Towns key to electoral success, says professor

Press, Volume CXII, Issue 33062, 1 November 1972, Page 2

Towns key to electoral success, says professor

(New Zealand Press Association)

AUCKLAND, October 31.

If any one kind of constituency is in a position to determine the political fate of the parties in the General Election, it i s the big town, says Professor R. M. Chapman, professor of political studies at Auckland University.

Labour, he said, was beginning to take back tfie towns, one by one.

His review of the marginal seats is contained in "The Making of the Marginals 72” — a book conceived just one month before the election, written in a fortnight, and released today. The marginality of the towns, he says, arises naturally from the fact that each is in a way a miniature New Zealand, composed of rich, average, and poor districts.

National now holds 10 town seats — four of them narrowly. These are in Hastings, Whangarei, Gisborne and Wanganui. Two more — Hamilton West and Invercargill — are "distinctly vulner-

able,” with margins of less than 6 per cent. Professor Chapman says I that Labour has fewer towns, but three out of six — Wairarapa, Palmerston North and New Plymouth — are exposed to change by a small percentage shift adverse to Labour.

; He says it should be reI membered that since World i War II changes in the possession of town seats have accompanied every change of government. Under the second National Government two processes were at work in the town constituency. Rotorua, Tauranga, and Wairarapa, all then National, became urban in 1963. Hamilton West, also National, was a town seat by 1969, and

as has happened in Tamaki and as is happening on the

this year Whangarei and Ruahine, also National, were

added to the list. “The second process to be noted,” says Professor Chapman, “is that Labour is once again beginning to take the towns back.” Whatever happens in the towns at the 1972 election — whether it is a resumption of Labour’s climb up the list, 1963-type immobility, or even an unprecedented turn toward a resurgent government — the way the towns go will play a vital part in deciding the general outcome, he says. The 43 towns comprise almost half of political New Zealand, and account for the bulk of National’s strength. “On unchanged voting and the new 1972 boundaries, these seats would return a total of 34 Nationalists, compared with nine Labour members,” he says. But he adds that the towns contain most of the uncertainties. Town and rural electorates account for three-quarters of the 20 electoral “long-shots.” CITY SEATS On the other hand, there are only five close marginals in the 40 city seats, and the predominantly Labour Maori constituencies show no inclination toward marginality. Analysing the five marginal city seats, Professor Chapman says that all are socially mixed, or “middling,” in composition. “To make and keep a city constituency marginal, first mix and balance the socioeconomic levels of the areas you include,” he says. “If they are not kept balanced by the way the boundaries are adjusted as the population grows and shifts, then the constituency may become more uniformly welloff, or positively prosperous,

North Shore.” In the main the process of adding to National’s list of city seats has been accomplished by the capture of marginals, which have then risen in average income — and housing costs, he says. The middling, younger, and poorer people are compelled to move out toward the cheaper houses on the fringes of the growing cities; but the process of population growth, boundary change, and social alteration can work in reverse, he says. Roskill, Manukau and Manurewa have become steadily safer for Labour. He concludes that the city marginal is now a declining phenomenon. It flourished when cities were smaller, more mixed, more equal.