New complexion on Nelson voting

Press, 6 August 1987, Page 24

New complexion on Nelson voting

TONY SMITH

By

in Nelson

The absence of Mel Courtney’s name on the ballot paper casts a new complexion on the Nelson electorate this year. For the last 11 years, Mr Courtney, a supermarket chain operator, has been a key figure in the political life of Nelson. He entered Parliament on a Labour party ticket in 1976, winning a byelection conducted after the death of the Speaker of the House, Sir Stanley Whitehead. Mr Courtney retained the Nelson seat in 1978 but after a rift with the party he resigned from Labour and spent the latter part of his second term as an independent member of Parliament. In 1981, Mr Courtney contested the Nelson seat as an independent, running against the new Labour candidate, Mr Philip Woollaston. The loyalties of a large number of traditional Labour voters were divided and a significant number crossed into Mr Courtney’s camp. When the final results were released, he came within 698 votes of becoming New Zealand’s first elected independent member of Parliament since Mr Harry Atmore won the Nelson seat in 1943.

Mr Woollaston, a former chairman of the Golden Bay County Council, spent his first parliamentary term representing a highly marginal electorate. However, in 1984, he established a stranglehold on the seat, romping home 3678 votes ahead of his nearest rival, Mr Courtney, who again stood as an independent. Although his support had decreased dramatically since 1981, Mr Courtney still polled 6610 votes — more than twice as many as the National candidate, Mr Bob Straight. With Mr Courtney out of the race and the New Zealand Party not putting up a candidate after attracting 1348 votes in 1984, almost 9000 votes are up for grabs. From early indications, Mr Woollaston, who is now a Cabinet Undersecretary and highly re-

spected in the Labour caucus, is likely to increase his already-healthy majority. However, Mr Straight, who is representing National for the second time, and the new independent candidate, Mr Nick Barber, both believe they will attract sizable shares of the uncommitted vote.

A huge nation-wide swing against the Government would be necessary, however, to unseat Mr Woollaston.

The sitting member of Parliament opened his campaign three weeks before the election. He did not feel able to hit the hustings earlier because of his responsibilities to his constituents and his duties as Undersecretary for the environment and local government. Mr Woollaston, aged 42, is standing on his record as a member of Parliament for the last two terms. "As a sitting member of Parliament I should be able to get my own message across in a three-week period if I’ve been doing my job well.” Mr Woollaston said feed-back from his canvassing indicated “a significant section of the Nelson public is reasonably satisfied with the job I’ve done.”

He acknowledges there are some disaffected traditional Labour supporters within the electorate. “But any party going into Government loses some support from some people. We appear to be gaining more than we are losing.”

Mr Woollaston is a mild-mannered politician not given to emotional outbursts, but he recently remonstrated with Television New Zealand’s'“Today Tonight” regional news programme for portraying Nelson as a city in decline.

He was annoyed that the television team had “listened uncritically” to two people with “axes to grind” (the Mayor of Nelson, Mr Peter Malone, a National Party stalwart and former party candidate for Nelson and Tasman; and the president of the Nelson Trades Council, Mr Reg Williams) and had then made the claim

that 1000 jobs had been lost in Nelson. Mr Woollaston maintains employment has increased and that the commercial and industrial sectors of Nelson were developing well. Unemployment is a problem because the workforce is growing faster than the number of jobs because Nelson was a desirable place for people to shift to. However, the total number of jobs had increased.

The attractions of living in Nelson mean the city probably has more environmentally conscious constituents than other similar-sized provincial areas. Mr Woollaston is expecting to maintain support from the liberal sector because the Government’s anti-nuclear and conservation policies.

The Government’s superannuation surtax could cost him some support as Nelson has a large community of retired residents, many of whom are in the taxable income bracket.

However, Mr Woollaston says only a fifth of superannuants are affected by the surtax. “Some people who are affected have expressed a perception that it (the surtax) is only fair. Those affected and aggrieved are relatively small in number and in many cases were not supporters of me and Labour anyway.” If Mr Woollaston is reelected, as seems almost certain, he could be a top contender for a Cabinet posting, after his experience as an under-secre-tary.

The National candidate, Mr Straight, is “not foolishly optimistic, but quietly confident” about his chances of taking the seat.

