Clare Curran
Labour Dunedin South MP Clare Curran will need to do
something "quite significant" this term if she is to stand
again, University of Otago political lecturer and commentator
Dr Bryce Edwards says.
But Ms Curran dismissed his comments, saying he had been
"relentlessly bagging me for at least a couple of years" and
she did not know why.
She suggested the primary reason Labour's vote was down in
the electorate was because nearly 5000 people did not vote.
While the candidate votes for National in the seat were
almost identical to those on election night in 2008, votes
for Ms Curran were down by 2132, giving her an election-night
majority which was 2125 lower than in 2008.
Last election, once special votes were counted, her
election-night majority rose from 5992 to 6449.
In the party vote, National made gains in the electorate on
Saturday night, with its proportion of the vote rising to
40.04% compared with the 34.03% final result at last
election.
Labour's share of the final result last election was 46.5%
compared with 34.7% on Saturday night.
Speaking about the reduction in the Labour turnout in a seat
widely regarded as one of the safest for the party in the
country, Dr Edwards said he expected there would be some
serious unhappiness about Ms Curran's candidacy.
She would need to do something quite significant to be able
to reclaim the confidence of the party in the electorate and
in party headquarters, he said.
"I think there is a very good chance she won't be standing
again in 2014," he said.
Ms Curran said there was no disquiet within the party about
her as far as she knew and she had been talking to "a number
of my colleagues".
She planned to stand again and would do everything she could
to find out why people had not voted and to give people a
reason to vote for her next time.
In North Dunedin, the collapse of the party vote was also
evident, with only 587 votes separating National and Labour
on the night, compared with 2008, when Labour was more than
4000 votes ahead.
Dr Edwards said the results in the two electorates reflected
the lack of campaigning for the party vote from both Labour
candidates, but he would give Dunedin North's new Labour MP
David Clark a bit more "leeway" than Ms Curran on that issue
since he was a first-time candidate replacing a long-serving
MP who had much loyal personal support.
National's Michael Woodhouse and Joanne Hayes had done " a
very good job".
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