Only two Nat. seats ‘winnable’

Press, 10 February 1989, Page 1

Only two Nat. seats ‘winnable’

By

OLIVER RIDDELL

Only two National-held seats — Timaru and Wairarapa — are identified as winnable in 1990 in a strategy paper to be considered by a two-day Labour Party Council meeting starting today in Wellington. If the principles of the paper are adopted then Labour’s 1990 election strategy will be defensive.

The 50-page paper looks at what Labour has to do in 1989, the pre-election year, and is based on the 13 to 15 points Labour was behind National in the public opinion polls in 1988. Apart from focusing on these two seats, the rest of Labour’s energy will be devoted to holding the electorates it already has — those it holds marginally and those traditional seats in which its majority fell sharply in the last election.

Wairarapa has been chosen because it was won by Labour in 1987 only to be lost on an electoral petition, and the

strategy paper considers it winnable again in 1990 with the right candidate.

The choice of Timaru is bound to be argued fiercely by the council meeting before scarce resources are assigned ot it. But polling there suggests a candidate who is as conservative as National’s incumbent, Mr Maurice McTigue, but more lively, could do well.

The strategy paper also says that an improved general climate for Labour during 1989 could enable the party to adopt a less defensive and more aggressive marginal-seat strategy in 1990. The plan for 1989 includes membership renewal and recruitment, funding options, computer voter targeting, as well as the marginal-seat strategy. It will use analyses of electorates to identify the areas of greatest promise within them.

Its stated intention is “to put local people on an election footing the year before the election, because to try to do it in election

year would be too late. The paper has strategies for Maori seats and Maori voters in nonMaori seats, union affiliates to the Labour Party, women and youth. It outlines a sophisticated and in-depth polling programme for the Labour Party’s private use for the next two years. A series of local party worker seminars are due to begin within the next fortnight. In one respect, the strategy seeks to break with tradition.

In the past, it has been the role of Cabinet Ministers to help backbench members of Parliament in marginal electorates; this time it is the back-benchers who will be going to seats held by Ministers who do not have the time to service them adequately. The council meeting will also discuss the legal case taken to it by Mr Jim Anderton (Lab., Sydenham) challenging the legality of his bar from attending the Labour caucus over the Christ-mas-New Year period.