DUNEDIN SEATS

Otago Daily Times, Issue 26200, 10 July 1946, Page 4

DUNEDIN SEATS

FORTHCOMING ELECTION EFFECT OF BOUNDARY CHANGES NOT IN LABOUR’S FAVOUR The final decisions of the Electoral Boundary Commission will have given much food for thought'to prospective candidates for Parliamentary honours at the general election this year. Sitting members will naturally be interested in the effect which the changes in the boundaries of their constituencies will have on their prospects of re-election should they be chosen again by their parties, but it is not unlikely that any calculations they may make will be upset on polling day. The only method at present available by which candidates may weigh up their chances is to place the figures at each polling booth at the last election into the new electorates and calculate from that roughly the nurriber of votes they may expect to receive. But such statistics can be based only on the results of the 1943 election, or a subsequent by-election, and cannot take into account any change in the political views of the electors since they last went to the polls. Nor can they more than approximately take into consideration absentee and soldiers’ votes which, in 1943, were recorded by electorates and not by booths.

Rough Calculations

The futility and unwisdom of endeavouring to predict the result of an election was fully shown when the people of Great Britain decisively rejected their war-time Government in favour of a Labour administration, but at the same time, it is possible—very roughly, it must be admitted—to assess on the basis of the 1943 election, the effect of boundary changes on different electorates.

In Dunedin, the changes in the boundaries have revealed a significant fact—-that it is not improbable that Labour will have some difficulty in retaining its four seats even if there is not a pronounced swing of the pendulum in New Zealand as has been indicated by the results of the Dunedin North and Raglan by-elections.

The Government cannot have been entirely satisfied with Mr R. Walls’s showing in Dunedin North last year, when the Labour majority of nearly 3000 in 1943 was reduced to about 700. And at this year’s election Labour will be without its stronghold of Port Chalmers, which has been transferred to the Oamaru electorate —a move which is likely to ease the mind of the Minister of Health, Mr A. H. Nordmeyer. In 1943 the Labour majority in Port Chalmers was nearly 500: last year at the by-election it dropped to about 350, and this supplied Mr Walls with about half of his majority. If the boundaries as they are now constituted had been in existence at the by-elec-tion Mr Walls's majority would have been in the vicinity of 140—a figure which Labour cannot, in view of the apparent swing of the pendulum, view with equanimity. St. Kilda Electorate

Another electorate in which, again on the basis of the 1943 election. Labour is likely to suffer a heavy loss in votes is St. Kilda, which formerly was split up between Central and Dunedin South. Many of Labour's votes in this electorate have been lost to Mornington; and the Otago Peninsula and Anderson’s Bay, predominantly National areas, are now included in St. Kilda. If the Minister of Defence, Mr F. Jones, is the Labour candidate he cannot hope to have the 3000 odd majority which gave him a comfortable victory in 1943. The rearrangement of the electorate is more likely to give him a majority of under 1000. which may not be large enough to withstand a vigorous onslaught by the National Party. The other two Dunedin seats, however, do not appear to be in danger of being lost to Labour. In 1943 Mr P. Neilson in Dunedin Central had a majority of 2155: the majority which is obtained by a rearrangement of the votes at the polling booths used three years ago would increase that figure bj’ nearly 100. The new Dunedin Central electorate more closely approximates the old Dunedin Wes! electorate.

Mornington, at the present time, appears to be the “safest” Labour seat in Dunedin. It has acquired the areas of Caversham and part of South Dunedin, which are strongly labour, and a rearrangement of the votes cast at the various polling booths in 1943 would give the Labour candidate a majority of something like 3000—a margin which is large enough to withstand anything but a landslide. Mr Nordmeyer’s Seat

While Mr Nordmeyer in Oamaru will welcome the addition of the Labour votes formerly cast in Dunedin North, he will have to contend with a National area north of Oamaru which was formerly outside the electorate, and although the votes in that district as they were registered in 1943 are not sufficient to balance the probable Labour majority in Port Chalmers they will assist in reducing it. If the Minister has lost any more ground since 1943 they may turn the scale in favour of the National Party.