Greens to contest Nick Smith’s seat in Nelson

Written By: - Date published: 7:00 am, June 24th, 2017 - 41 comments
Categories: election 2017, Environment, greens, nick smith, water - Tags: ,

Green Party Run Campaign to Unseat Nick Smith in Nelson

Friday, 23 June 2017, 10:27 am Press Release: Green Party

The Green Party is today announcing that its Nelson candidate, second term local councillor Matt Lawrey, will run to win the electorate and unseat Nick Smith in September’s election.

Mr Lawrey and the Green Party will run a strong two-tick campaign in Nelson, and will offer a positive, solutions-based alternative to Dr Smith and National. It is the Green Party’s first run at winning an electorate seat since Jeanette Fitzsimons won Coromandel in 1999.

“Matt Lawrey will be an excellent voice in Parliament for the people of Nelson,” said Green Party Co-leader James Shaw.

“He brings fresh ideas and leadership on issues that Nelsonians care about – protecting our environment, ensuring every Kiwi has a warm, safe, dry home, and creating public spaces that put people first.

“On the other hand, Nick Smith has come to represent much of what’s wrong with this broken-down National government.

“While he was housing minister, house prices and homelessness skyrocketed. As environment minister, his newly revised ‘swimmable’ rivers target is a joke. It’s time for new ideas and energy in Nelson, and Matt represents that,” said Mr Shaw.

Mr Lawrey says he is humbled by the party’s support and thrilled to be directly taking on Nick Smith in the race to represent Nelson.

“Since winning the Nelson candidacy I’ve been approached by a tonne of people who tell me things have gone too far under National,” said Mr Lawrey.

“They’re angry about the state of our rivers, they’re unhappy about rising inequality, and they’re worried that their kids are never going to able to afford to buy their own home. They also think that after 27 years of Nick Smith, it’s time for a new MP.”

Mr Lawrey’s priorities for Nelson are improving the health of the region’s rivers, making it easier for Nelsonians to get into a warm, dry home, and getting a long overdue walkway/cycleway built on the city’s waterfront.

“I love being a Nelson Councillor but I could do so much more for the city as its MP,” he said.

From Lawrey’s Green Party bio,

Matt is a Nelson City Councillor and has run two highly successful local government campaigns. Before politics he enjoyed a career in broadcasting and journalism in which he championed environmental and social justice issues.

Career highlights include winning two New Zealand Radio Awards, working on live television and hosting TV ONE’s Business is Booming. He famously asked John Key on-air whether in 1981 he was for or against the Springbok Tour. Key answered, “I can’t remember.”

Smart move by the Greens. Water is going to be a key election issue and there’s been ample backstory on Nick Smith’s poor record on protecting water over the past few years. He’s also been increasingly seen as incompetent in his various roles.

I don’t know what kind of chance there is of Smith losing his seat (see chart below for 2014 results). It depends on what Labour do, but they are running a new, low-profile candidate with the loss of local list MP Maryan Street in 2014. The left vote will likely be somewhat split between the two parties, and Smith had a 7,000 majority in the last General Election. Candidate Matt Lawrey on RNZ,

They say a week is a long time in politics, three years is an eternity, and I think the mood in Nelson has changed.

He says Nelson voters want more action on water, housing and inequality as well as improvements to the local waterfront. James Shaw believes that Lawrey has a fair crack at the seat and that Smith was vulnerable because of his record in the housing and environment portfolios over the past three years. Smith himself says that he’s not concerned with keeping a large majority, which I guess is him pre-empting at least losing a big chunk of it.

The Greens have received a large donation specifically for the Nelson and West Coast-Tasman electorate campaigns and will be spending the full amount allowable under Electoral Commission rules in Nelson ($25,000 per seat).

But this will also be about the Greens raising their party vote locally and nationally and using the Nelson campaign to focus on the importance of changing the government. It would still be a good result putting a nice big dent in Smith’s vote, and upping the GP list vote. All power to them.

