Greg O'Connor: A winning loser

Tuesday, 24 October 2023

Ōhāriu MP Greg O’Connor has just been elected to his third term - but first in opposition.

In the win-loss ledger, Greg O’Connor is coming up trumps.

A loser, because his Labour Party got trounced in the general election two Saturdays ago. But a winner, because he beat National’s second in charge, Nicola Willis, in Wellington’s volatile Ōhāriu electorate.

Also a winner because, on the Wednesday before election night, O’Connor became a first-time grandfather (to Freddy).

As O’Connor enters his third-term as Ōhāriu MP, he knows that things could have easily not gone his way.

Ōhāriu Labour MP, and new grandfather, Greg O'Connor with his son Michael, who has special needs.

Sure, his 12,000 margin in 2020 should have meant he was sitting easy. But 2020 was an anomaly with a massive Labour nationwide surge. But, in 2017, he was only about 500 ahead on the night and reached about 1000 after special votes.

“That is where I thought we were back to,” O’Connor said.

On top of that was the Willis factor: high-profile, National’s finance spokesperson, second on the party list, and running a big, well-resourced campaign in his seat.

So as O’Connor and his team watched the early numbers roll in on election night at an event in Chris Hipkins’ electorate of Remutaka, he wasn’t surprised to see he was about 400 behind.

“I was quite philosophical,” said O’Connor, who was then facing unemployment: He was running in the electorate only, meaning he had no chance of getting in on the list. There was no back-up plan of what he would do if he lost.

But then the tide started to turn. He looked and was about 400 ahead. By the time the night was over, he was about 1400 votes past Willis. Special votes still need counting but, barring an upset, he is the Labour Ōhāriu MP for the next three years.

It was no doubt thanks to his track record but also the “good, hardy, small team” of volunteers which helped out door-knocking, erecting and taking down signs at odd hours, or making campaign calls.

So, when he and his door-knocking team headed out — sometimes in brute winds and icy rains — people knew who this man on the doorstep was. It also helped that a new, post-Covid work from home culture meant more people answered doors.

Before October 14, O’Connor could barely plan ahead.

“Now I can plan what I am doing at Christmas … taking Michael [his son, with special needs] down to the West Coast, down to the family farm.”

O’Connor is first to admit that his initial two terms as MP – after about 20 years leading the police union, and, before that, a police career – had been essentially training. But, now, he said, he knew the workings of Parliament and had hit his stride in the halls of power.

“I will do what I can to ensure Labour remains and becomes the party it needs to be,” he said.

As one of the few surviving Labour electorate MPs, O’Connor points to his previous work as an undercover police officer for a key philosophy.

“I met people there that were brighter than me, who were more capable than me, but were never given the same opportunities I had.

“There is nothing wrong with being privileged … it is not knowing you are privileged.”