Ardern fears byelection no show
Awareness seen as ‘definitely an issue’ in left-wing race
Advance voting kicks off in the Mt Albert byelection today, but one of the main candidates is worried no one will turn up. The contest is effectively a race between two left-wing candidates, Labour MP Jacinda Ardern and Green MP Julie Anne Genter.
Those two parties are working together until the election, and there is no mainstream right-wing party in the contest. The National Party decided against running, saying it is focused on the general election and that Mt Albert is a safe Labour seat.
In all there are 13 candidates in the contest to replace former Labour MP David Shearer, who resigned in December to take up a United Nations posting in South Sudan.
Ardern has been door-knocking and holding meetings on street corners and cafes in Mt Albert, and said awareness about the February 25 byelection was “definitely an issue”.
She has put the byelection date in a large font print on her Labour billboards to make it clear to constituents that there is a byelection on.
There is also a geographical problem, Ardern said. Many voters who lived in Westmere and Grey Lynn were unaware of a boundary change in 2014 which shifted them from the Auckland Central seat to Mt Albert.
“That’s something I’ve been finding a lot. I had someone run down the street to tell me I was in the wrong area.”
Ardern said voters’ biggest con- There is a notable absence on Labour MP Jacinda Ardern’s campaign billboards — her last name.
The candidate for Mt Albert has put up Labour billboards which simply read “Jacinda for Mt Albert”.
“I don’t think it’s a name recognition thing,” she said. “It’s just that I have a relatively unusual name.”
“I know Mum and Dad when they named me wouldn’t have thought about this, but not too many politicians have this name.”
There was an advantage to taking her family name off the billboard, she said — it freed up valuable space. cern in Mt Albert was housing — it is the seventh least-affordable electorate in New Zealand. With a median age of 33, many young people were struggling to get into a home or keep up with rent increases, she said.
Genter said that while Mt Albert
“You get a very brief moment when people are driving past to convey a message,” she said. “And one of the things we wanted to convey was when the byelection was and just that it affected Mt Albert.”
The strategy will not extend to the ballot paper, where she does not want to give up her alphabetical advantage. “The full name will be there, for sure.”
Her main rival, Julie Anne Genter of the Greens, says she won’t be going first-name-only any time soon.
“Julie Anne’s a bit more common,” she says, a little disappointed. constituents she had been speaking to were “generally quite happy”, the main issues she had heard were about public transport and affordable housing. She said only a couple of voters had raised concerns with her about crime or the number of police
But she has her own campaign stunt — a specially made electric bike which doubles as a billboard.
“It’s awesome. I’ve been cycling around the electorate with it and it’s been going really well.”
The Opportunities Parties’ Geoff Simmons, on the other hand, has taken a leaf out of Donald Trump’s book. His campaign van features a tweaked version of the United States President’s campaign slogan: “Make New Zealand Fair Again”.
“I doubt he’s trademarked that particular slogan,” Simmons said, tempting fate. — Isaac Davison officers on the beat — an issue which was the centrepiece of Prime Minister Bill English’s state of the nation speech last week.
Genter said she was not “overly” concerned about Gareth Morgan’s The Opportunities Party (Top) — Grey Lynn Community Centre, 510 Richmond Rd Mt Albert Presbyterian Church Hall, 14 Mt Albert Rd Pt Chevalier Library, 1221 Great North Rd Eden-Albert Citizens Advice Bureau, 82 St Lukes Rd Wednesday Saturday week February 25, which is also campaigning on environmental issues — eating into her vote.
“It’s good to have more voices on these issues,” she said.
Top’s candidate Geoff Simmons, a rank outsider, agreed that voters’ worries about housing were “head and shoulders” above other concerns in Mt Albert. He is also campaigning for improved public transport and cleaner beaches, saying many voters were worried about the state of the Waitemata Harbour and other waterways.