Green seat turns to true colour

By VERNON SMALL

At Sandra Goudie's Coromandel headquarters the National faithful finally had something to cheer about - at the expense of the Greens.

Despite the worst drubbing in National's history, about 30 supporters, gathered at the private Thames Club near the town centre, celebrated the return of the seat the party had held for 61 of the past 64 years.

On the edge of town at the more spartan Thames Racecourse, about 70 watched as the only electorate seat held by the Greens went back to its "true colours".

Co-leader Jeanette Fitzsimons, beaten into third place, blamed the splitting of the centre-left vote between herself and Labour candidate Max Purnell for the loss.

But she had expected the defeat ever since Labour began aggressively campaigning for "two ticks" in the seat she won with Labour's backing in 1999.

By the end of the evening the Greens could console themselves with an improvement on their 1999 showing.

But unless special votes deliver a surprise, they will have only one more MP - Maori lawyer Metiria Turei - taking their tally to eight. That was clearly a serious disappointment to the Greens, who at one stage in the campaign hoped to double their numbers in the House.

Early in the evening it had looked even worse as the subdued party faithful watched the Greens' nationwide vote hovering just above the 5 per cent threshold and Labour's vote tracking so low that there was no certainty of a centre-left majority.

As the Greens' share steadily rose to 6.5 per cent, the mood lightened and the feijoa wine and organic beer started to flow more freely.

But many supporters drifted away once the seat was officially lost, although Ms Fitzsimons tried to turn their attention to the bigger picture - the re-election of a centre-left government.

"I think that if Labour were to go with any other party it would be a very strong move to the right and it would be a betrayal of so many of their supporters that have voted for a centre-left government," she said.

"Clearly if there is going to be a government of the left then it has to include the Greens. There is no other party that can do that."

Shortly after 11.15pm, Ms Fitzsimons told the thinning crowd that she had given Labour leader Helen Clark her backing to form a government.

"We will support the formation of a Labour-led government and ... we look forward to talking with her over the next week or two about the role we might play and about the policy basis for the next government."

Assurances from Helen Clark that she wanted to work with the same groupings as in the last Parliament indicated the Greens were Labour's first, but not only, option after the late run by Peter Dunne's United Future.

Helen Clark had mentioned the GM moratorium as a sticking point, but Ms Fitzsimons rejected the idea of open-ended backing for Labour until the moratorium ended in October next year.

"We will be looking for some kind of indication over the next couple of weeks about what Labour is going to do about that.

"I don't think they can just kind of let things hang until October next year," she said. "We do expect there will be formal talks."

But if there was any enthusiasm it was not obvious in the chilly hall as Ms Fitzsimons, husband Harry Parke, and the few remaining supporters gathered around the television to silently watch Helen Clark's victorious arrival at her Mt Albert headquarters.

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