Hutt South turns blue
Wooing Wainuiomata seems to have been the key to National turning Hutt South blue in its tightly contested victory in the long-held Labour seat.
Newly-anointed National MP Chris Bishop’s rowdy supporters packed out Petone’s Queen of Jackson pub on Saturday night chanting ‘‘Chris, Chris, Chris!’’ as it became clear their man - dubbed ‘The Bish’ had taken the seat from the Labour Party’s Ginny Andersen, whom he had been battling neck and neck with all night.
‘‘We’ve just been working really hard to turn this around,’’ and the win had left him ‘‘tired and elated,’’ Bishop said.
The Hutt South electorate was formed in 1996 as MMP was ushered in, and had been held since by Labour’s Trevor Mallard. It has never been held by National, nor were the electorates of Pencarrow or Petone, which preceded it before MMP.
‘‘This is a tough electorate for us... but six or seven weeks ago everything changed and we had to fight hard for this victory. Tonight didn’t just happen because of coincidence, it happened because of a lot of hard work,’’ Bishop said.
Although individual votes had not yet been tracked, crucial to the victory was likely National’s focus on Wainuiomata - where the party opened an office last year, Bishop said.
‘‘A wise old head told me if you ever want to win Hutt South you have to win Wainuiomata.
‘‘We opened an office and hired a Wainuio-martian called Dawn.’’
Born and bred Wainuiomata resident Petrina McLaughlin thinks Bishop took the vote in the suburb because ‘‘he was visible’’ and active.
Labour had neglected Wainuiomata and had considered the residents’ votes a foregone conclusion - to their detriment, she said.
In his victory speech, Bishop thanked Mallard for his long service, after delivering a backhanded compliment: ‘‘Trevor Mallard taught me a lot about how to be a local MP, and a lot about how not to be a local MP.’’
Both Andersen and Mallard look likely to make it into Parliament as Labour list MPs.
See THREE-FOR-ONE DEAL, page 3