Seasoned campaigners set for the fight

Democrats for Social Credit veteran Barry Pulford checks out the party billboard at his home in Flaxmere. A four-times candidate in Hastings electorates during the past 25 years, he is standing in Napier this year. Photo / Paul Taylor

Veteran Hawke's Bay electorates campaigner Barry Pulford is trying a few different things as he tackles the polls for a fifth time in the general election on September 20.

The Democrats for Social Credit candidate, who first stood under the party's New Zealand Democratic Party banner in 1990, says that this year he may put up his own hoarding for the first time and he will take a couple of weeks off work.

But the biggest change of all is that having previously stood in Hastings, including the past three elections as a Tukituki electorate candidate, the near 63-year-old from Flaxmere will this year contest the Napier seat.

Having mustered just 74 votes in the 2011 election, he has no pretensions to winning a seat in Parliament this time around, saying: "It's all about flying the flag. Once it gets in your blood, you get a bit hooked."

Such loyalty to the party, which he joined in its heyday as a parliamentary party named the Social Credit Political League in the 1970s, was evident when he made the decision to contest a seat on the other side of the river.

He makes way in Tukituki for even-more-seasoned Dick Ryan, a retired 77-year-old Royal Navy commander who has lived in Hawke's Bay just over two years and who, in what he considers a previous political life, also contested four elections, twice in North Shore and twice in Bay of Islands.

Mr Pulford, who was at the Whakatu meatworks at the time of the big closure in 1986 and with now about 12 years behind him working nights at the Hastings Pak'nSave supermarket, is the fourth candidate named to seek the Napier seat in Parliament following the resignation announcement of three-term National Party MP Chris Tremain.

Mr Ryan, whose first bid for the vote was in 1981 after three years as the founding director of the now long-gone Government-established Commission for the Future, is one of at least five after the Tukituki seat, including incumbent Craig Foss who defends a majority of 9660 attained in a landslide victory three years ago.

While at least 17 names are in the hat for the four electorates being voted-on in Hawke's Bay, nominations don't officially open until August 21.

Registered political parties have until noon on August 25 to lodge their bulk nominations of electorate candidates, while noon the following day is the deadline for all other candidates and the naming of party lists.

Registered Parties (alphabetical order)

ACT New Zealand, Alliance, Aotearoa Legalise Cannabis Party, Conservative Party, Democratic Party for Social Credit, Focus New Zealand, Green Party, Internet Party, Labour Party, Mana Movement, Maori Party, National Party, New Zealand First, New Zealand Independent Coalition Party, One Law4All, United Future.

Candidates named for Hawke's Bay seats

Napier — Incumbent: Chris Tremain, National, 2011 majority 3701

• National — Wayne Walford
• Labour — Stuart Nash
• Greens — Paul Bailey
• Democrats for Social Credit — Barry Pulford

Tukituki — Incumbent: Craig Foss, National, 2011 majority 9660

• National — Craig Foss
• Labour — Anna Lorck
• Green Party — Chris Perley
• Conservative — Dr Stephen Jenkinson
• Democrats for Social Credit — Dick Ryan

Wairarapa — Incumbent: John Hayes, National, 2011 majority 7135

• National — Alastair Scott
• Labour — Kieran McAnulty
• Green Party &mdash John Hart
• Conservative — Brent Reid.

Ikaroa Rawhiti — Incumbent: Meka Whaitiri, Labour, 2013 (by-election) majority 1659

• Labour — Meka Whaitiri
• Maori Party — Marama Fox
• Mana Movement — Te Hamua Nikora
• Green Party — Henare Kani