Labour soul-searching in South Dunedin

Dunedin South MP Clare Curran responds to criticism following Labour's poor showing in the election.

It's important to accept accountability for the election result in Dunedin South. The buck stops with me, and Labour, while winning the seat, lost the party vote.

This is disastrous, and along with 12 of my colleagues across the country who won their seats but also suffered the defeat of the party vote in their seats, I take responsibility for ensuring we find out why and take steps to ensure it doesn't happen again.

But I reject the claims Otago University academic and political commentator Dr Bryce Edwards directed at me last week.

First, he said I would need to do something significant to retain the confidence of the party in the electorate and the party headquarters. Second, he inferred I would not be standing again. This was on the basis of the results for Dunedin South on election night.

In order to be taken credibly as a political commentator, he should have considered his comments more carefully and looked at the wider context for Labour across the country.

In many of the seats retained by Labour, the party vote went to National and the Greens. In some, such as Dunedin South, New Zealand First benefited more.

A couple of stats: the percentage of votes cast for me in 2011 was 49.1% (compared to 52.3% in 2008). There are still nearly 3000 special votes to count in Dunedin South and about 1600 fewer people voted.

Labour's party vote percentage in Dunedin South on November 26 was 35%, compared with National's 40%.

Across New Zealand, Labour achieved 27% of the party vote, compared with National's 48%.

Labour lost heavily in the party vote consistently across the South Island.

In terms of the actual numbers of party votes for Labour, Dunedin South is 6th nationwide.

That said, the election result in Dunedin South was more than a wake-up call for me and the Labour Party.

Coming second in the party vote simply shouldn't happen in Dunedin South, or Christchurch Central or Te Atatu - but it did. And, over the next few weeks and months, Labour's No 1 priority - and my own - will be to find out how and why it happened, so that, working together, we can win back the support Labour lost.

It's a responsibility I welcome, and have undertaken willingly, asking every constituent I've met since the election whether they voted Labour and if they didn't, why not.

I've found a few. "Too busy," "didn't know who to vote for so I didn't", "couldn't see the point", have been some of the responses. This is the real tragedy of the election. When one-third of the voting public doesn't bother to vote, we know we have a problem.

I think when the analysis has been done we'll find that many of those who didn't vote were likely Labour voters.

Which requires Labour to have a good, long look at itself, Dunedin South included.

Everything should be on the table for discussion; from the organisational capacity, the way we campaigned, our policies and how the parliamentary party operates.

I have worked hard to raise the profile of South Dunedin, highlighting the issues it faces and its strengths.

"South Dunedin's Got Talent" will hold its third competition in early 2012 and there is now a community group forming to provide an independent voice for that part of our city. I have fought to retain train-building at Hillside workshops and built a strong relationship with the Chamber of Commerce, Dunedin City Council and engineering cluster businesses around common objectives.

I believe there are serious issues to be addressed with regards to getting right the school closures and mergers in our city and I will take an active role in that.

I have articulated the need for more leadership and working together around formulating a strong economic development plan for our city. And we must retain services.

As a first-term MP, I managed the complex portfolios of communications and IT and broadcasting. I led the charge in Parliament and in the telecommunications sector which resulted in Communications Minister Steven Joyce being forced into a substantial back-down on his Telco Bill to provide a 10-year regulatory holiday for Telecom, to which he then awarded the billion dollar ultrafast broadband scheme.

With the Hillside jobs under threat and the prospect of China being awarded the contract for thousands of rail wagons that should be built at home, I led the push within the Labour caucus to shift our policy to ensure taxpayers' money on government procurement was more likely to be spent at home, adding value to our economy.

I was responsible for a significant shift in Labour policy on copyright infringement to ensure that termination of internet accounts was not an option for downloading and sharing files for personal use.

I produced New Zealand's first comprehensive open government policy which commits to an Open Government Charter; a set of principles and actions to instil greater confidence in government.

People deserve to know the democratic process around parliamentary law-making is sound.

Unfortunately, this did not receive much public attention in the recent election campaign.

And I developed Labour's broadcasting policy, which would have seen a new public television broadcaster incorporating TVNZ7.

And finally, I have worked for three years to build stronger channels of open communication between politicians and people using the internet as a medium. Labour developed Red Alert, the first MP's blog where Labour MPs write freely their thoughts on issues and allow the public to comment and engage with them. This is revolutionary. Many MPs are also using Facebook and Twitter to communicate directly with people. I have helped to lead that change.

I came into Parliament pledging to do what I could to do politics differently, and I think I've made a reasonable start. I am proud of what I achieved in my first term. I could always have done more. I'll try to do better this time for Dunedin South, because that's what matters most.