FENDALTON BY-ELECTION Intense Campaigns And Hopes For High Polling

Press, Volume CVI, Issue 31344, 14 April 1967, Page 1

FENDALTON BY-ELECTION Intense Campaigns And Hopes For High Polling

The Fendalton by-election tomorrow follows unusually intense and highly organised campaigns by the parties of all three candidates contesting the seat in Parliament. The parties will be watching the results closely in Fendalton, and in the Petone by-election also being held tomorrow, with special interest in pointers to their future standing.

Coming in the midst of a programme of economic adjustments by the Government these by-elections are offering voters issues much less complicated and distracting than those before the General Election last November.

None of the party observers seems to have formed a confident view of what the results might be or what they will show. Anything less than a very marked change in party support seems capable of many interpretations. Nevertheless, all three parties are regarding these elections as important to their reputations on the national scene.

They have tried to impress voters with' the idea that tomorrow’s polls will mean more than simply the election of representatives for the two electorates in Parliament

The Labour Party is looking not merely for a reduction in the National vote in Fendalton. It wants a substantial reduction in the National majority and a reverse in Labour fortunes in Fendalton. It is therefore giving much attention to how Social Credit fares. If the National majority of 2270 in the last General Election can be reduced to about 1000 at a byelection Labour will regard such a result as an important gain. Party Activities The Labour Party entered the campaign with a highlyorganised programme of unannounced street meetings, living-room discussion to which neighbours were invited, and door-to-door approaches to electors by the Labour candidate and visiting members of Parliament. The party has concentrated its efforts in the northern half of the electorate where Labour supporters hitherto have been most numerous.

Twenty Labour members have each spent at least a week in the electorate calling on about 200 households each day and holding at least 16 street meetings every evening. This policy, the party believes, has given voters a more intimate impression of members of Parliament by ensuring that hundreds of voters meet a politician, probably for the first time. By relieving Mr B. G. Barclay of the burdens of organisation that usually take much of a candidate’s time and effort during a General Election campaign, the Labour Party organisers have given their candidate a greater opportunity than usual to meet and talk to voters. The Social Credit candidate has been aided by the league’s party workers from other electorates. Mr J. J. Forster and his team have visited most households in the electorate. Having scored a vote of 1803 last November, the Social Credit League regards the maintenance or improvement of this vote as an important investment for the future. Fortuitously, the Social Credit branch conducted a survey of most of the electorate earlier this year.

The National Party has placed most emphasis on visits to electors by its candidate, Mr E. S. F. Holland, and by party members who have delivered campaign literature to every household in Fendalton. Believing that voters want to see and hear their own electorate’s candidate, the National Party has not engaged members of Parliament to canvass the district. The Prime Minister and three Cabinet Ministers have spoken in the campaign, mostly about the Government’s economic policies—the subject which has had unchallenged priority in the minds of voters.

None of the parties has placed much faith in the importance of hall meetings, although attendances at these and the audiences for street addresses have generally been larger than those in recent General Election campaigns. Speakers and their chairmen have been struck by the temperate tone of meetings and the searching nature of most questions. Although questions have ranged over many topics, the candidates have found that electors have a grasp of economic problems and have been searching for more information on party policies rather than embarking on controversial exchanges. Response To Campaign Impressions of the response to this intensive campaigning vary among the parties. Little has been heard of there being no difference between Labour and National Party policies. Labour believes that its 1966 policies have been better understood this month. Labour Party canvassers are convinced by voters’ reactions that many people, especially women, have been “hurt” by the Government. National Party canvassers say they have been surprised at the lack of hostility to Government actions, particularly the removal of subsidies. They have found voters who were cool about the “lack of Government action” last year to be now approving, or at least accepting, the fact that the Government has “done something.” The National Party view may be coloured by the con-

centration of much of its canvassing effort in the southern area of the electorate in which previous voting has strongly supported the party. None of the parties is sure how Fendalton's large number of abstainers in the 1966 election will act tomorrow. National has been anxious to get its “hard-core” supporters to lie poll. Labour Attack With an eye on nearly 2000 previous abstainers, the Labour party in Fendalton—and Petone—has launched a strong attack on Social Credit. In Fendalton, Mr Barclay has been saying that a vote for Social Credit will help the National Party retain power. In Fendalton and Petone Labour has distributed a pamphlet in the form of an open letter to Mr V. F. Cracknell, leader of the Social Credit League, attacking statements by Mr Cracknell. In both electorates the Labour vote has declined in the last three elections and the party has been working to recapture voters lost to Social Credit and to capture any who have turned away from the National Party. Labour has not previously recognised the existence of Social Credit so emphatically. All three parties believe that the campaign has evoked more interest than is customary in by-elections and that Fendalton electors have become conscious of the unusual interest in the election shown outside the electorate. Fendalton polls have long been well below the turn-out in most other areas. The candidates and organisers will be surprised if tomorrow’s poll does not attract a higher proportion of voters than most by-elections.