spinofflive
A banker and agribusiness owner, Sam Uffindell will be the new MP for Tauranga, succeeding Simon Bridges.  
 Mr Uffindell is currently the Head of Financial Economic Crime for Rabobank and owns a small agribusiness based in the Bay of Plenty.
A banker and agribusiness owner, Sam Uffindell will be the new MP for Tauranga, succeeding Simon Bridges. Mr Uffindell is currently the Head of Financial Economic Crime for Rabobank and owns a small agribusiness based in the Bay of Plenty.

OPINIONPoliticsJune 19, 2022

Reading the weather of the Tauranga byelection

A banker and agribusiness owner, Sam Uffindell will be the new MP for Tauranga, succeeding Simon Bridges.  
 Mr Uffindell is currently the Head of Financial Economic Crime for Rabobank and owns a small agribusiness based in the Bay of Plenty.
A banker and agribusiness owner, Sam Uffindell will be the new MP for Tauranga, succeeding Simon Bridges. Mr Uffindell is currently the Head of Financial Economic Crime for Rabobank and owns a small agribusiness based in the Bay of Plenty.

What it means for the major parties – and for those seeking a ‘united umbrella party’ from parliamentary occupation supporters.

Some byelections bring drama and grand auguries – think Northland, 2015. Others – most – are instantly forgettable, and Tauranga 2022 will fall squarely into that category. Its only true surprise was the decision that triggered the thing – Simon Bridges’ resignation from parliament. 

But byelections always offer a snapshot, a chance to test the political weather, even if it’s more a finger in the air than a booming windsock. 

A boost for Luxon’s National

Sam Uffindell of the National Party will be the new member for Tauranga. With just the specials yet to be counted, he boasts more than twice the count of Jan Tinetti, a Labour list MP and minister. 

The Greens and the Māori Party opted not to enter a candidate, and they’re unlikely to have had a moment’s regret. Not only did Winston Peters not stand, but NZ First didn’t take part at all. Add together those absences, the vagaries of a byelection plus the freakishness of the Covid election in 2020, and it’s even trickier to draw too many conclusions, but here’s the last few results so you can see them side by side.

It might be argued that National hoped for a greater gap, to take it from spacious to humiliating. But it pays to remember that not seven months ago, the opposition was in meltdown. This is a very good result for National. With their ship steadied under Christopher Luxon, the Covid-19 response no longer monopolising attention and energies focused on the cost of living, these numbers are more evidence that the political balance is reverting to something resembling the norm. 

Act will be delighted, too. For Cameron Luxton to top 10% after polling around 7%, at the same time as Uffindell scores over 56%, adds up to two-thirds support from Tauranga for a putative National-Act coalition. Call it Team Lux(t)on. 

For Labour, it could be a lot worse. The party’s campaign that was so stocked with expectation management it teetered on defeatism, but given the potential for voters to punish governments in byelections, even given they’ll have picked up some votes from the absent Greens, this feels like a reprimand rather than a roar. 

A low turnout

The only place the turnout was impressive yesterday was Eden Park; there were twice as many at the rugby as Tauranga votes counted. Just over 40,000 voted in 2017 and more than 44,000 in 2020. As of last night, the turnout in Tauranga was 19,403, with an estimated 1,500 votes to follow. 

Nothing astonishing about that, though. The expected final turnout of 40.6% is in the same ballpark as the last three. Northcote in 2018 registered 44% turnout. In the 2017 Mt Albert byelection, when National declined to stand a candidate, only 30% turned out. And it was 38% in Mt Roskill, 2016. The last truly exciting contest, Northland in 2015, had a turnout just shy of 65%. 

Sue Grey and the ‘freedom’ crew

The co-leader of the Outdoors & Freedom Party, a prominent anti-vaccine lawyer and participant in the parliamentary occupation, Sue Grey picked up 4.7% of the vote. The New Nation Party’s Andrew Hollis, who recently told Newshub he believes that the UN and the World Economic Forum control the world, returned 1.3%.

Those numbers are small – in total votes 917 and 245 respectively – but enough to encourage the groups who found a shared cause in the occupation of parliament grounds that they can get voted into the building itself at the general election.  

On their social media channels last night, the mood was buoyant. “Roll on Election 2023,” was the message from Brian Tamaki’s Freedom and Rights Coalition in a post suggesting “we could well see a united umbrella party exceed the 5% threshold”.

