On the trail in NZ’s biggest general electorate

A West Coast local on the 11 candidates battling it out.

Bigger than Belgium, it covers more territory than any other New Zealand general electorate – a nine-hour drive from one end to the other. So why are 11 candidates – tied for the most crowded field this election – putting their hand up for West Coast-Tasman?

The sense of fresh vacancy may be part of it. National incumbent Maureen Pugh is retiring. Labour veteran Damien O'Connor, who has held the seat for 27 of the last 33 years, has headed south to contest Waitaki. The candidates are criss-crossing the electorate for debates, industry meetings, union grillings and Sunday markets.

Greens candidate Andrew Beaumont had to replace his diesel after rust and an oil leak proved terminal. He says his new plug-in hybrid is a better look for a Greens candidate anyway.

National's Katie Milne, a Rotomanu farmer, has driven more than 20,000km since starting her campaign in April. She's used to travelling, though. It comes with rural life, and with having been president of Federated Farmers. Milne is keen to yarn about the innovation she's encountered across the electorate. She wants her grandchildren to have opportunities to live and work here.

The road hasn't always co-operated with Sue Grey, the controversial co-leader of the Outdoors & Freedom Party. One night south of Murchison, the electrics in her van died, taking the headlights and electric windows with them. Her partner was driving. Grey opened the passenger door and shone a torch onto the white line as they crept through the darkness looking for somewhere to stop. Eventually they reached a layby near the Buller turnoff and slept there until daylight.

Last weekend, I hit the road, too. Through the Buller Gorge and over the Tākaka Hill to Golden Bay, nearly five hours from my patch in Westport.

On Sunday, the candidates assemble in the Collingwood Area School gym. Labour's Rory Paterson can’t resist pointing out that the school's new classrooms were built under a Labour government.

The compère over on this side pointedly calls the electorate “Tasman-West Coast”.

The speeches are familiar, though the emphasis varies. Milne and New Zealand First's Jamie Cleine, both farmers, chat about land use and access to rural mental health services. Mining, which had occupied more of their speeches in Westport, barely gets a mention here.

In Buller, the future of coal mining is personal for many: a question of jobs, livelihoods and communities. In Tasman, meanwhile, residents have fought against a proposed gold mine at Sam's Creek, fearing for their waterways and Te Waikoropupū Springs.

Beaumont knows how emotional those arguments can become. He lives in Buller, where his opposition to further mining on the Denniston Plateau has made him unpopular with some neighbours. He tells me someone stomped on his toe and said they should have run him over. Others have threatened to stop buying from his food truck. Beaumont laughs wryly as he recounts it. But he doesn't think vile online comments on either side help the debate about Westport's future beyond coal.

Away from the candidates' meetings, I want to know what all this campaigning is costing them. Fuel and accommodation are coming out of some candidates' own pockets. But money isn't all they're sacrificing.

On the phone from her home in Riwaka, Alliance candidate Sara Dyatlova-Murphy is enthusiastically explaining why New Zealand should revive the old Ministry of Works when her four-year-old interrupts to announce she's making a potion.

Dyatlova-Murphy tells me she wants to parent with presence. Now she's an accidental candidate, worried that campaigning is taking her away from family life. She'd intended to help behind the scenes, but the original candidate withdrew and the party talked her into standing.

At Blackball, her teenage son overheard someone say they liked what the Alliance stood for but wouldn't vote for it because it couldn't win. But she calls the idea of a wasted vote a self-fulfilling prophecy.

Richard Osmaston – the man who ran for the mayoralty in five districts in 2025 – also wishes people would vote according to what they believe in. He's dead serious about a money-free Aotearoa, where everything is free and all work is voluntary. He believes getting rid of money would solve most other problems.

Last week in Westport, his speech was interrupted by applause.

“I'm still dining out on that one,” he says.

Jamie Cleine is no accidental candidate. After six years as Buller mayor, he describes his move into national politics as “unfinished business”. Part of that is the 2021 Westport floods. Cleine remembers people who'd lost their homes crying in his office. Many remain vulnerable to the next one. “That weighs on me,” he says.

Determined not to miss a single event, he found a three-day gap and booked the routine colonoscopy. Then somebody scheduled a candidates' meeting in Wakefield. At 3pm he was waking from a general anaesthetic. He went home, had something to eat and was in Wakefield by 7pm.

Alex Hislop, who is standing for the fringe NZ Loyal party, is running a beekeeping business, juggling six staff and about 750 hives. He missed the Blackball meeting because of something involving a queen bee. Bees don't care about elections.

Kevin Rooke, whose fledgling Progressive Aotearoa isn't a registered party, doesn't have the time or money to get to every event. He doesn't think he'll win. But he wants to be part of conversations about doing things differently.

Back in Collingwood, Rory Paterson doesn't look as tired as he should. He began campaigning after winning Labour's competitive candidate selection in April, going full-time in August. He's used up all his leave from work and has managed only a few weekends at home.

His wife, Suzanne, who has been holding the fort in North Canterbury with three of their children, was the one who persuaded him to stand. “I don't want you to be 80 and wishing that you'd had a go at this,” she told him.

Act's Janelle Hocking is also juggling demands, in her case a supermarket business and three school-aged daughters. Her weirdest campaign experience came at a Franz Josef motel, where someone opened her sliding door at 1am. Janelle screamed and leapt out of bed. A hooded stranger threw a key towards her and disappeared.

Janelle says she's grown fond of her opponents. Some of them don't agree on much, but they can still laugh together afterwards. “A lot of people forget that we are all just people.”

Opportunity candidate Cindie Uddstrom, who sometimes wonders what the hell she's got herself into, reckons the 11 candidates could form their own little coalition and run the place.

After the Collingwood debate, Rural Women Tasman puts on a decent spread of scones, asparagus rolls and biscuits. The candidates mingle with voters.

In three hours, they'll do it all again in Tākaka.