2014 General Election results for Nelson

Party vote Candidate vote
Greens 5,381 3,449
Labour 9,401 12,395
NZF 2,918 Nil
National 16,904 20,000
Conservatives 2,094 1,125

41 comments on “Greens to contest Nick Smith’s seat in Nelson ”

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  1. swordfish 1
    24 June 2017 at 8:17 am

    An uphill battle – to put it mildly.

    Party Vote 2014
    Green = 14%
    Labour = 25%
    Right Bloc = 51%

    Candidate Vote 2014
    Street (Labour) = 33%
    Robertson (Green) = 9%
    Smithy-boy (Nat) = 53%

    So, you know, being realistic …..
    .
    Would’ve been a long-shot even if the Left had managed to agree on just the one candidate.

    Still, good luck to him – let’s hope Smith’s poor reputation resonates locally.

    • Cinny 1.1
      24 June 2017 at 9:54 am

      This will be an interesting battle, Smith is pro southern link and has been riding on the possibility of that ticket for decades. Nelson people are honestly getting really sick of him but have not been presented with another viable choice, until now.

      Matt is anti Southern Link and a very switched on Journalist, he has quite a bit of support and is very well known around Nelson City. While on the council he has called them out on a number of questionable issues. He will campaign hard and he walks the talk.

      Shaw is correct about Water and Housing being top issues for Nelson, locals have to contend with ‘sunshine wages’ making purchasing a house hard enough before house values went through the roof. And we love our water, surrounded by rivers, lakes and beaches, water quality is massively important to the locals. No matter which political party people vote for, everyone wants clean unpolluted water.

      We’ve had countless stories about poverty in the local paper over the last or so.

      Maybe the decider will be who will get Lewis Stanton out of the CBD, lolz, that’s a whole other story.

      All the best Matt, might have to make it to a candidate debate, I’d say it would be worth the drive over, would love to see you and Nickoff go head to head.

      • swordfish 1.1.1
        24 June 2017 at 1:31 pm

        Interesting.

        Left vote’s going to be hopelessly split, though.

        The actual City of Nelson, incidentally, is much more evenly divided between Left and Right than the Seat as a whole.

        Deep Blue town of Richmond’s 4300 voters ‘skewer things towards the Right – as does the large Blue-ish outer suburb of Stoke.

        After Dunedin and Wellington, Nelson and Palmy are the Left’s strongest cities

        • Cinny 1.1.1.1
          24 June 2017 at 2:23 pm

          It a shame they moved the boundaries, I know many in Richmond who would much rather still be included in the Tasman Electorate.

          Another thing to mention is we have many oldies here, I’d say Nickoff has lost a few votes over the years due to end of live cycles.

    • billmurray 1.2
      24 June 2017 at 12:17 pm

      The MoU is not working, there should only be one left vote.
      I despair at the ego trips.

      • Draco T Bastard 1.2.1
        24 June 2017 at 1:29 pm

        Of course it’s working. The problem is the funding rules.

        Each party gets an amount they can use for essentially national advertising and, on top of that, they can also spend $25000 per electorate. The national spend is limited by size of the party and if they’re in parliament or not.

        This means that a small party, to get effective national coverage, needs to run a candidate in every electorate.

        I’d prefer that the funding be: Number of electorates * $25000 + $2,000,000
        Then each party could spend it where they liked and they could be more circumspect as to where they ran electorate candidates.

        It would also mean that each party would have the same maximum spend.

    • Richard McGrath 1.3
      25 June 2017 at 2:42 pm

      “…if the Left had managed to agree on just the one candidate”

      Labour should pull out and give the Greens candidate a decent chance at beating the slimy and disgusting incumbent MP

  2. Shona 2
    24 June 2017 at 9:40 am

    any chance of Labour standing down??

