Looking after electorate from home and away

By BERNARD ORSMAN

National Party candidate John Key is building a $5 million-plus home in Parnell, about 20km away from the West Auckland seat of Helensville he is tipped to win.

The would-be MP has also paid $630,000 for a Victorian villa on a 2ha block in Waimauku, which he plans to use as an electorate home. But the 40-year-old retired merchant banker and his family plan to make Parnell their main address.

In contrast, the National Party candidate for Tauranga, Tim Macindoe, has thrown in a senior teaching job in Cambridge, sold his home and enrolled his children at local schools in an all-out effort to dispel the carpetbagger image.

"It's incredibly important [moving to Tauranga] because I'm campaigning very hard on local issues and the line that Tauranga hasn't had an MP working hard on local issues. I've got absolutely nothing to fall back on if I lose the election," said Mr Macindoe, who is not tipped to win.

Records show that Mr Key bought three adjoining properties in Parnell's St Stephens Ave in 1997 and 2000 for a total of $3.56 million.

Two weatherboard homes on the land have since been demolished to make way for a new concrete-block house. Tradesmen are completing the two-storey house, which features five bedrooms, at least seven living, play and study areas, a wine cellar, swimming pool and three-car garage.

Mr Key gave up a career as the London-based global head of foreign exchange for Merrill Lynch and returned to New Zealand last year to pursue a lifelong ambition to be a National MP.

Christened one of the bright young hopes of the National Party, he won the nomination for the blue-ribbon seat of Helensville by beating the incumbent MP Brian Neeson by four votes in an acrimonious selection contest in March.

It is unusual, but not rare, for electorate MPs to live outside the communities they represent. Labour minister and Mt Roskill MP Phil Goff lives on a lifestyle block in Clevedon which he bought after he lost his seat in 1990. Before that he grew up and lived in Mt Roskill, including when he was the MP between 1981 and 1990.

Labour Titirangi MP David Cunliffe, who is standing in New Lynn at this election, has been out of West Auckland since 1999. The first-term MP now lives in Herne Bay on Marine Parade, one of the most exclusive streets in Auckland. Mr Cunliffe said he could not remember when he moved to Herne Bay.

Former Prime Minister Sir Robert Muldoon was in his twilight years as the MP for Tamaki when he moved across the harbour bridge to Chatswood.

Auckland University political scientist Raymond Miller said it was not unheard of for MPs to live outside their electorates, but voters frowned upon the practice.

"In New Zealand there is this long history of candidates having their roots in the electorate or living in the electorate. Sometimes the expectation is that they will meet both those requirements."

Mr Miller said voters would understand MPs who had a long association with an electorate and then moved out for whatever reason. "But if someone appears to be treating the residency requirement with some cynicism before they have even represented that electorate then I think people would take a different view."

Mr Key said he could afford to own more than one home. Besides, work had started at St Stephens Ave before he got the nod for Helensville. .

His wife would live in Parnell while he was in Wellington and their children, Stephie, 9, and Max, 7, would stick with private schooling in Auckland city.

Asked how much time he would live at Waimauku, he said: "As much as I possibly can but I don't know the demands on my time."

Mr Key said he should be judged on results, not where he slept.

"Wrongful portrayal of the kind of person that I am will cost me some votes initially. But I believe, assuming I win the seat, that three years from now this will be the safest National seat in Auckland. I think I will be very successful."

Mr Neeson, who quit National and is standing in Helensville as an independent, said Mr Key was leading voters up the garden path by giving the impression that he would be living in the electorate.

Mr Neeson was referring to a West Weekly story where Mr Key talked of his Waimauku home suiting an MP's lifestyle. The story did not mention his Parnell home.

"If you are going to be an electorate MP then commitment is needed. That commitment means being part of the community and feeling as passionate about things as the people who live here," Mr Neeson said.

"I don't think too many people will be too impressed by someone who doesn't live here."

Musical chairs around the seats

* Sir Robert Muldoon was a longtime MP for Tamaki when he moved to Chatswood on the North Shore.

* John Banks moved to Auckland months before retiring as the MP for Whangarei in 1999.

* Finance Minister Michael Cullen spent time living in Napier before he gave up the seat of Dunedin South in 1999 to go on the party list.

* First-term Labour MP David Cunliffe was elected in the West Auckland seat of Titirangi in 1999. These days he lives in Herne Bay.

* The latest boundary changes in the West Auckland electorates have caught out National MP Marie Hasler and Alliance leader Laila Harre, both longtime West Auckland residents. Hasler lives in New Lynn but is contesting Waitakere. Harre, a rival in Waitakere, lives in Te Atatu.

* Labour's candidate in Waitakere, Lynne Pillay, sold up in Remuera and bought a home in Titirangi - only to discover she was caught offside by boundary changes. Her new home is a matter of metres outside Waitakere.

* At election time, the PM and ministers live all over the place - at Premier House in Wellington, in their ministerial homes, in their electorates, in planes, the back seat of limos and shopping malls up and down the country.

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