He has been doorknocking and campaigning for about three months and believes the majority of Mr Courtney’s former voters are going to back him this year. Mr Straight, aged 60, a retired Army officer who has been a member of the National party since 1950, reasons that most of Mr Courtney’s supporters were “essentially National voters. Those Labour

people who supported him when he first stood as an independent in 1981, went back to Labour last time.” He is also counting on the support of former New Zealand Party voters.

However, his support is coming from all sectors, including a number of traditional Labour voters who felt they could not support the Government this year, he said. Mr Straight, one of three Nelson City Councillors standing at the General Election retired as a Lieutenant-Colonel from the New Zealand Army in 1973. For the last two years of his service he was seconded to the United Nations as a militiary observer in Israel and Syria. He later became the New Zealand vice-consul in China when the New Zealand Embassy was first established and in 1977-78 he was officer-in-charge of the New Zealand Antarctic Research Programme at Scott Base. Mr Straight has lived in the Nelson region since 1973. He is on his first term on the city council and is also operations officer for the Nelson Bays Civil Defence organisation and an organiser for the City of Nelson Civic Trust.

Mr Straight believes National’s policies are vital for the regional development of areas like Nelson to provide “jobs, jobs, jobs and more jobs.” He expects to earn sizable support from the city’s superannuitants disgruntled with the Government’s surtax, which National would scrap. Mr Straight is conservative on moral issues. He signed the petition opposing homosexual law reform and claims “many thousands of Nelsonians are extremely annoyed with the present, representative, who despite the size of the petition and the numbers from Nelson voted his conscience and supported the bill.” Not surprisingly for a man with a long military background, Mr Straight favours an immediate return to the A.N.Z.U.S. alliance and he would be happy to accept ships visits from allies on a

neither confirm nor deny basis.

Mr Straight also opposes abortion and favours capital punishment in "specific circumstances for the worst offenders.” “I have seen it work in other societies, notably China and Singapore.” He believes capital punishment in instances where offenders have had a significant previous history of murder and other violent offences is a release, not only for the community for the offender himself.

He is more interested, however, in the reorganisation of the New Zealand penal system which is “very expensive and working very badly.”

At the last election, Mr Straight was backed by a minimal amount of money and a small campaign support group. However, the atmosphere is totally different this time, he said.

Mr Barber, aged 46, a consulting engineer and first-term Nelson City Councillor, resigned from the Labour Party before deciding to stand as an independent. He campaigned for Mr Courtney in the last two elections but only decided to stand himself this year after ensuring Mr Courtney was not intending to enter the race.

A member of the Concerned Christians group, Mr Barber is intensely interested in moral issues and opposes homosexual law reform and abortion.

He also considers Labour and National have not “put their minds to a full employment policy.” He wants to see an “equitable tax applied to speculators, corporations and to money leaving the country to stabilise the balance of payments.” Mr Barber only announced his candidacy a few weeks ago but he has already produced an extensive document outlining his philosophies and has been campaigning with his wife, Rosalie. He says people in Nelson are more dissatisfied this year with the main parties than three years ago. “They are crying out for economic justice and

good moral priniciples.” Nelson is an “independ-ent-thinking” district, according to Mr Barber, and he believes he has a good chance of taking the seat from Mr Woollaston. If Mr Woollaston does lose any support from traditional Labour Party voters, it will most likely be directed to Mr Mike Ward, the co-leader of the Values Party. Mr Ward, aged 44, a craftsman and street hawker, finished last in the 1984 race with 219 votes. However, he has a higher public profile now and was the highest polling Nelson City Councillor in last year’s local body elections.

Realistically, Mr Ward knows he has no chance of taking the seat but he expects to substantially increase his vote.

He will be pressing Values’ traditional environmental, social and economic justice policies and will also be urging the Government to adopt the Royal Commission into Electoral Reform’s recommendations on proportional representation. Mr Ward said a lot of Nelsonians sympathised with the Values’ message and people were beginning to realise there had to be an alternative.

The Democratic Party’s Nelson candidate is again Mr Jack Collin, a commission sales agent in his early 40s.

Mr Collin, who recorded 318 votes in his first attempt in 1984 is well known as a rowing coach and administrator.

Work commitments prevents him from opening his campaign in earnest until two weeks before polling day.

The sixth Nelson candidate is an independent, Mr Mike Hackman, aged 40. He was the last to throw his hat into the ring and decided to stand because he felt he could not vote for any of the other candidates. If the Nelson electorate is remembered for anything in 1987, it will probably be as a haven for the politicial punster. Both Mr Straight and Mr Barber have not been averse to using their names for comic affect.