    • weka 2.1
      24 June 2017 at 12:14 pm

      no. Both parties are against that kind of dealing. If Labour wanted to it could have not stood a candidate in the first place, but Labour has a position and tradition of standing in every electorate. Also, their candidate last time got way more votes than the Greens. And candidates campaigning generates party votes, so neither party is going to give that up unless there is a bloody good reason. In this case, Smith losing won’t change the outcome of the election, so this is more about local issues and the party vote IMO.

      It’s also about changing the govt. Smart move to go hard against one of National’s senior but politically vulnerable MPs. I don’t know the Labour candidate hope we see a similar kind of ‘working together but still separate parties’ that we saw with Genter and Ardern in the Mt Albert by-election.

      • billmurray 2.1.1
        24 June 2017 at 1:01 pm

        weka,
        IMO your political thinking is off cue, there should only be one candidate from the left, party votes can still be give to either party.
        This should be seen for what it is, ego tripping from a local councillor.
        Divide and conquer is being played by Labour and the Greens against themselves.

      • Karen 2.1.2
        24 June 2017 at 1:04 pm

        My understanding is that there was some talk last year about not putting up a Labour candidate in Nelson to give the Green candidate a better chance but the local Labour Party was upset about the proposal. Labour still need to get their party vote out and without a candidate that is harder, particularly if you don’t have enough volunteers. The Labour candidate, Rachel Boyack, is a First Union organiser who will appeal to some working class voters who won’t vote Green.

        I think the two candidates will work well together attacking the government in a similar way to Genter and Ardern in Mt Albert, and this will help with party vote.
        I don’t think either candidate can unseat Nick Smith but I expect his majority will drop. Oddly, looking at the split votes at the last election, 12% of those party voting Green voted for Smith as did 10% of those party voting Labour.

      • mauī 2.1.3
        24 June 2017 at 1:15 pm

        Surely if you’re trying to defeat a strong candidate you have to give yourself the best possible chance. Labour standing a candidate means there’s going to be a couple of thousand hard core voters I dunno maybe even 5,000 people essentially wasting their vote by giving it to the Labour person because they have that option and they vote that way no matter what.

        I think Greens shouldn’t be standing as their candidate vote is only a quarter of Labours. Matt Lawrey, if he is high profile in the area and wants to win the seat should be running for Labour instead. He’ll get the automatic 12,000 Labour votes plus try to transfer as many of the 3,000 Green voters across who won’t have a better option apart from abstaining. Then all he needs is a couple of thousand National voters coming across and he’s in. This seems like common sense to me anyway.

        • weka 2.1.3.1
          24 June 2017 at 6:14 pm

          I think the key thing is that winning the seat won’t affect the overall election outcome, so the party vote and focus for the campaign is going to be more important to parties.

          I also think in this case it’s better for the Greens to go hard and Labour to not, because Smith has been so bad on water and this is the Greens’ forte. Labour don’t have the right positioning IMO. Plus it sounds like Lawrey is popular in Nelson (I don’t think we can expect people to stand for other parties).

  3. saveNZ 3
    24 June 2017 at 12:37 pm

    Great move by Greens and great candidate. I’d like to see a lot more collaboration aka Northland style so that democracy is realised, rather than vote splitting allowing the Natz back in.

    If Labour and NZ First tell their voters to vote for Matt Lawrey as candidate to unseat Nick Smith. It’s for the public good, Smith needs to go, he’s a bigger piece of crap that the faeces in his 100% semi-wadable Nick Smith rivers he’s promoting.

    Please do the country a service and actually collaborate in the electoral votes.

    • weka 3.1
      24 June 2017 at 1:01 pm

      At 13 on the 2014 list, it’s unlikely Smith would be out of parliament, but what a coup if he lost his electorate seat! I’ll be interested to see how Labour play this. I don’t know if the local candidate can tell voters to vote for another party, or even if this would be wise.

