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The actual story

Dom Post here:

Mr Blumsky revealed he was unsure whether he would stand again for Parliament, when commenting on suggestions that he was eyeing up his old job as Wellington mayor. He enjoyed a high profile in the job from 1995 till 2001, then as chief executive of business incubator Creative HQ.

He failed to wrest the Wellington Central seat from Labour's Marian Hobbs in 2005 and has been almost invisible in Parliament as a list MP.

"I'm one of these characters, and I go around telling kids, you've got to really feel you can add value, make a difference, enjoy what you're doing," he said. "I can assure you now you make no difference as a backbench MP."

If you feel you are not effective in Parliament, why wouldn't you just change your operating style so you were effective?

Blumsky to go?

The Dominion Post is apparently (according to TVNZ - so a pinch of salt might be needed) leading tomorrow with a story that Mark Blumsky, low-profile National List MP in Wellington, is considering ending his career in parliamentary politics.

Interesting if true... I'll look forward to seeing what the report says in the morning, what the source is, etc.

It has struck me that since the election, Mark has had a very low profile. If he had been intending to be a serious challenger for Wellington Central in 2008, I would have expected a very different pattern of issue advocacy, visibility and campaigning than I have seen.

So regardless of the article, Blumsky isn't exactly doing what he could be expected to be doing if he was keen for another round... and having managed one successful campaign in this seat, I think I have a fair idea what I am talking about!

Marian Hobbs

As has been known in some Wellington circles for some months, Marian Hobbs is standing down as MP for Wellington Central at the 2008 General Election to pursue a career teaching in the UK. This is hardly news but is now circulating on the blogs, so I thought I'd post a few thoughts.

Marian has been MP for Wellington Central since 1999, and was a Labour List MP for the term before that. She beat Richard Prebble in 1999, Hekia Parata in 2002, and Mark Blumsky in 2005, with a larger majority each election (6180 at the most recent outing).

Marian contributed to the Labour caucus in a range of ways. I have only been working with her since 2002, but her long and varied ministerial career from 1999 to 2005 is well known. As a passionate and forceful Minister for Disarmament and Arms Control, her voice was heard and respected around the world upholding New Zealand's nuclear free position. Good work in Environment was another of her passions, as was the work she did around the National Library and Archives, modernising their legislative framework and massively expanding the resources they had to have to cope with the demands of the 21st century. There is much more.

Aside from Cabinet work, Marian has held (and does hold) positions on various party bodies (including our governing NZ Council, and the party's Policy Council) and overall made a solid contribution to Labour in government.

Wellington Central, of course, was the focus of her local work. I had the chance to work for Marian for a few months in 2002 when I was finding my feet in the city. She has a highly capable style in dealing with personal advocacy issues, and was active and visible in a huge range of communities around the electorate from selection in 1998 through to today - and I know she will continue that work right up to the next election. Her character and personality are well known and well liked in the city, and her departure will leave large shoes to fill for the next Labour candidate.

Her decision to stand down from Cabinet was her own, as is her decision to not seek re-selection by the Labour Party in Wellington Central. Marian is not an ordinary politician in any sense of the word. She decided that she had made a solid contribution at Cabinet level, but that it was time to give some new players a chance to cut their teeth.

Now, after twelve years service to Wellington, to the Labour Party and to New Zealand's Parliament, she has made the call to move on and pursue some of her other interests. No doubt interviews with her in the next few months will have further detail on what those plans are. It is a considerable privilege to have dealt with a politician who is capable of considering the interests of the whole party, and making decisions on that basis.

As I said before, I have worked with Marian since 2002 - as a staffer, as an electorate chair, as an assistant and full Campaign Manager. She is unlike any other politician I have come across in the Labour Party. She has always put the party's interests first. Her combination of a pragmatic ability to deal with process and the nasty side of politics, and a strongly idealistic and visionary attachment to social democratic and liberal values is a useful base for a politician to have.

Combine that with her passion, her energy, political insight, ready laugh, even temper and simple enjoyment of meeting new people and learning new things, it is hard to imagine a better candidate and MP to work with, in my jobs as a voluntary party organiser in Wellington Central. Of all the MPs I have worked with over the years, working with Marian has been the most positive - informative - and hilarous experience.

Like many, I will be sad to see her go.

Thank you, Marian, for all you've done: for Wellington and for Labour. I wish you the best of luck for the rest of this term, and to working with you during that time. I hope that post-Parliamentary life is as stimulating and useful for you as the past few years have been.

Note - I have disabled comments on this post for obvious reasons (if not obvious, please feel free to refer to the contents of almost any other comments thread on this blog!).

Interesting on Wellington Central National

From Scoop:

The biggest recipient of anonymous donor largesse turned out to be National's failed Wellington central candidate Mark Blumsky. Over the course of the campaign Mr Blumsky's coffers where aided by an anonymous donation of $38,500. 

According to a spokesman for the Chief Electoral Officer a donation of this magnitude does not necessarily need to be left in brown paper bags in the candidates letter box – however the candidate themselves (in this case Mark Blumsky) must be blissfully unaware of where the donation originated from.

(note:  When contacted by A Week of It Mr Blumsky seemed certain his donations had gone through a trust and seemed surprised they had been included on the return as anonymous.)

