About-face for National’s new candidate
A former Labour Party member and prominent doctor has become a National Party candidate for Canterbury’s Banks Peninsula electorate in this year’s general election.
Christchurch general practitioner, Vanessa Weenink, who is the former chairperson of the General Practitioners Council of the New Zealand Medical Association and former deputy chair of the association, was selected by local party members on Saturday.
She said she was ‘‘honoured’’ to be representing National.
Having campaigned for Labour in 2017, Weenink said the National Party had been ‘‘very welcoming’’ and saw her change of heart in party allegiance as a sign of someone who had given ‘‘a great deal of thought to something’’.
It wasn’t so much a ‘‘move from Labour’’, she said, ‘‘more of a pull to National’’.
Weenink co-owned and operated the Papanui Medical Centre for several years and is a fellow of the Royal New Zealand College of General Practitioners but she said she sold her half of the centre last year to dedicate herself full-time to campaigning.
She said she had been a voice for GPs across the country and she hoped this new role would allow her to ‘‘add to National’s strong voice on health’’.
Weenink’s top issues she wanted to be addressed included the economy and cost of living crisis, the health system, and ‘‘above all else, response to Cyclone Gabrielle’’.
‘‘There is no aspect of health not impacted by income and poverty’’, she said, calling the health system ‘‘a bit of a mess’’, especially since the change to Health New Zealand.
It would have been ‘‘hard to have picked a worse time’’ to reform the system, she said.
‘‘The timing was poor. I am not convinced adding more bureaucracy is going to change health outcomes.’’
But she said first and foremost was the response to the cyclone which would ‘‘take up a huge amount of attention and rightly so’’. ‘‘That is going to be what dominates politics this year, if not longer.’’
She said she was looking forward to working with the people of the Banks Peninsula electorate, being ‘‘open and available’’ this campaign to building networks and an understanding of the people.
Meanwhile, women are dominating politics in Banks Peninsula with Tracey McLellan as the sitting Labour MP and Lan Pham selected on February 20 as the Green Party candidate.
Weenink said having McLellan, Pham and herself placed for Banks Peninsula ‘‘might bring some interest to the campaigning’’.
‘‘It is great for getting people interested in politics and participating in the election.’’