Green light for long-held red seat

Monday, 16 October 2023

People’s Coffee on the corner of Luke’s Lane and Taranaki St is slap, bang in the middle of the Wellington Central electorate.

Fittingly, one of its toilet walls has, for some months now, sported a very large poster of one Tamatha Paul, seeking your vote as a wannabe Member of Parliament.

The bright green suit is on trend. The stance confident but not too confident. The smile is slightly nervous.

It frames, as one bathroom user observed, a row of perfect teeth.

Vote Tam, if you give a damn. It was a clever jingle, and it appears to have worked. Wellington, it seems, did.

Tamatha Paul; young, gifted and now heading for Parliament.

Unlike the nor’westerly that inevitably hammers the capital every spring, the green swathe that swept through the capital on Saturday night was never a foregone conclusion.

Paul says neither she or Julie Anne Genter, who took the neighbouring electorate Rongotai for the Greens, felt they had it in the bag at any stage, despite a bit of bravado and some online skiting towards the end of the campaign.

It took a gigantic effort, and a massive, possibly historic, grass roots campaign. Six months of door knocking, six months of phone calls — 40,000 all up.

“I don’t think people know just how hard it is to sustain thousands of volunteers over that length of time,” Paul says, not many hours after taking the seat that Labour has held for almost as many elections as the years (26) Paul has been alive.

“We talked to every household in Wellington, we door-knocked every household in Wellington. So, so much hard work has gone into it.

“People are exhausted but it all paid off for us — and Wellington — last night and that's no small feat.”

Paul, who will stay on as a councillor for another month, has plenty more of that hard lifting ahead of her. She concedes it will be tough perched on the opposition back benches, up against the blues and pinks.

She’s up for it. Confidence this time in capital letters. A National-Act-possibly NZ First government makes it even more crucial she (Wikipedia has Paul labelled as an activist) and others of her ilk have a voice, Paul argues.

“I think it’s more important than ever, to have really strong members of parliament who stand up for the planet, who stand up for people, pushing for progressive change.”

“They [National] are not going to have it easy. We are going to keep our foot on their necks every single day.”

According to the 2018 census Wellington Central is as one of the most highly educated electorates in the country. It had the highest proportion of those aged over 15 who had either a post-graduate and honours degree (12.9%), or a Master's degree (10.9%). It ranked second (behind Dunedin) for the share of those with a Doctorate degree (2.6%).

It is also the electorate with the highest proportion of those aged 20-24 (16.5%). Paul suspects that may have helped her cause, though she believes her current 3324 majority wasn’t so much a “youthquake” but a reflection of Wellington’s fed-up-ness with Labour.

‘The strong message I heard, particularly from people who had traditionally voted Labour was that they just lost hope when [the party] started ruling out all the things that are just so crucial to addressing inequality in this country.

“I think people voted for the future.”

And for Paul that future, the next three years, will be about the people she’s represented as a councillor for the last four: “All of the workers that hold up our city - the bus drivers, the teachers, the the nurses, the waste truck drivers.”

That means a laser-like focus on the lack of affordable rental and social housing, health care, and climate change.

“That causes me so much anxiety, all the reports about the tipping points that we’re surpassing - Antarctica melting, sea levels rising, the weather changing.

“There’s no shortage of of issues that need strong advocacy. But, while the overall [election] outcome might not be great there’s some pretty staunch people that will be starting work tomorrow, walking into Parliament, and none of us will let them get away with what they have planned.”