Chauvel eyes Ohariu optimistically

Talking Politics

GORDON CAMPBELL

OPINION: It looked like an April Fool's Day press release, but Labour MP Charles Chauvel is dead serious about lamenting the lack of signage for the motorway exit to Grenada Village.

He will be circulating a questionnaire to 500 locals about the issue, and while his efforts may not put Grenada Village on the map, they may at least put it on the motorway sign.

Is this time and energy well spent? Well yes, Chauvel insists.

A Grenada Village resident had told him business clients had got lost trying to find the way there. Armed with his questionnaire results, Chauvel will be better equipped to confront the relevant authorities.

So, even these days the old political round of door-knocking, school prizegivings and fixing motorway signs is still essential? Yes, Chauvel replies.

The previous night he'd attended a farewell at Redwood School in Tawa for its longtime headmaster.

"The expectation is that you'll turn up, listen to what's said, and that you'll talk to them. It's still an important part of campaigning."

Given the three-way battle between the incumbent Peter Dunne, National's Katrina Shanks, and Chauvel, some estimates rate Ohariu among the three most marginal seats in the country.

The seat is relatively young, white and wealthy, with reportedly the highest ratio of people aged between 30 and 49, and the highest proportion earning between $70,000 and $100,000 in the country.

In 2008, National leader John Key advised supporters to vote for Dunne in the electorate – then as now, the tactic seemed less to broaden National's coalition (Dunne is basically a one-person party) than to keep out Labour.

If the Greens advise their supporters to focus exclusively on the party vote, Labour stands a real chance of taking Ohariu.

Chauvel will be running a "time for a change" campaign, based on his own relative youth and self-professed vigour, and his prospects of being a frontbencher in the next Labour Government.

Meanwhile, will Dunne be struggling to play his famed moderating role within a second-term National Government?

In Chauvel's opinion, Dunne hasn't played that role, not even when holding similar portfolios in a Labour-led Government.

"I think it's a brave claim for any individual MP to make – particularly when, on the numbers, you don't hold the balance of responsibility – that you can exercise that sort of influence. He didn't last time, and he hasn't this time."

Moreover, the proposed asset sales policy (of a 49 per cent sell-down) is the very same policy Dunne took into the last election.

"So there's no sense he's operating as a moderating influence there – he's the originator of that policy."

Like some Auckland seats, Ohariu is socially liberal yet economically conservative.

Ohariu voters want to get ahead, Chauvel believes, yet not at the expense of a fair society and healthy environment.

Are they expressing confidence to him in the direction the country is headed?

"Quite the reverse. Particularly in the last couple of months I've detected real unease. A real sense of, `Gosh, where are we heading? Is there a firm hand on the tiller? Is there a plan?"'

Chauvel is banking on the jury staying out on such questions, until polling day.

Note: This column will feature Ohariu's other main candidates, one by one, in coming months.

- The Wellingtonian