Labour loses party vote on specials

One of few bright spots for the Labour Party on election night was hanging on to the party vote in Dunedin North, but special votes have overturned its 24-vote lead in that electorate.

Labour lost to National by 155 votes in the final count, confirmed last Saturday.

The result underscores Labour's lost connection with provincial New Zealand.

Outside Auckland, Labour did not win the party vote anywhere, apart from Maori seats.

However, the Labour-Green Party bloc in Dunedin North received more than 19,000 votes, compared with 11,302 for National.

Dunedin North Labour Party MP David Clark is determined to see the positives in Labour's Dunedin North result.

He was pleased with Labour's Dunedin campaign, he said when contacted yesterday.

It focused heavily on targeted policies that would benefit the city, and that had worked well.

''We're certainly not resting on our laurels because we're a long way from being in government, and there's clearly a lot more to do to convince the voters.

''We should be an absolute fortress down this end of the country ...''

Without an unfavourable boundary change, which brought in rural areas to the north of Dunedin, Labour probably would have won the party vote, he said.

The party vote was ''on loan'' to National only. Dunedin North National list MP Michael Woodhouse reckoned the party vote was on ''long-term loan'' to his party.

''I'm not going to be handing it back to them. We'll be working hard to continue to be the highest polling party in Dunedin.

''We certainly intend it to be a long-term loan because we've now won Dunedin South twice in a row.''

Dunedin North was an ''extremely'' left-leaning electorate, thus the result there was ''very, very good'' for National.

Nearly 5000 extra party votes were cast compared with 2011, he said, possibly reflecting the early vote message promoted around the University of Otago campus.

In Dunedin South, the National Party received 2485 more party votes than Labour.

The combined Labour-Green bloc was more than 17,100 party votes compared with National's 15,003 votes.

eileen.goodwin@odt.co.nz

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