Key electorate: Auckland Central

By ANNE BESTON

Auckland Central: sophisticated heart of a vibrantly cosmopolitan city or lair of latte-slurping materialists, depending on your point of view.

A suspiciously small number of four-wheel drives, or Ponsonby-puddle-jumpers as they're known in these parts, line the streets outside Bayfield School for this meet-the-candidates meeting, raising immediate doubts whether the 60 or so people who have braved tonight's foul weather are typical of the electorate.

The school is in the heart of Herne Bay, home of the four-bedrooms-plus-study-with-sea-views villa. There are probably more coffee grinders per square kilometre here than anywhere else in the country.

Auckland Central is also home, and will be for the foreseeable future, to Judith Tizard, Labour's Arts, Culture and Heritage Minister and Minister advising the Prime Minister on Auckland issues. Her closest opponent is the irrepressible Pansy Wong, National list MP and Ponsonby resident.

Ms Wong's giant blue posters, with a harbour view of Auckland behind a big view of her, line the walls. Ms Tizard's signs are hastily propped up at the last minute and are an eighth the size - if you're a Labour MP with a 5000-plus majority, you can probably leave the trying to your rivals.

But there is a question mark hanging over Auckland Central this election - where will the 6000-plus votes for Sandra Lee go now that the Alliance deputy leader has retired?

National ran second in Auckland Central in 1999 and will be hoping to get some of those votes on July 27.

But a good chunk of them could go to Green candidate Nandor Tanczos, even though he is campaigning for the party vote.

He has yet to arrive for tonight's meeting and chairman John Elliott, editor of the Ponsonby Community Newsletter, is wondering out loud where might be. "Probably smoking a joint," the night's amateur comic quips.

The teachers' strike and the selling of pensioner housing by Auckland City Council are the two big issues facing candidates. Angry protesters forced councillors to vacate their chamber when the issue went to the vote this year. Lisa Prager, of Auckland Mayor John Banks' "and-a-woman-was-sitting-in-my-seat-in-a-cowboy-suit" fame, is here to tackle Ms Tizard on why she hasn't done more to stop the sell-off.

Under fire, the local MP says: "I think it's a catastrophic decision. Let's make sure we tell Auckland City Council that. I am certainly doing that."

Listening to Ms Tizard is a bit like being advised by a well-meaning friend during a crisis - it sounds good at the time but afterwards you can't remember a word that was said.

But pensioner housing is even tougher for Ms Wong, forced to follow her party's line that central Government should keep out of local government business. It is not what this audience wants to hear.

In faded khakis and with knee-length dreadlocks, Nandor Tanczos delivers an opening address that gives greetings to the Rastafarian god, the sky, the forests and everyone's ancestors. The audience reacts with a mixture of embarrassment, amazement and tolerant good-humour. In this electorate, at this election, it is easy being Green.

It's not so easy being the Alliance's Mike Treen. When he begins preaching a hell-fire damnation of the evils of the fourth Labour Government "which destroyed this country while being besotted with right-wing ideology", the audience is instantly awake. Jeering and heckling, they force him back to his seat. "Which Alliance are you from?" the comic shouts.

Mr Treen's booming voice contrasts with Jim Anderton's Progressive Coalition (the name alone is a handicap) candidate Vivienne Shepherd, a nervous first-timer.

Tall and slightly stooping, she somehow gets into a long ramble linking her party's law and order policy to a drop in the crime rate in Dannevirke. It's too much for the comic: "Only three people live there!" he shouts.

But if this is Ms Shepherd's first campaign, it's unlikely to be her last. About to retreat, she suddenly steps forward, gestures towards Act Party candidate Dr Lech Beltowski, whose party is campaigning on a zero-tolerance-for-crime policy and says: "My party believes in justice and a fair and tolerant society for all and I ask how anyone could vote for a party with a slogan of zero tolerance!"

The audience is so stunned they almost forget to clap.

The meeting finishes late, the audience, having done more than most for Election 2002, drifts away. Despite the candidates' efforts, the 54-year-old woman in the lime-green top and tortoiseshell glasses shrugs her shoulders.

"I still don't know who to vote for," she says.

Candidates:

Judith Tizard - Labour

Pansy Wong - National

Nandor Tanczos - Greens

Vivienne Shepherd - Jim Anderton's Progressive Coalition

Mike Treen - Alliance

Lech Beltowski - Act

Neil Head - Independent

Sean Reynolds - Christian Heritage

Steve Taylor - United Future

Anthony Van Den Heuvel - Human Rights Party

1999 Result: Labour (majority 5285)

1996 Result: Labour (majority 3353)

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.