Despite a tumble down the party list, NZ First candidate Jamie Arbuckle is confident he will be re-entering Parliament after the election.
The release of the list last week revealed four of the eight sitting NZ First MPs had been pushed down the list in favour of former National MPs who had decamped to the party – with Jamie’s ranking taking the biggest hit.
The Kaikōura electorate candidate has dropped seven places, from sixth to 13th.
The other three incumbents, Jenny Marcroft, Andy Foster and David Wilson, all dropped at least five places.
If the latest polls were anything to go by, Jamie’s position at 13th had him on the brink of being out of Parliament.
This month’s Taxpayers’ Union-Curia poll had NZ First winning 16 seats with 12 per cent of the vote, which would see Jamie safely into Parliament, as would last week’s RNZ–Reid Research poll with a 10.6% result (13 seats).
But last week’s 1 News-Verian poll, which had NZ First at 10%, would see Jamie out of a job.
Jamie told Local Democracy Reporting on Monday he was “not surprised” by his new listing.
A lot of new blood had come into NZ First since last election, he said, with the party standing 50 candidates this election.
“Over the past six months [of] getting to know these people ... it was quite obvious to me that some of them would be ranked higher,” he said.
“[Sometimes] you’ve just got to realise that there are people that have skills or experience that is a little bit better than your own.”
But Jamie said he remained confident that he would be back in Parliament.
“We've had a great campaign ... I think our momentum is growing,” he said.
“I'm very confident that our polling on election night will make sure that I'm there, and a lot of new MPs as well.”
Displacing the incumbents were former National minister Alfred Ngaro, former National MP and The Platform host Michael Laws, former National MP Harete Hipango-Brownlie, former Financial Markets Authority chairperson Craig Stobo and former All Blacks captain Taine Randell.
The top four spots were unchanged. They were held by senior MPs who had held ministerial portfolios; party leader Winston Peters, deputy leader Shane Jones, and ministers Casey Costello and Mark Patterson.
The party list was put together by a listing committee made up of party members from around the country, Jamie said.
The only involvement Jamie personally had in the process was being asked to rank himself where he believed he should be listed relative to other candidates.
While Jamie declined to say which number he had ranked himself, it was “very close” to the listing he ended up with, he said.
He would still be gunning for two ticks in the Kaikōura electorate, despite the “reality [that] it has been a very blue seat for a long time”, he said.
“We've been very, very active across the electorate for the whole three years, we've never stopped campaigning.”
Jamie was speaking to LDR from Cheviot, where he had just hosted a public meeting. He had spent the past week visiting Marlborough rest homes, and he held two public meetings, in Renwick and Havelock.
“I think I had 40-odd people turn up to a Havelock meeting. When you get 40 people there, that's a really positive sign,” he said.
“That's where the confidence is coming from, that people were willing to engage.”
He was headed to Amberley later on Monday, before returning to Blenheim for another candidates event on Tuesday, where he said residents would see “five tired candidates”.
LDR is local body journalism co-funded by RNZ and NZ On Air.
