New Zealand : by-election result rude awakening for Labour

By John Armstrong, New Zealand Herald political correspondent

For all Labour’s efforts to belittle Tariana Turia’s victory in last Saturday’s by-election, the result must have come as a rude shock to the Government.

The surprise was in the scale of her victory: to be more precise, the number of Maori bothering to cast a vote for her when they knew she would retain her Te Tai Hauauru seat regardless.

After specials are counted, Mrs Turia will have secured close to 8000 of the 8529 ballots cast - not that far off the 10,002 she won as the Labour candidate at the last general election.

In a mid-winter by-election that other major parties refused to contest and the incentive to vote was hardly compelling, the outcome is something of a triumph for her.

You have to go back to Winston Peters’ victory as an independent in the Tauranga by-election a decade ago for a suitable comparison.

The turnout in that contest, likewise boycotted by the major parties, was 49%, compared with 85% at the previous general election.

The turnout in Te Tai Hauauru last Saturday was 33%, compared with 58% at the 2002 election.

The similar ratio suggests Mrs Turia has done as well as Mr Peters did - and, more importantly, that she will hold her seat next year when she will have to fend off a Labour challenge.

Labour registered about 8000 party votes in Te Tai Hauauru at the last election. But that is a high-tide mark the new Labour candidate will not even come close to matching in terms of constituency votes, not least because many voters who stay loyal to Labour with their party vote will split their ballots in Mrs Turia’s favour in the constituency contest.

In contrast, Mrs Turia can expect to retain the bulk of her 8000 by-election votes and pick up many more from a higher turnout in the general election, just as Mr Peters did.

Labour would have been praying the by-election would stall Mrs Turia’s momentum. However, while the result is largely down to the organisational skills of her campaign manager, the Alliance’s Matt McCarten, Mrs Turia has bolstered her mana as a shrewd, tough-minded political operator and given her new Maori Party a definite psychological edge over Labour.

Because she will hold her constituency, Maori voters now know a vote for her party will not be a wasted vote.

The worry for Labour is that the Maori rebellion will bushfire - that Maori voters on the general roll in Labour strongholds such as South Auckland will be tempted to give their party vote to Mrs Turia instead of Labour.

The challenge for Mrs Turia will be to pitch her message in language that does not infringe the comfort zones of those more conservative Maori voters on the general roll who ultimately hold the key to the Maori Party winning more than a handful of seats.

In the meantime, Mrs Turia can justifiably sniff upsets in the six other Maori seats, especially those where it is registering a strong presence, notably Te Tai Tokerau in the north and Waiariki, centred on the Bay of Plenty.

The Labour MPs holding those seats, Dover Samuels and Mita Ririnui, have good reason to be nervous.

Labour’s grip on the Maori seats is more tenuous than its huge majorities might suggest, as New Zealand First demonstrated in 1996 and Derek Fox showed in 1999 when he nearly bundled over Parekura Horomia.

At the last election, the Alliance’s Willie Jackson captured 25% of the vote in the Tainui seat, which Labour’s Nanaia Mahuta retained with 49%.

That was no mean feat. Labour was polling strongly nationwide and the Alliance was in complete shambles.

Against the odds, Mr Jackson demonstrated the pulling power of personality. Thankfully for Labour, the personality factor will help the likes of John Tamihere, who may be up against Pita Sharples, the Maori Party’s other co-leader, in Auckland’s Tamaki Makaurau seat.

It may save Mr Horomia in Ikaroa-Rawhiti. But no such cults of personality surround other Maori Labour MPs, such as Mr Ririnui and Te Tai Tonga’s Mahara Okeroa. As for Ms Mahuta, the security provided by her tribal backing is now in question.

These MPs are also battling the backlash against Labour over the foreshore and seabed.

The launch of the Maori Party comes at a time when an incumbent Government, now in its fifth year, is inevitably prone to vote slippage from core supporters.

Labour has its fingers crossed that now the by-election is over, Mrs Turia will find it much more difficult to get publicity as a lone MP among 120 and that she will become submerged in the struggle to hold the Maori Party together when its radical wing and its more conservative elements try to write policy and choose candidates.

But the by-election has confirmed the Maori Party as a factor in post-election coalition negotiations. It is thus guaranteed huge publicity beforehand.

Labour will also try to get Maori voters to focus on Labour’s wider policy achievements, rather than being fixated on the foreshore and seabed issue.

And, as a last resort, Labour will claim a vote for Mrs Turia’s party risks being a vote for Don Brash, given she is saying she could strike a deal with either Labour or National.

As much as possible, however, Prime Minister Helen Clark will avoid engaging with Mrs Turia. Attacking Mrs Turia not only provides the MP with the platform she craves, it places Ms Clark in the uncomfortable position of being seen to attack Maori.

For that reason, the demolition job on the Maori Party has been tasked to Labour’s Maori MPs, with Messrs Tamihere and Samuels taking up the cudgels.

Mrs Turia’s counter-strategy is to exploit the dilemma Ms Clark has in trying to appease two constituencies, pakeha and Maori, split asunder by Dr Brash.

Mrs Turia will try to force Ms Clark to side with pakeha, leaving Labour’s Maori MPs stranded in no-man’s land.

That tactic was apparent immediately after the by-election. Mrs Turia told Ms Clark to show her some respect by talking leader-to-leader, rather than communicating via Labour’s whips.

Ms Clark could not be seen to be pandering to Mrs Turia. But Mrs Turia can claim she is getting second-class treatment - that, once again, Maori as a whole are getting second-class treatment.

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