      • saveNZ 3.1.1
        24 June 2017 at 6:57 pm

        I think they should – Natz seem to have subsumed all their competition but the centre left have themselves all split up and that is impacting on electorate vote and allowing the Natz to slip through and a lot of choices for the left party vote, but only one party for the far right posing as centre right party, National. Now they are pretending to be Labour to add to the propaganda.

        If Labour/Greens/NZ First care enough about policy and getting a change of government, they have to do what they can to stop the Natz by not splitting electoral vote.

        • weka 3.1.1.1
          24 June 2017 at 6:59 pm

          uncommitted voters might not appreciate a Labour candidate telling them to vote Green though. There are probably more subtle ways that Labour could go about that.

          • saveNZ 3.1.1.1.1
            25 June 2017 at 9:19 am

            Now there is a formal MoU, it is clear that the voters expect Labour and Greens to work together on the electoral side to stop vote splitting. It’s completely transparent, no need to worry as long as it is clear it is to give best attempt to stop National getting in.

            • weka 3.1.1.1.1.1
              25 June 2017 at 10:05 am

              The MoU in no way says that L/G will work to prevent vote splitting though. In fact it establishes them as independent parties with the subtext that they will be competing for votes and free to do so.

              • saveNZ …
                25 June 2017 at 10:23 am

                Yes, but it makes more sense to co operate on electoral votes side. It’s not about the paper agreement, it’s about changing the government – a result and then getting their policy in!

                If the Greens and Labour are unlikely to win by themselves even though they have the numbers between them or close to it, they should ask voters to vote for only one of the candidates.

                • weka …
                  25 June 2017 at 10:28 am

                  Except some voters might not like that and it could thus backfire. I think Labour are quite capable of running a quiet campaign that lets Lawrey have the spotlight. It remains to be seen if the local Labour people are wiling to do that. They’re the ones that do the work there after all.

                  • saveNZ …
                    25 June 2017 at 10:36 am

                    If the votes don’t like it then they can do what they want. That’s democracy. Most people voting want their party to succeed and they also want the party to do their all, to succeed. Also I think there is quite a back lash against National now in many areas, so many people want a change of government, first and foremost.

                    People are not stupid.

                    Labour and Greens should not leave it to chance. And it should be fair, Greens for Nelson for example, Labour for Ōhāriu, Greens for Northcote, Labour for CBD etc

  4. Psycho Milt 4
    24 June 2017 at 1:10 pm

    Smith won’t lose this seat. Nelson city has a lot of hippies in it, but there’s a large rural component to the electorate. Labour/Green candidates have as much chance of winning Nelson as they do of winning Marlborough, ie low-to-non-existent. Best wishes to Matt Lawrey for increasing the Greens’ party vote share, though.

    • Cinny 4.1
      24 June 2017 at 2:32 pm

      I disagree with the make up of people you have described for the Nelson electorate PM. As the boundaries changed a while back.

      The large rural component is in the Tasman/West Coast Electorate and so are the hippies.

      The type of people that live in Nelson are mostly conservative in nature, BUT they are possibly the largest group of outdoorsy people in any NZ city. They love biking and swimming, love it, even the oldies and are BIG on the environment. With that in mind a Greens candidate that the locals are very familiar with is an excellent choice.

      When Matt wins it’s going to be a real shocker, putting out vibes for that result 😀

    • saveNZ 4.2
      24 June 2017 at 7:09 pm

      @Psycho Milt – that’s what they said about Northland.

    • swordfish 4.3
      25 June 2017 at 2:51 pm

      PM

      Smith won’t lose this seat. Nelson city has a lot of hippies in it, but there’s a large rural component to the electorate.

      Nyet. As Cinny suggests, you’re probably confusing the Nelson seat with West Coast- Tasman.

