The King in the North
t has been t wo years since NZ First leader Winston Peters took to the roads of Northland in a big blue bus with “Send them a message” written on it and won the long- standing National stronghold of Northland.
His pitch to the Northland voters was to give him a go — and if he failed to deliver, to vote him out at the general election. In September his day of reckoning will come.
Craig Johnston, chairman of Business Paihia and owner of Paihia Dive, describes himself as a swing voter, but went for Peters because he thought National had become complacent.
Asked if he would vote for Peters again, he says he hasn’t decided. There’s a difference between a byelection and a general election.
“In a byelection, people can protest vote,” says Johnston. “So I think people will probably think about it a bit more and take it a bit more seriously in a general election.”
Even National voters thought National deserved a drubbing. Federated Farmers Northland provincial president John Blackwell voted for National’s Mark Osborne in the byelection but he can see why Peters won “and I’m not unhappy with his performance”.
“I think Northland, having been taken for granted by the National Party in a shockingly bad way, they didn’t deserve to win the byelection.”
The first rule of being an electorate MP is to be seen and Blackwell and Johnston often see Peters about the traps. Peters’ Facebook page shows him popping up everywhere — sampling mussel fritters at a bikies gathering in Mangonui, opening a Whananaki playground, testing paella at the Kerikeri market, astride a rocking horse at Northland Field Days, at the Paparoa market, posing with horses at the Kaitaia show, and speaking at the Land Wars commemorations in Kaikohe. eters refused interviews for this piece, despite several requests. His press releases show he has agitated on matters from the drought ( he started barracking about it in December, Primary Industries Minister Nathan Guy declared drought assistance in February) to rampaging youth in Northland. One of his campaigns i s against proposed changes to the structure of electricity pricing which would see Northlanders stung more than other regions because of its distance.
Law and order i s another i ssue Peters has grabbed with relish. After a Has opened three — Kaitaia, Kerikeri and Dargaville. Wellsford office plans fell through, partly due to limited parliamentary resources. Not achieved. The Government lifted the moratorium on new transport providers, but the decision is in the hands of the regional council. Mixed result. Peters splits his time between Parliament, his house in group of youths went on the rampage in Kaikohe on St Pat’s Day, Peters met local police and Maori elders. After a dairy owner in Northland was bashed with a tyre iron, Peters wrote on his Facebook page: “They should be doing hard labour, not the paltry nine months of home detention the 18- year- old assailant got.”
National’s concern will be the spread of Peters- mania. Peters has already signalled he wants to make the North an NZ First zone. Whangarei is next on his hit list — Shane Jones has been rumoured as a candidate.
It’s a political landscape transformed since Simon Bridges stood on a riverside in Northland and undertook one of the many sod turnings that are the lot of the Transport Minister. In return, he got a pot of local honey from a very happy campaigner — Sue Reynold, who was one of the main campaigners in a battle for the realignment and improvements to the Picture / Peter de Graaf Whananaki and Auckland. Most Fridays, weekends and recess weeks are in Northland. Not achieved but out of his control. Not achieved — but also out of his control. two bridges in Matakohe which has gone on for more than a decade. National’s byelection promise was to upgrade 10 one- lane bridges to twolane bridges. Such blatant pork barrel politics was National’s death knell.
Work has started on four of the 10 so far. Some will even have special “waterbomb platforms” for children to safely jump into the water below.
National’s campaign chairman Steven Joyce denies that National’s big mistake was taking the Northland seat for granted. “But I can understand why people might think that. It had been a National seat for a long time and the opportunity that comes with the change has been a chance to redouble our focus on it, and I think people have seen that.”
Asked if he thinks National has any chance of winning the seat back, Joyce replies “absolutely” — but maybe not just yet.
National’s Northland candidate is Matt King, a lanky beef farmer and former police officer from Okaihau. He is amiable but a rookie going up against a pro, and knows it will be tough to topple Peters. “I do believe I can, but I’m going to have to put a lot of work in between now and the election to do that. Mainly because of face recognition — he’s got it, I don’t.”
In the byelection, Labour had also put the brakes on its candidate, Willow Jean Prime, to boost Peters’ chances and reduce National’s majority by one. That is less likely to happen in the general election. But the impact of Labour’s steer to voters was unclear — Peters won by a significant margin even in National Party strongholds such as Kerikeri and Mangawhai.
John Blackwell says the big question for some is how Peters would use a kingmaker position: would it be Labour or National? “I’ve talked to quite a few people about that and that has always been an issue for him and will be again by the looks of it. The general thought is that he wouldn’t go with Labour. But that’s an unknown and it is a concern.” eters is already trying to head off any concerns. He has also been peddling his message that the regions are neglected further afield though Joyce rejects this, saying Northland is not the only one to benefit from the Government’s ministrations.
In the 1920s there was an infamous tour of Northland by 40 MPs, organised by the local MP to show Wellington how bad the roads were. In January there was a re- enactment by a classic cars group. Peters was asked to speak, but was also asked not to make it political.
You might as well have asked a fish not to swim.