Lange relaxed about poor poll

Press, 14 April 1989, Page 4

Lange relaxed about poor poll

PA Wellington The Prime Minister, Mr Lange, yesterday said that he was determined never to win an election when it was not being held. He said he got sick of winning magnificent victories in Opposition before polling day. He also found it frustrating winning a majority of votes but not a majority of seats. “Moral victories are not what I’m about. You have to win on the day in the right number of seats — and we will,” he said. Replying to questions about the recent poor results of the Government in Heylen opinion polls on the television programme ‘Holmes,” Mr Lange said governments should not be written off in midterm. “Don’t write a Govern-

ment off 18 months before an election,” he said. “We were written off before the last election. We were dog tucker. We came back. We did it." People got excited between elections and thought about all sorts of messages they should send to a government. “That‘s what's been happeninig to us. The people have sent us a message. The Timaru byelection was a big message to the Government in our first term," he said. The Government had taken the message aboard — was working on it and being careful in its strategy and effective in its presentation, he said. It intended people would be convinced it would be worth re-electing the Government in October 1990.