      The Nelson seat essentially consists of the City of Nelson (two-thirds of voters) and 3 Deep Blue Towns on its immediate southern periphery – Richmond (est 7000 voters – incl Early and Specials), Hope (1600), and Brightwater (1400) (which collectively comprise the vast majority of the other third).

      These 3 Towns – together with the Blue-ish outer-suburbs -of Enner Glynn and (esp) Stoke – skewer things towards the Right.

      Labour/Green candidates have as much chance of winning Nelson as they do of winning Marlborough, ie low-to-non-existent.

      I assume you mean Kaikōura ?

      Nyet again, Compadre.

      Nelson has a much stronger core Left vote than Kaikōura or its Marlborough predecessor ever had.

      It’s just that – despite his gross inadequacies – Smithy has proven quite popular in Nelson over the years.

      • swordfish 4.3.1
        25 June 2017 at 3:17 pm

        Admittedly, some of the voters in Hope and Brightwater will be ‘rural’, mind thee. But not enough to matter.

  5. marty mars 5
    24 June 2017 at 6:32 pm

    Why are the Greens doing this? What is the point? I just don’t get this tbh.

    • weka 5.1
      24 June 2017 at 7:01 pm

      Raising their profile in electorates gets the more party votes. In this case, because of Smith and water, it also doubles down on one of the core election issues (water), and thus helps not only the GP party vote, but to focus on how truly useless National is. Hence #changethegovt.

      • marty mars 5.1.1
        24 June 2017 at 7:40 pm

        Hope it works – seems a bit of a long shot to me.

        • weka 5.1.1.1
          24 June 2017 at 7:55 pm

          Do you mean you think it’s a waste of money and effort that would be better spent elsewhere?

          • marty mars 5.1.1.1.1
            24 June 2017 at 8:03 pm

            yeah that is one aspect – I know Nelson well and live in Tasman. They are quite conservative there. Matt is known and liked but Smith has lots of numbers and has been doing it for a while. I don’t know of a better seat to give it a go though.

            If this raises their party vote then good.

            • weka 5.1.1.1.1.1
              24 June 2017 at 8:32 pm

              It probably helps them get back into running electorate candidates too.

              Amazing they got given all that money for the district.

              • marty mars …
                24 June 2017 at 8:50 pm

                I have to say most of my friends in Nelson have very not nice things to say about Nick – I heard him on the radio the other day and by the Gods he can billshit with a straight face and voice like the best of them.

                Yeah it will be good to have them running candidates in electorates.

  6. Ad 6
    24 June 2017 at 9:01 pm

    I’m surprised the Green Party haven’t performed better in this seat on the party vote. It’s a poor track record.

    Nelson and Golden Bay broadly have been an original seat of the green movement in New Zealand. Full of small orchardists, old Values Party types, old communes, artisan jewelers and potters and the like, outsider dope growers, old survivalists – this should be rich pickings. Why can’t they convert blue-greens like Guy Salmon? They need to show that they can appeal to a voter audience well beyond who they are currently attracting.

    If they can’t raise their party vote in a seat like this, they should stick with going for 9%.

  7. Salsy 7
    24 June 2017 at 11:01 pm

    Silly thing is both Nick Smith and Matt Lawry are on the same side with regards to some of the bigger environmental issues in Nelson at the moment. The July Brodifacoum air drop poisoning of the Brook Valley Sanctuary is rising into a big issue with an environmental group armed with a Lawyer are trying to stop the drop.

    Smith so eager to kill every living thing inside the fence, has stated “The Government will be vigorously opposing this legal challenge” …

    http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/PA1706/S00409/legal-challenge-to-pest-control-regulations-disappointing.htm

    Greens have remained silent on issue. If Lawry wanted to show hes more than just “the lotto guy”, perhaps he could really take Nick on.

    • Cinny 7.1
      25 June 2017 at 2:58 pm

      Good call Salsy, I’d agree with that idea for sures. The brook valley sanctuary poison drop is a huge issue, so many letters to the editor etc about it.

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