Labour MP moves fast in his 'shameless' hustle for votes

Chris Carter

No matter how lofty your status in a government of the Queen's Realm, eliciting votes still involves wearing out shoe leather. So Te Atatu MP and Cabinet minister Chris Carter, holder of the conservation, ethnic affairs, local government and building issues portfolios, is tramping the footpaths on dead-quiet Montmere Ave.

Canvassing, says the genial, boyish Carter, 53, is about two things: "dodging dogs and enrolling people to vote". Despite being the minister who "fenced them, leashed them, muzzled them, and now I'm going to microchip them", man's best friend is the politician's worst.

Carter doesn't want a repeat of the 1999 campaign, when a pit bull mauled his thigh. (The best savage animal story so far this campaign involves a large and bolshie pig, which shot out from under a Massey house and chased a Carter volunteer.)

The MP is carrying lists of who lives where and their occupations, and, if he knows, their political leanings. On a sunny morning with monarch butterflies dancing in the spring breeze, few people are home - "high employment", says Carter.

A keen gardener, he scribbles "great garden!" on the back of a few cards ("Shameless, aren't I"). He has also been known to write "Great guard dogs!"

When Carter does find a human at home, the majority recognise him and declare themselves Labour voters. Carter's majority is an unassailable 13,000.

But he doesn't linger: "I'm a master at moving fast - getting in, saying hi, identifying where the support is and getting out again. Some of my colleagues get trapped into long periods on doorsteps. I've got it down to two minutes, max. People who are wanting an argument take longer than that to wind up."

After 90 minutes, the score card: one new enrolment, three enrolment forms given out, three dissuading dogs, two signs stapled onto a fan's fence ("shameless, aren't I"), two cheers for Labour's student loan policy, several dozen leaflets dispersed, one of them in Chinese, and mild irritation that there isn't one in Hindi.

Carter, who has said that he is "obsessive-compulsive", returns to his electorate office on New North Rd, Henderson, to carefully colour on a map the just-done streets.

"I have no fears that I will lose," he says. "That's not going to happen." But doorstopping "shows people that you value their vote".