Brian Rudman: McCarten's tough childhood more riveting than politics

Revelations that Auckland voters are the most fickle in the land come as no surprise. As leaders of fashion, we've always flirted with the latest trends. Values, Social Credit, New Zealand Party, Act, Alliance, New Labour, - we were quick to embrace them all, and just as quick to move on.

Over the past couple of weeks we've been scurrying to back the Greens and New Zealand First, leaving Labour with just 37 per cent support here compared with more than 50 per cent backing in the provinces.

In 1987, the traffic was very much in the other direction, when self-interest so overwhelmed the well-heeled of Remuera that they came within a handful of votes of electing Labour's Judith Tizard as their representative.

Matt McCarten's just published memoir, Rebel in the Ranks recalls a rather less self-serving voter rebellion in the traditional Labour stronghold of Auckland Central which began around the same time. It ended six years later with one of the city's richest per capita electorates dumping established Labour MP Richard Prebble in favour of the Alliance's Sandra Lee.

The battle between the left and the right in Auckland Central was the bloodiest and most public of the battles that split the Labour Party at the time. Young union official McCarten was the rebels' backroom general, current Auckland City councillor Bruce Hucker, the public face.

Having served as the Ponsonby war correspondent for the Auckland Sun during these tumultuous times, this was the first chapter of his book I turned to. I had forgotten the fisticuffs, the nominations that went astray, and the busloads of unionists brought in as voting fodder at crucial branch meetings to counteract the busloads of immigrants brought in by the other side.

Above all, I had forgotten the numbers involved. At the height of the battle, the competing armies charging about the electorate had about 800 members apiece. This was about 10 per cent of the Labour Party's total national membership.

McCarten has a great repertoire of anecdotes. There's the time Prebble called him to his home and told him they were both tough guys, and should be on the same side. This was just as Prebble's then wife, the legendary Fijian fireball Nancy, walked in with a huge tray of cakes and tea.

"What, you a tough guy?," she said. "If it wasn't for me you wouldn't be where you are today." Then, after giving McCarten a flea in his ear as well, she said they could both learn from Fijian coup leader Rabuka's approach to democracy.

At Prebble's hint she leave, Nancy stormed out, slamming the door behind her.

McCarten piped up, "Sorry, Richard, you were saying you're a tough guy, right."

We've had deprived-boy-done-good stories from politicians such as John Banks and Mike Moore in the past, but the McCarten saga is in a class of its own - part Tom Sawyer, part Oliver Twist.

Early on, he observes that when growing up he thought his childhood was normal - as all kids do - because it was the only one he knew. It wasn't.

I began the book to read the Auckland Central saga and the inside story of the rise and fall of the Alliance, but the childhood chapters linger in the memory.

"I was lucky enough to spend the first five years of my life with the nuns," he says. "I reckon if you give a kid a good start, they'll be able to cope with anything that life throws at them later." His childhood was to test this theory to the fullest.

For his first two years, he lived in the Home of St Vincent's, Herne Bay. Then it was off to the Home of Compassion in Wellington's Island Bay. He knew nothing of his mother - who had been told he died at birth - until he was 14, or, for several years, of two brothers and a sister, also in care.

An unknown dad turned up when he was 5 and packed him off to another orphanage in Otaki. At age 7 it was off to a rat-infested, late 20th-century Dotheboys Hall, run by the Brethren in Otaki. There, he says sadistic beatings were a fact of life.

Sex too - between the kids. By the age of 11, McCarten had joined the nocturnal trips up the fire escape to the girls' dormitory. The staff tried to stamp it out by paying girls a $1 to shop the boys. The girls used to take the money and continue with the sex.

One 13-year-old boy was seduced by a 19-year-old staffer. She got pregnant, he was sent to Lake Alice psychiatric hospital for shock treatment to punish him for his "perversions".

In his mid-teens, McCarten united with his mother and ended up supporting her and several younger siblings by working nights.

Half awake, he completed his schooling, miraculously sitting and passing his University Entrance. Near breakdown and jobless, he stole a gun to rob a bank. I won't spoil the ending.

Through it all, he retains a well- developed sense of the ridiculous, and an optimism that comes from goodness knows where. It's a remarkable read.

Full news coverage:
nzherald.co.nz/election

Election links:
The parties, policies, voting information, and more

Ask a politician:
Send us a question, on any topic, addressed to any party leader. We'll choose the best questions to put to the leaders, and publish the answers in our election coverage.