Loss in Maungakiekie could spell end for National's Vernon

By HELEN TUNNAH

National list MP Belinda Vernon has an unenviable task.

As her party rates poorly in opinion polls, she must overcome a 2512-vote Labour majority to win back her old seat of Maungakiekie. Boundary changes slashing prime National territory have made her job harder.

She knows that if she does not win, her political career may be over, as she has been shunted down National's list to make way for new blood.

Ms Vernon has to campaign against sitting Labour MP and Cabinet minister Mark Gosche, whose wife remains seriously ill in hospital.

Carol Gosche suffered a brain haemorrhage in Wellington in May.

Mr Gosche is spending most of his time with his wife, and fellow MPs and party workers have picked up his electorate work. Other ministers have taken on his Cabinet duties.

Mr Gosche, who has three adult children, says he has campaigned at weekend street-corner rallies and is focusing his limited time in the electorate on pockets where Labour polled well at the last election.

The door-knocking and other campaigning is shared by list candidates Carol Beaumont and Dave Maka and by party workers.

An Otahuhu local for 20 years, Mr Gosche says his wife is well known in the community through her union and education work. The support his family has received is welcome.

"The wonderful warmth and spirit of a community certainly comes to the fore when things like this happen."

Both Mr Gosche and Ms Vernon, the local MP from 1996 to 1999, identify the same issues as those worrying constituents - health, education and law and order.

There has been an increased focus on crime after the killing of three people, two of them constituents, at the neighbouring Mt Wellington-Panmure RSA and the shooting of Mangere Bridge bank worker John Vaughan.

Ms Vernon says another problem is the inability of qualified new migrants to overcome the reluctance of New Zealand employers to give them jobs.

She was elected an MP in 1996, and despite losing to Mr Gosche was returned to Parliament in 1999 courtesy of her ranking at No 10 on the National Party list.

She slid to No 23 this year as former Reserve Bank Governor Don Brash, of Wellington, and Christchurch list MP Pansy Wong moved north to instil "new" faces for Auckland. Newcomer Allan Peachey, the Rangitoto College principal, was also ranked highly and Ms Vernon and two other Auckland MPs, Arthur Anae and Marie Hasler, found themselves on the slide.

National polled just 23 per cent in a Herald-DigiPoll survey this week, and Ms Vernon knows the party must get 30 per cent for her to be returned as a list MP.

Mr Gosche says he is surprised that Ms Vernon has been pushed down the party list. He rates her a hardworking, competent MP.

Ms Vernon, a former shipping company secretary once tipped to be a Cabinet minister, has kept a tight rein on her thoughts.

"I had my chance last time at No 10," she said.

"You can't expect to maintain your ranking, because the party wants to bring through new faces.

"I was personally disappointed but I understood the strategy."

The pair are not only opponents in the electorate, but in the transport portfolio. He is the minister and she is National's spokeswoman.

That has been one area where her quiet profile in the past three years has earned her some criticism.

Within parliamentary circles, there is a feeling Ms Vernon works too well with Labour when the norm is for more confrontational politics.

"I don't like personality politics," Ms Vernon says. "It's the one thing that I really dislike about the perception of Parliament and I've done my utmost to keep away from that.

"With Carol being so ill he [Mr Gosche] hasn't been able to be out on the streets, and nobody would expect him or want him to be. He should be with his wife.

"It has influenced the way I've campaigned. It has meant that I've focused at looking at National and National interests, rather than trying to score points.

"People can look over the last three and six years and work out who they want to represent them."

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