• Opinion: A choice between two contrasting styles for Tukituki seat

Opinion: A choice between two contrasting styles for Tukituki seat

The voters of Tukituki have a simple choice for MP between two vastly different candidates - National’s Lawrence Yule and Labour’s Anna Lorck.

Even though many people have already voted, the candidates are still campaigning hard in a bid to catch every remaining vote before Saturday.

Yule may be the incumbent but if his mobile billboards and equally mobile team of placard wavers are anything to go by, he is not taking anything for granted. 

His opponent, as it was last election, is Lorck and despite being unsuccessful in two runs for the seat, there seems to be a spring in her step this time. Buoyed by Labour riding high in the polls, Lorck is working on the equation that a high party vote in the electorate will translate into her getting enough candidate votes to see her take the seat from Yule.

Yule won the seat from Lorck by 2813 votes, which was well down from the 6490-vote margin that the previous National incumbent Craig Foss beat her by in 2014.

Lorck’s theory about the party vote pulling up her candidate vote gains some traction when you look at the Tukituki party votes in 2014 and 2017. National achieved a whopping 10,475 votes more than Labour in 2014, but this was pared back to 5864 three years later. With some polls putting Labour in the late 40 per cents and National in the low 30 per cents
nationally, then one can see why Lorck is confident.

Another interesting addition to this theory is that there is no New Zealand First candidate standing in Tukituki. Last time the NZF candidate Joe Kairau came third with 2027 votes.

Who knows who those voters will back this time, but Lorck is clearly banking on a large proportion of them coming her way.

For National there is the threat of the New Conservatives, so it was no surprise to see National leader Judith Collins praying in church and Yule himself reiterating his faith in God recently. Standing in Tukituki for the New Conservatives is Nick McMinn-Collard, a local engineer and committed Christian who attends Equippers Church in Flaxmere. If a large
number of evangelical Christians in Hawke’s Bay decide to give their votes to him, then this will likely have an effect on Yule.

In what is sure to be a tight race, every vote counts.

Indications are that Lorck believes she has a better than good chance of winning, while Yule has, I understand, privately expressed concern that he could be facing defeat. 

Either way, both candidates have everything to lose as the electorate seat could be their only way into Parliament. Lorck is not on the Labour Party list – if she had been, she would almost certainly be on her way to Parliament either way. She says not being on the list was her choice because she only wants to be an electorate MP.

For Yule, National’s declining fortunes in the polls means that his list position of 33 could see him miss out on a place if he does not win the seat.

So, there is a lot to play for and the battle has been hard fought. The intensity was there during a debate on Austin on Air, my show on Radio Kidnappers, where the two went head to head on the local issues, including funding for Cranford Hospice.

 

 

Election 2020 - Tukituki Electorate Debate
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It was always going to be a tough ask for Yule when he left the powerful role of Mayor of Hastings to become a backbench MP in the opposition National Party, with no power at all. He says this has allowed him to focus on his electorate where he says he has helped many constituents.

Lorck, on the other hand, quite openly says that she has been doing the job of electorate MP anyway and that as part of governing party, she will be able to get even more done for Tukituki.

However, Yule is a seasoned campaigner and has a strong support base in the key area of Havelock North. This is quite remarkable considering that the Havelock North water contamination saga happened on his watch as mayor and then those same people voted him in as MP not long afterwards.

Make no mistake, Lorck will be pulling out all the stops in what surely will be her last attempt at becoming MP. It is all on the line for her.

For most of the other candidates, it is all about going for the party vote. The New Conservatives could get a number of those votes, as could ACT. Its candidate Jan Daffern seems to have run quite an energetic campaign focused on the party vote.

For the Green Party’s evergreen candidate, Chris Perley, it is about getting the Green message out there and ensuring his party gets above the required five percent to get into Parliament.

For the rest, Melanie Petrowski of the One Party has run a fairly visible campaign, while Future Youth’s Allister Tosh and Romana Manning of Legalise Cannabis will be lucky if they get 500 votes between them.

Whatever happens locally, there could be some big changes come Saturday. Based on current polling, I suspect to see Labour get close to 50 per cent of the vote, with National dropping into the late 20 per cents. The Greens should get about seven per cent, while the big winner will be ACT, which I believe will get about 10 per cent of the vote, mainly from
disgruntled National voters. The Maori Party may make a surprise return if it wins one of the seven Maori seats, but it appears as if New Zealand First’s run has come to an end (or maybe not).

Whoever is elected, both in Tukituki and to run the country, let’s hope they remember the promises they have made to us and, more importantly, stick to them.

Andrew Austin is a local political commentator and host of Austin on Air, a weekly political show on Radio Kidnappers.

All opinions expressed here are his and not necessarily those of Hawke’s Bay App.

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