Parties confident, many voters undecided

Press, 31 May 1985, Page 3

Parties confident, many voters undecided

Parliamentary reporters Government and Opposition leaders say they are “buoyed” and “confident” with progress in the Timaru by-election campaign, though polls show as many as half the voters are still undecided. All four main parties face a risk that many voters will stay at home, but the Prime Minister, Mr Lange, yesterday maintained this was a feature of by-elections. He believed the heavy undecided poll justified Labour’s late start to its campaign.

“It is a significant enough percentage to mean that the campaign itself will be sig-

nificant,” he said after the Government caucus discussed progress in the campaign. “In other words, there is no fat there to assume that there is a margin for indulgence. We have to work at that by-election and we will,” he said. Mr Lange cast doubt on a poll ascribed to Social Credit, showing 47 per cent of Timaru voters did not know who they were going to vote for. He did not dispute a New Zealand Party poll showing one third were undecided.

Labour’s canvassing had found that “quite a number” of National Party people

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were undecided, and an analysis of their comments indicated they would vote for the New Zealand Party or not vote at all. . Mr Lange considered that past Labour voters who were undecided would either vote Labour or not vote at all. “If you are long-time, traditional Labour, you are not actually going to vote for some rich man’s fancy

or some other party,” he said. It was “realistic” to ex-, pect some voters to stay at home on polling day in a byelection, he said. The Leader of the Opposition, Mr McLay, yesterday stuck to his claim that National was “tantalisingly close” to winning the byelection, needing a 5.6 per cent swing. “We are determined to do very well, but I am not in the business of predicting results,” he said. “We are campaigning, perhaps, as we have never done before in a by-election. I am confident about the

way the campaign is going.” Mr Lange said that Labour would benefit from a quality he saw in Timaru which he described as “stability.” Of his opening meeting on Tuesday, he said, “It was substantial, stable, with a very strong message from that audience by their attentiveness that Timaruians knew that they elected a Government for three years in July, 1984, and that in 10 months it was no time to change just because things were a bit rocky. “They are not the sort of people who plant a potato one week and dig it up the next to see if it is sprouted.”