One Tree Hill - the border of the Maungakiekie electorate.
One Tree Hill - the border of the Maungakiekie electorate.
Roads and reserves look set to be the defining issues in one of the country's most marginal seats - Maungakiekie.
The south-central Auckland electorate is up for grabs after three-term incumbent Sam Lotu-Iiga, the National party's former Corrections minister, stepped down late last year.
Three main candidates will now compete for the Maungakiekie vote - Labour's Priyanca Radhakrishnan, a policy analyst; National's Denise Lee, an Auckland councillor; and the Green Party's Chloe Swarbrick, who came third in the Auckland mayoral race last year.
Considered a "bellwether" seat, the electorate has traditionally been held by the governing party. Before Lotu-Iiga, Labour's Marke Gosche was the area's MP from 1999-2005.
This time, however, that is up in the air - due to the Greens' decision to put Swarbrick in the seat - a move pundits have criticised as a weakness in the two parties' "memorandum of understanding".
"The Greens chose to run arguably their highest profile and most energetic Auckland-based candidate, Chloe Swarbrick, in a marginal seat that Labour is targeting," said political pundit Ben Thomas.
He said it was an indication the agreement was not going smoothly.
However, Swarbrick said her goal was to increase the party vote from the electorate, and to get "as many Green MPs into Parliament as possible".
Maungakiekie incorporates Point England, Tamaki, Panmure, Mt Wellington, One Tree Hill, Penrose, and parts of Onehunga. It's population are young, and diverse, with more than 20 percent each of Asian and Pacific people, and ten percent Maori.
Denise Lee candidate for Maungakiekie with Prime Minister Bill English. Photo / Supplied
Lee supports both moves, although she says there needs to be "mitigation" to offset the impacts of the four-lane Link.
She also said jobs and housing were a key priority, with a drive for local employment to make the area a hub of activity with it's increasingly population.
"To do that the area needs a dogmatic representative to make sure growth happens in the right way, and has a progressive community focused outcome," she said.
Radhakrishnan would scale the roading project back, and hopes to be able to look at alternative sites for housing that don't impact on the reserve.
Labour candidate Priyanca Radhakrishnan. Photo / Supplied
She also wanted to champion housing, and jobs, in a way that made people feel involved.
"The thing I'm hearing is people feeling left out of processes that are being done to themt," she said. "They're not having their voices heard and needs championed and that what's I want to do."
Swarbrick also disagreed with the legislation around the Pt England issue, and said the Greens would work with iwi to come up with a different solution. She called the roading project a "gross misuse of transport funding".
The Greens would instead allocated the money to rail and public transport.
