New MP’s day out in the sun
It was a day out in the sun, casually cooped up in a busy cafe for Sam Uffindell as he soaked up his first day as the new MP for Tauranga.
Uffindell, 39, was cheerful and relaxed yesterday as he sat for coffee with his family at Mt Maunganui following Saturday night’s win.
National swooped into the front, winning the Tauranga by-election by more than 6000 votes with Uffindell gaining 10,931. Labour’s Jan Tinetti gained 4893 and ACT’s Cameron Luxton got 1991 votes.
Uffindell had previously been overseas for the past decade and had only returned in 2020 with his young family.
Getting to know the communities of the area, he said, was a focus, including local iwi and vulnerable groups.
‘‘I’m certainly going to do my best to connect with communities ... I’m open and inclusive, and I’ll aim to be a member of Parliament for all people here in Tauranga.
‘‘I’ll work really hard to collaborate with ... people and see if we can reach outcomes to move this city forward,’’ Uffindell said.
The National MP echoed the caucus line when it came to addressing crime and the gang presence, with their crime policy taking a hard hitting approach, one which critics say has been shown not to work in the past. It comes as the Government has switched police minister in an attempt to address the recent upswing in crime, including ramraids and gun violence over the past few weeks, in Auckland especially.
But Uffindell was confident his party would do better than what was currently being done.
‘‘We’ve seen an explosion in gang numbers of 45% since Labour came into power, assaults are up significantly as well ... the soft on crime approach that they’re [Government] running, it clearly isn’t working.
‘‘We’ve been out there, we’re talking to our police, we’re gonna back them, we’re going to give them the tools that they need to get on top of crime and get on top of gangs,’’ he said.
Infrastructure and housing were also on radar.
‘‘We’ve seen house prices explode... in this city rent is up $150 a week,’’ he said.
‘‘Ultimately a lot of it is a supply issue, so we need to make sure we’re reducing red tape.’’
Uffindell comes into a seat with a long-standing National Party history after the former party representative for Tauranga, Simon Bridges, resigned earlier this year to take up a position as the new Auckland Business Chamber chief executive.
Voter turnout was expected to be around half of what the 2020 general election got but fell even below that. There are 51,120 eligible voters in the Tauranga electorate, with 40% taking part in this year’s by-election.
‘‘We didn’t take this for granted at all ... we were disciplined, we stayed on the message, we worked really hard for this,’’ said Uffindell. ‘‘I love the Mount, it’s fantastic, either running up there, running around it ... going for a swim, if there’s some surf coming in ... then I’m out there.’’
‘‘... We were disciplined, we stayed on the message, we worked really hard for this.’’ Sam Uffindell
MP for Tauranga