every three years, New Zealand has an election – then Winston Peters decides the next prime minister. As of today, it’s not quite true. There is an extremely slim majority for a combined National-Act government, the precise scenario both parties expressed extreme preference for all year. 

The working assumption is that National and Act will thrash out a coalition while nervously awaiting the results of the special votes (which can cause a few seats to swing, typically left) on November 2, to find out whether they’ll still be able to govern alone after the Port Waikato byelection on November 25, then probably call Winston Peters. It all sounds very lengthy and tense and complicated, and on some level it is. There are already signs they’re trying to figure out a fudge, with Politik reporting attempts to cajole Peters or Labour’s Adrian Rurawhe into the role of speaker. Both ideas probably had to be tested; each is also some type of laughable.

It could also be wholly unnecessary. There are multiple scenarios which imply that National and Act could still govern without needing an arrangement with anyone else. These include a diminished leftward swing in the specials due to the outgoing red tide, or the overhang created by the Port Waikato byelection cancelling out the loss of a single seat in the special votes. 

Still, there is a compelling case for getting a governing agreement thrashed out and locked in well ahead of the finalised vote on November 2. While that would represent an unfortunate outcome, given National and Act’s strong preference to have a stable two-party arrangement, it might also be the best way to navigate a very tricky political reality. Not the least of which being that if you were really keen, you could try and get it done by Friday. 

It doesn’t seem likely, but here are five reasons why it is at least worth considering.

1. It’s negotiating with Winston Peters from a position of relative strength

Peters is a notoriously canny political operator, and also operates by his own arcane rules of etiquette. He will have calculated the odds of every different scenario, and be aware that while he’s likely to be needed, it’s by no means guaranteed. For Luxon to genuflect to Peters before he strictly needs to would guarantee NZ First a triumphant return to power, while also plausibly diminishing the price extracted for that support. 

Perhaps more importantly, it would wash away the heated language used in the campaign and allow Peters and NZ First access to power with pride and status intact. This could allow the government to start from a place of civility and mutual respect (or a shot at it) – hardly guaranteed if there is a fractious three-way negotiation, with a loudly ticking clock, impatient public and panicky stock market accompanying it.

2. It takes a probabilistic view of the outcome of the specials and diminishes risk

The whole function of installing a CEO as your prime minister is to take someone who has been around mergers and acquisitions and understands how to complete them while maximising returns and minimising risk. The most likely scenario is that a three-way coalition is needed, but by buying an arrangement involving NZ First before being forced, Luxon is effectively purchasing its support with an implied discount due to the inherent uncertainty of the outcome. 

It also functions as insurance against running a governing arrangement with a very slender majority, giving the trio more room for explosions like Jami-Lee Ross or Gaurav Sharma to occur without the potential to haul down the government with them.

3. It allows Peters to play the statesman with the national interest at heart

It is not about the baubles of office for Peters, right? He is not remotely interested in those! But if you insist… There are a few portfolios that NZ First covets, for reasons only the party really knows and about which we couldn’t possibly speculate. Why not cave to the inevitable and carve them out? Peters was a notoriously quite good foreign minister, which comes with the added bonus of keeping him on the road for most of the term. Give Shane Jones regional development and a mini-PGF. Give Jenny Marcroft broadcasting.

Most of all, give Peters the chance to bask before reporters as the man who answered the bell and got the government operating faster and more effectively. If you must have him part of your governing arrangement, surely better to have him preening and proud than cantankerous and slighted as you start your time in office.

4. It makes you all look more interested in governing than maximising power

A large part of the campaign involved National and Act saying that the core public service had grown bloated and self-obsessed, and indifferent to the idea of delivering outcomes. Act in particular has repeatedly said it would trade ministerial positions for policy wins. What better way to show you really meant that than by setting aside misgiving and ego in favour of getting hands on the tools quickly and quietly – even if you have to dance with your political devil to do it.

5. It diminishes the wasted time associated with elections

Almost no one thinks three-year election cycles are a good idea. They’re a blot that degrades our otherwise incredibly cool MMP system. What makes them particularly frustrating is the way they burn months in the preamble of the campaign and post-election negotiation. All three of National, Act and NZ First said, apparently earnestly, that the government’s books are in dangerous territory. National picked up Pattrick Smellie’s idea of a pre-Christmas mini-budget. Don’t tell us you’re concerned – show us. A short, sharp, sensible negotiation maximises your useful time in power, and gets whatever your planned fix is in motion faster. 

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