Here's why.
First, it's a move in the wrong direction.
There are many successful examples of MPs becoming mayors - John Carter in Northland, Phil Goff in Auckland, and Stevie Chadwick in Rotorua to name but a current few - but almost none of successful moves in the other direction.
The only contemporary example of a mayor becoming an MP is former Palmerston North mayor Jono Naylor who was elected in 2014 as a National Party list MP.
This is not a happy tale.
Naylor was mayor of Palmerston almost as long as Lawrence Yule has been mayor of Hastings but in Parliament he was exiled to backbenches and announced his retirement in November last year.
One term was enough for Jono.
Second, it's a really bad career move.
Should Lawrence get elected to Parliament, he will go from a position of leadership to that of lobby fodder. He'll be swapping the Head Prefect slot for that of one of many third formers.
He will also be joining a party caucus that has been in government for nine years and as parties seldom last longer than that he'll spend most, if not all, of his parliamentary career in opposition and will be very unlikely to enjoy a period as a minister.
It is clear that Lawrence wanted this term as mayor of Hastings to be his last, but had he consulted me I would have pointed out more attractive alternatives to a run for Parliament.
As a senior long-term mayor, chair of Local Government New Zealand and with some presence on the international stage, Lawrence would have been due a knighthood.
With this under his belt I would have advised Sir Lawrence to seek directorships for which he is eminently qualified.
The Hawke's Bay lines company Unison pays its directors $55,000. The chairman, a position Lawrence could fill with distinction pulls down a cool $110,000 and with that appointment, he'd only need one other directorship to equal a backbencher's salary and he wouldn't have to go to Wellington most weeks.
With that kind of future beckoning, you'd be doing Lawrence a favour if you voted for Anna Lorck.
Third, Tukituki is a very marginal electorate and Lawrence could indeed suffer the humiliation of defeat.
Simon Lusk's piece in Hawke's Bay Today on Tuesday states that the seat looks "relatively comfortable for National", but his analysis is badly off the mark.
For a start, he quotes polls which show National well ahead of Labour, however these are party vote polls not the candidate vote which Lawrence would need to get elected.
These two votes are very different. When Labour scored 25 per cent of the party vote in 2014 it won 33 per cent of the candidate vote electing MPs like Stuart Nash in Napier.
Equally when Bill English led National to 20 per cent of the party vote in 2002 his party's candidate vote was in the mid-30s.
Regrettably for Simon Lusk's argument, party vote polls are no guide to electorate outcomes and he's wrong again when he says that overturning a 6490 majority would be "unprecedented".
In Aoraki, Jim Sutton saw a 6453 majority in 2002 turn into a 6937 deficit in 2005.
That's a turnaround of 13,390 votes in a seat very similar to Tukituki. Harry Duynhoven saw his 15,000-plus majority go up in smoke in New Plymouth in a similar fashion.
Lastly, Simon Lusk ignores the electoral elephant in the room.
Much of the 6490 majority Lawrence Yule would have to defend will be a personal vote built up by Craig Foss over five elections and some of it will be an endorsement of John Key as Leader.
Neither of these will be factors in the upcoming election. Foss has announced his intention to move on and National has swapped a leader who repeatedly scored 40 per cent plus of the party vote and a slew of electorates for Bill English who led National to its lowest ever vote in 2002.
In the last local elections, Lawrence Yule scored fewer votes than his two opponents together.
This could be a clear message to take my advice.
It's not too late.
Mike Williams grew up in Hawke's Bay. He is CEO of the NZ Howard League and a former Labour Party president. All opinions are his and not those of Hawke's Bay Today.
