Rob Campbell wins place on Labour Party executive

Press, 1 September 1986, Page 8

Rob Campbell wins place on Labour Party executive

PA Wellington The trade unionist, Mr Rob Campbell, now offside with some of his union colleagues, has been elected to the Labour Party’s executive. Mr Campbell, aged 35, recently resigned from the Federation of Labour executive, and criticised the leadership for incompetence in seeking an agreement for a wages accord.

Mr Campbell, a director of the Bank of New Zealand, has also come under fire over a controversial proposal to sell off shares in the bank. That has put him out of favour with a number of his fellow unionists.

In spite of that he retained a fair measure of union support in polling as the third highest among 21 contenders. The member of Parliament for Mount Albert, Ms Helen Clark, an executive member since 1978, was the highest-polling candidate for the five positions on the executive. The others were Mr

Campbell, the Engineers’ Union organiser, Mr Fred Anderson, the Labour Women’s Council vicechairwoman, Ms Ruth Dyson, and a policy council member, Maryan Street Mr Campbell said later that his support had come from a broad cross-sec-tion although he would not detail just where it was.

He believed people had agreed with what he had been saying. In spite of Mr Campbell’s election, the party’s “broad Left,” claimed they had managed to get most of their candidates elected to top party positions.

One notable success was the election of the Wellington Trades Council president, Mr Pat Kelly, to the party’s ruling New Zealand Council as an industrial representative.

The party president, Ms Margaret Wilson, who took office in 1984, was re-elected unopposed, as was the senior vice-presi-dent, Mr Stu McCaffley, after the junior vice-presi-

dent, Mr Garth Lomax, and the party’s former director of publicity, Mr Simon Walker, withdrew their nominations. Mr Walker was later unsuccessful in retaining his position on the party’s executive. The Hotel Workers’ Union representative, Mr Rick Barker, was reelected as one of two industrial representatives to the New Zealand Council with Mr Kelly being the other.

A self-employed diver and fisherman, Mr Dover Samuels, from the Bay of Islands, replaced Henry de Thierry as the Maori representative while a Wellington City Councillor, Tala Cleverley, won the Pacific Island representative ballot after a three preference vote. A psychologist, Sarah Calvert, from Tauranga and a Massey University tutor, Liz Gordon, are the new women’s representatives while Laila Harre beat Samantha Matheson to be the party’s youth representative on the New Zealand Council.