I guess it just goes to show that money doesn't always prove able to buy elections! In this case people power plus large number of small donations won the day.

Some snippets about Wgtn Central

• Marian's majority is up to 6180, making Wellington Central the 32nd most marginal seat in the country (up from 31 on election night).
• Wellington Central's party vote for Labour was up to 17,900, compared with 13,600 last time. 43.2%, up 1% on election night.
• 41,400 people voted in Wgtn Central, the highest turnout (86%) in New Zealand.

A nice result.

Wellington Central Result

I was very, very pleased with the results of the election in Wellington Central last night. Some basic numbers:

Party Vote:

2002
Labour - 13,668 (36.9%)
National - 7,396 (20.0%)

2005
Labour - 14,630 (42.4%)
National - 11,512 (33.3%)

Constituency Vote:

2002
Hobbs - 14,906 (41.1%)
Parata - 10,725 (29.5%)

2005
Hobbs - 17,090 (49.5%)
Blumsky - 11,987 (34.7%)

This is a testament to thousands of hours of work by hundred of Labour Party members and supporters over the past year. A campaign team I had the pleasure to lead mixed experience campaigners with a lot of fresh blood, from a range of perspectives - students, workers, professionals and unionists all in together.

Of course, the kingpin of any campaign is the candidate. It has been simply excellent working with Marian Hobbs over the past four years at electorate level, and particularly during this campaign. Her phenomenal knowledge of Wellington Central - people, issues and needs - combined with her deep policy knowledge from six years in Cabinet meant she was a formidable opponent for anyone to take on.

She carried through a tough series of public meetings, house meetings and campaign stops with flair and aplomb. She knew her party's policies. She engaged with people in a way that simply works for Wellington.

I am very proud that in a campaign which saw a massive National resurgence of 20 points across New Zealand, we GREW the Labour Party vote by 5.5 points, and boosted Marian's own vote by over 2000 votes or 7.1%. The majority has grown from 4,181 to 5,107 (pre special votes) despite the National candidate's vote increasing too.

I'd just mention thanks to David Farrar and Mark Blumsky. While some of their supporters seemed to mis-understand that politics in Wellington is about arguments and sensible debate, they did not. They came and did their concession to us at the Loaded Hog last night about 9.20pm, civil to the end.

In a tight national result, a very very good Labour outcome in Wellington. Thanks again to all those who gave us your support and your work. Wellington Central can reasonably now be described as a safe Labour seat, and that is a testament to a great campaign and strong support from the people of Wellington. All good.

Wellington Central poll

Nice poll in the Weekend Dominion Post:

Lab - 49%
Nat - 30%
Green - 16% (not 100% sure - can't find full party vote results on the web, will review tonight).

On the constituency:

Hobbs - 42%
Blumsky - 26%
Kedgley - 5%
Franks - 3%
McKenzie - 1%

Sweet. :-)

Candidates' Forum at VUW

Another day, another candidates' forum - this one in the VUW Quad.

Predictable responses from predictable speakers, talking about student support policies in a cold and damp quad. Labour and Greens policies for student support, a nuclear free NZ, dealing with global warming etc went down best with a small student audience.

The only bits which might have been notable or interesting are:

• Marian Hobbs, thanking David Farrar, for chasing her assailant of Tuesday night up Aro St, along with Greg Stephens. Marian concluded that thanks by saying that she recommended "More jogging, less blogging" to David, which earned a laugh :-)
• Mark Blumsky, for failing to ask for the electorate vote at any point in his speech, questions or concluding comments - I thought he was standing for Wellington Central? (Indeed, Marian was the only candidate *at all* to ask for the electorate vote.)
• Destiny Church candidate, for showing up at all. The guy got booed - for everything.

The next meeting in Wellington Central's punishing schedule is tonight, in Karori. The Dominion Post will carry its poll on Wellington Central on Saturday.

Aro Valley Public Meeting

In the spirit of the season, I went along to the Aro Public Meeting last night. David Farrar has a good post on it, and shows links to other accounts.

It really was a brilliant meeting. The heckling during the speeches was a little loud, but the question session was fast-paced and witty, with brilliant interjections from all around the audience. The room was absolutely packed. I was pushed up against a Young Nat also called Jordan, which was slightly surreal.

I still think that Michael Appleby is the best speaker, specially in that forum. Marian and Mark did OK, Marian noisy and Mark picking up his volume from the previous meetings. Aro is always tough work for a Labour candidate, being attacked from Left and Right, but Marian batted back fine as she has been through this campaign.

The only down side was the incident outside the hall at the end, when some young anarchist kid came running and threw something at Marian, which just touched the edge of her head. Yoghurt or something similar. A nasty end to a boisterous meeting. Nice to see DPF and Greg chasing the culprit - I decided to walk my candidate to her car instead.

If only all the meetings had such good question sessions!

Next public meetings in Wgtn Central

The next two I'm going to are at:

Brooklyn - Sunday night from about 7pm, Brooklyn Community Centre, Harrison St.

Aro Valley - Tuesday night from about 7.30pm, Aro Community Hall, Aro St.

Strongly urge any of you who are voters in Wellington Central (or Rongotai, in the case of the Brooklyn one) to come along and see the debate. These meetings are good fun, and you can form your own impression of how the candidates are doing, instead of relying on any partisan reports.