Surprise! Cannon’s Creek gives Fa’afoi the Mana by-election

The Porirua East flunkies have done it again - voted a candidate in an election purely because that candidate is standing on the Labour banner. Results so far are here, 2008 results here.The Greens candidate, Jan Logie got nearly twice as many votes as Matt McCarten, and had the Aotearoa Legalise Cannabis candidate got 26 more votes, he would have got more than Act’s Colin du Plessis' current tally.

In fact, the Cannon’s Creek vote was so strongly Labour that Hekia Parata would have easily been ahead on election night had those votes been disregarded. More than 12 times as many people voted for Fa’afoi than Parata in Cannon’s Creek – I wonder how many of them are beneficiaries and would have voted Hekia Parata if she was Labour.

I recon if I was the Labour candidate I would have been assured of a seat in Parliament, after awaiting the result of special votes. There are 1352 special votes to be counted.

The fact of the matter is that Kris Fa’afoi was not the best candidate in the campaign. Many of the 2008 Labour voters who actually thought about their voting choice decided to vote for a candidate other than Fa’afoi. Fa’afoi won with 46.4 per cent of the total vote while National’s Hekia Parata won with 41.6 per cent, after getting 35 percent in 2008. Or to put it another way, Labour’s 6000 majority in 2008 was slashed down to an election night majority of 1080. And we know what 1080 is.

If Fa’afoi wins the election after the specials, perhaps he could shift his electorate office to Cannons Creek. Because, overall, the rest of the electorate wanted Hekia Parata as their MP.

If the Creekers were to wake up and get with the rest of the marginal electorate in 2011, Hekia Parata will be the next MP for Mana. Mana is no longer the ninth safest seat in the country - its not a safe seat for Labour at all.And it's not often that a candidate associated with the Government makes one of the safest seats in the country marginal - by elections usually swing against the government.

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McCarten to stand in Mana

So former political party leader and former Labour member Matt McCarten is standing against Labour in the Mana by-election. It looks like Winnie Laban is going to have a dent in her majority. Hekia Parata may even win.

Winnie Laban got a 6155 majority in 2008. So what - two thirds of electorate MPs have an even higher majority. Many of these voters cast their party vote for someone other than Labour. And it is the party vote we should be looking at here, actually. Some voters of the left may decide to vote for McCarten.

Green voters are primarily from the far north of the electorate, which is why Jan Logie was campaigning in Paraparaumu during he weekend. In addition National gets a lot of votes from this area, whereas Labour tends to get its votes from Porirua East (especially Cannons Creek) and Titahi Bay. Three quarters of voters in these areas party- voted Labour in 2008, meaning that a good proportion in the north who voted for Winnie Laban cast their party vote for National or the Greens.

However Labour has a greater strength in the Porirua East compared to National strength in the North of the electorate, which is why Laban won in 2008. That’s not to say that Labour will win in 2010 as many Labour voters may back Hekia Parata for a candidate – and a byelection – vote in November.

In 2005 Labour got half the party vote, in 2008 it got 43%. A similar drop will see Faafoi get 36%, which is what Hekia Parata got in 2008, increasing National's 2005 vote. Of course this is a byelection so its a different dynamic. Independants have won by-elections - Winston Peters and Tariana Turia have; and Matiu Rata polled well when he contested a by election as an independant. All three started political parties that entered Parliament. Perhaps McCarten will be the next one to do that? Actually, wasn't McCarten Tariana Turia's by-election campaign manager?

The full list of contenders are : Kelly Buchanan for the Alliance, Julian Crawford for Aotearoa Legalise Cannabis Party, Colin Du Plessis for ACT, Kris Faafoi for Labour, Libertarianz candidate Sean Fitzpatrick, Jan Logie for the Greens, Hekia Parata for National, and Unite union member Matt McCarten as an independent.

UPDATE Bryce Edwards, as always, has a good post up, discussing McCarten's candidacy. Edwards claims that if McCarten does well it will almost certainly be the launching pad for a new left political party.

I`m really looking forward to the candidate meetings now. Can someone tell me when the next one is?

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Fa'afoi chosen for Labour in Mana because he has a brown face and favoured by Goff

Everyone is expecting Kris Fa'afoi to be the MP for Mana. If he is, he won't measure up to either National candidate Hekia Parata or former MP Winnie Laban. Fa'afoi is chairperson of the Pacific branch in Rongotai, and has just recently joined the Labour Party. In fact there are rumours that while he was a political reporter he applied to become press secretary for a National Party Minister. He is currently Goff's chief media advisor, and has said he would campaign on employment, health, education and local issues like the expressway.

Labour obviously wanted a brown face - preferably a Pacific brown face. Fa'afoi is Tokelean.The selection process was a stitch-up right from the start and many are sick of Labour parachuting in head office appointees to win selection in one of the safest Labour seats in the country. Mana community leaders are sick of having their MP imposed upon them. Many in the electorate would vote Labour, even if a cat was the Labour candidate.

Were the local Labour electorate committee to disagree with Goff's appointee they would have been told where to go. In any case they only get three out of the seven votes so even if they all disagreed they have no say if the other four take a contrary opinion. Porirua Deputy Mayor Litea Ah Hoi is on record saying that she feels she wants to see a Pacific Islander as Mana MP. What she really means is that she doesn't want to see a Maori who so happens to have an office in the electorate and wears blue representing Mana. Its obvious that Ah Hoi and Parata cant stand each other, but Ah Hoi tends to get more media exposure than Parata and Laban, meaning the public get more chances to see what she thinks.

Don't be surprised if Ah Hoi - who is running for Porirua Mayor - and Fa'afoi campaign in a tag team. Expect to hear a bit about affluent Whitby and state -housed Cannons Creek. And who knows, if Josie Pagani was not Palagi, she may have got the nod as she may have got Head Office and Winnie Laban backing - after all she is a local and Mana deserves a person as their MP who has a strong connection to the electorate - like Hekia Parata does. Kris Faafoi has less of a connection to the electorate than Josie Pagani does.

Wonder if Josie Pagani's husband John will be Labour's campaign manager, as he was at the Mt Albert by-election, the last time Goff flew in an appointee.

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