Posted by Blogger Name. Category:
2014 General Election
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Chris Bishop
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Hutt South
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Labour list
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Labour Party
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MMP
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National Party
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Trevor Mallard
We were tempted to make some reference to duck hunting as the title for this post, but resisted. But Trevor Mallard is definitely in National's sights, as Tracy Watkins reports in the Dom-Post:
John Key is turning into a familiar sight on the streets of Petone. Twice in the last week, the prime minister has been out pressing the flesh in the Hutt satellite suburb alongside National’s candidate, Chris Bishop.
Locals are used to being off National’s beaten track in what has long been considered a safe Labour seat. But boundary changes and gentrification have given National the whiff of an upset.
‘‘Hutt South is definitely in play, no question about that,’’ Key said yesterday after visiting the local Weltec campus.
Some of the bravado may be justified. Labour’s Trevor Mallard may have won the seat with a comfortable majority in 2011 but National won the party vote.
In his favour, Mallard has the benefit of incumbency – and Key acknowledges that makes it ‘‘challenging’’.
‘‘But there have been some boundary changes that make the seat more vulnerable.’’
A string of ministers are pencilled in for visits to the electorate over coming weeks, bolstering the impression that National thinks the seat is winnable.
But National may also be playing electoral mind games. Winning the seat might be a moral victory, but won’t change the outcome of the election as it might have once under First Past The Post – a point acknowledged by Key. And while boundary changes could slash 3000 votes off Mallard’s 4800 majority, there would still have to be a big swing against the incumbent to unseat him.
Trevor Mallard announced on Monday that he was not seeking a place on Labour's list. He rattled off some convoluted story about wanting to ensure Kelvin Davis got a good list position, but we don't buy that for a moment. We believe it's far more likely that Mr Mallard wasn't happy with the draft ranking given to him by Labour's moderators.
And even Mallard himself concedes that Hutt South is by no means a given for him:
But National may also be playing electoral mind games. Winning the seat might be a moral victory, but won’t change the outcome of the election as it might have once under First Past The Post – a point acknowledged by Key. And while boundary changes could slash 3000 votes off Mallard’s 4800 majority, there would still have to be a big swing against the incumbent to unseat him.
But Labour MPs have been rattled by their party’s low polls. The lower party support sinks, the more their survival hinges on holding on to their seats. And the instinct to maximise their electorate vote runs counter to MMP, under which the party vote is the major decider of which party will govern. National plunged to its worst defeat in 2002 for precisely that reason, after MPs retreated to their electorates and scrapped to hold on to their seats in Parliament.
Mallard does not dispute Key’s assessment, however, that the seat is in play for National.
‘‘There’s no doubt that [my] majority is significantly lower than it was ... .I accept that the seat is not a safe seat, not that I’ve ever treated it that way.’’
Trevor Mallard has no MMP lifeline, so he must win Hutt South to stay keep his job; just the way MP's had to in those days before the first MMP election in 1996. But National and Chris Bishop are going to make Mr Mallard fight his damndest.
And Chris Bishop had some high-level support yesterday; check out these tweets:
Taking Hutt South off Trevor Mallard would be a hugely significant achievement both for Chris Bishop and for National. With National having won the party vote in 2011 by a significant margin, and with boundary changes that are helpful to National, this will be a contest to watch on the night of 20th September, and in the twelve weeks until the election.
