Editorial Tuesday March 31, 2015

Peter Jackson, editor, The Northland Age

Beginning of the end?

THE chicken entrails were being examined with glee on Sunday morning as Nationals' opponents, and allies, dissected the Northland by-election result, many predicting that this was the beginning of the end for the current government. Finally, John Key and his lieutenants, starting with the previously infallible Steven Joyce, who ran National's campaign to hold what for 49 years had been the bluest of blue seats, had stumbled, and in spectacular fashion.

Perhaps. But only one thing had changed since September last year, when Mike Sabin held Northland for National with a majority of more than 9000 votes. The deciding factor on Saturday was Winston Peters. Had he not contested the seat, in person, Mark Osborne would have been undergoing his induction in Wellington today. He might still have been had Labour leader Andrew Little not suggested that his candidate, Willow-Jean Prime, was expendable as his contribution to effecting a change that polls indicated was inevitable.

Any feeling that Northland had been neglected for too long might well have had some basis in fact, although, ironically, the electorate had probably received more attention from this government over the last couple of years than it had for decades. It can certainly be argued, on the basis of statistics, that Mike Sabin's efforts to grow the economy, which at the end of the day is the only sustainable solution to all that ails us, were beginning to bear fruit. And it is only weeks ago that the government launched its strategy for growth in Northland.

In any event, disaffected National voters had an opportunity to express their disgruntlement in 2011, when John Carter, whose energy and empathy had made him all but untouchable by any opponent for 24 years, called it a day, and again last year. So why now? The Peters factor.

Winston Peters ran a superb campaign, touching on all the potential sore points that no one else had ever gone near. What does that say about a string of Labour candidates, eh? None have ever come close to mounting a campaign as effective as Peters' was over the last four weeks. Indeed, Willow-Jean Prime, who isn't even enrolled in the Northland electorate (or wasn't when the 2014 rolls were published), saw her support vanish almost without trace after her leader hinted that he wouldn't mind too much if true Labour voters switched allegiance, presumably just this once.

The thing about Winston is that he knows enough about Northland to identify what rankles with its voters. Ten two-lane bridges and fast-tracked broadband will no doubt be welcomed by many, but don't even go close to scratching an itch that has been festering for decades. The fact is that Northland, and perhaps the Far North in particular, has been stagnating for as long as anyone can remember. The encouraging statistics that have surfaced of late are some cause for hope, but most of them emanate from Whangarei, which isn't in the Northland electorate.

It would be fair to say that if Whangarei does well, Northland's prospects as a whole will improve. One doesn't imagine that even with Winston Peters fighting our corner jobs are suddenly going to materialise in Kaitaia, Kaeo or Kawakawa. And if those who live further north have to emigrate to Whangarei to participate in a new wave of prosperity, so what?

Mr Peters understands this. His big by-election promise was to press for a $300 million upgrade of Northport. That won't directly benefit anyone north of Whangarei, but what else could he do? If we're not talking about investment that leads to jobs we must be talking about social welfare, and we have enough of that already.

And then there was the not so secret ingredient of style over substance. Steven Joyce has come in for trenchant criticism from some quarters for the degree to which he allegedly controlled National's candidate, but the alternative would have been even less appealing. Mark Osborne has qualities that might well see him win this seat in 2017, should he choose to have another go, but lining a novice up against one of the most effective campaigners this country has seen in recent years was never going to make a fair fight. Anyone who expected National to choose a novice - and the candidates for the candidacy were all novices to a greater or lesser degree - then let him or her take on the country's pre-eminent campaigner single-handed needed to have their head read. Given the circumstances, Mr Osborne did well enough to suggest that he has a future in politics.

He was also disadvantaged by his and his party's decision to stick to what, in politics, come closest to passing for facts. As Mr Osborne no doubt now knows, that can be something of a hindrance.

Indulgence in style over substance reached new heights in the wake of Saturday night's result, Green co-leader Metiria Turei sagely commenting that Mr Key's hope that bridges and broadband would "work" in Northland showed how out of touch he was with ordinary New Zealanders. Hungry kids, she said, could not eat bridges.

True. Problem is, we only have her word, and that of other socialists, for the 'fact' that we are up to our armpits in hungry kids. And even if they are as common as she and other say they are - and that's a mighty big if - changing that will be a great deal more complex than doling out free lunch packs.

Plenty will agree with Ms Turei however that child nutrition is a big issue in Northland, and in other provinces around the country. And they will agree with her, perhaps rightly, that Saturday night's result could be replicated in many another provincial electorate that found itself with a mid-term chance to change its allegiance, although that might be contingent upon Winston Peters standing in all of them.

At the end of the day no real harm has been done in Northland, and possibly some good. If Winston Peters can improve our lot then good for him, and us. If he can't, what have we lost? And we can reassess his performance in a couple of years' time. But maybe this government has received the message that it can't take us, or provincial electorates in general, for granted, and that would be no bad thing.

Watch, read or listen to the news these days and you could be forgiven for thinking that New Zealand starts at Albany and ends at the Bombay Hills. All we hear is Auckland, Auckland, Auckland, with Christchurch chucked in occasionally for a little variety. Auckland has a housing crisis, Auckland has traffic problems, Auckland needs this, Auckland needs that. There's a whole country out here, a country whose problems and challenges are often very different to Auckland's. And out here is where our wealth is generated.

Granted, this government's focus has been firmly on growing the economy, which at the end of the day is the only way out of where we currently wallow. But it's hard to believe that we are seen as part of the solution when our state highways are so badly maintained that they warrant uneven surface warnings and are peppered with one-lane bridges (but not for much longer!), where public transport is seen as unnecessary and where road funding even falls short of the government revenue generated here by road user charges and petrol taxes.

What does Auckland have that we don't? Votes. That changed on Saturday, and so did our loyalty.