The movement is crowded with giant egos and mutually incompatible, often preposterous convictions. And the Billy-TK-Jami-Lee-Ross experiment of 2017 is still fresh as a cautionary tale of fringe parties forming expedient political marriages. But doubt not that they’ll be giving it a crack.


Follow our politics podcast Gone By Lunchtime on Apple Podcasts, Spotify or your favourite podcast provider.

Keep going!
Leo Molloy, Viv Beck, Wayne Brown and Efeso Collins. Photo: Tina Tiller. Imagework: Jason Stretch
Leo Molloy, Viv Beck, Wayne Brown and Efeso Collins. Photo: Tina Tiller. Imagework: Jason Stretch

PoliticsJune 17, 2022

Leo Molloy pledges ‘slugfest’ as first public poll for Auckland mayoralty shows dead heat

Leo Molloy, Viv Beck, Wayne Brown and Efeso Collins. Photo: Tina Tiller. Imagework: Jason Stretch
Leo Molloy, Viv Beck, Wayne Brown and Efeso Collins. Photo: Tina Tiller. Imagework: Jason Stretch

The top four candidates to succeed Phil Goff are separated by just 1.6 points, with more than half respondents selecting ‘undecided’. At his campaign HQ launch, Molloy celebrated the open field, courting fresh controversy by saying of Efeso Collins, ‘He’d look beautiful mounted on that wall.’

Any prospect of a stroll to the mayoralty for Efeso Collins has been put to bed by a new poll – the first to be publicly released – that shows the Labour-endorsed candidate and Leo Molloy neck and neck in a field of four that all sit within the margin of error.

A loquacious jockey-turned-hospitality-owner, Molloy registered 21.7% in the survey, conducted by the reputable pollster Curia, as revealed in the NZ Herald. That puts him precisely on par with Manukau councillor Efeso Collins, who had been expected to lead the field. Viv Beck, who is tipped to win the formal backing of the centre-right C&R group, registered 20.5%, while Wayne Brown, the former Far North mayor who has had a relatively low profile in the early stages of the contest, is on 20.1%. Craig Lord scored 16%.

Commissioned by the Taxpayers’ Union affiliate the Ratepayers’ Alliance, the poll of 500 Auckland residents presented a list of options that excluded Gary Brown, Ted Johnston, John Lehmann and Michael Morris.

No candidate could come close, however, to the “undecided” response, which was not mentioned in the original reporting of the poll. More than half – 53% – said they were undecided, despite being encouraged to select one of the five options “even if not entirely decided”. When the undecided figure is included, the result looks like this:

A veteran of the Auckland hospitality scene, Molloy has flown consistently at the flame of controversy, and last night was no exception. At a launch event for his new campaign office just off Ponsonby Road, a space decked out like a sports bar, he issued a series of pre-emptive strikes at his rivals. Castigating the media for  “disinformation” that suggested a potential split vote the centre-right, Molloy practised attack lines on his opponents.

His first target was Wayne Brown: “He’s been tucked up in bed with the virus for a week, I’m not sure who I feel more sorry for more, him or the fucking virus.” 

Molloy next had a go at Viv Beck’s choice of clothing, describing her as “the one who wears duvets around town”, and predicting that she would soon “jettison” her campaign.

Finally, promising a “slugfest”, Molloy took aim at Collins: “If anybody sights Efeso, he’s an endangered species – there’s space on the wall. He’d look beautiful mounted on that wall. I’ll get him, I’ll stuff him, and there’s your headline for tomorrow, you media boys.”

Collins said this morning: “This poll suggests the race is neck and neck. My team and I are ready to fight our way to victory for a more positive future for our city. It is going to take serious energy and heart, I can’t wait."

He added: "As for the distasteful remark about me being killed, stuffed and mounted, it sounds like Molloy conceding that’s the only way he can beat me! In all seriousness, it shows that bar room banter might work in a pub but in Auckland Council there are no bouncers to hide behind, and this is about Auckland gaining a leader who can bring people together."

Brown said the "key takeaway" was that "three quarters of people are fed-up with the Goff-Collins style of management, and want to see change". Beck told the Herald it was early days and "I believe my constructive style of leadership is what is required to get things done." Lord said there was a long way to go and he was untroubled by the result.

Local elections conclude on October 8, with candidate nominations closing on August 12.

This article was updated on June 20 to include newly available information about undecided responses.

But wait there's more!