KEY POINTS:
It's election night 2005. Labour is staring at a humiliating defeat. With television pundits ready to call it for National, Labour's beaming president, Mike Williams, seems to be in denial. "Wait until the South Auckland vote comes in" is his mantra. On radio, Richard Prebble picks the same windshift.
Sure enough, the party vote from Mangere, Manukau East and Manurewa is enough for Labour to overtake National on the line.
The three South Auckland heartland electorates have nearly always been staunchly Labour. In 2005, they were among the last to be counted after polling booths struggled to cope with the numbers mobilised by the Labour Party machine.
The mobilisation worked a treat, with Labour gaining nearly 60 per cent of the party vote in Manukau East and Manurewa and a staggering 73 per cent in Mangere.
This time around, Labour is again depending on urban, working class electorates and union vans to get people to the polls. Boundary changes have made Manukau East an even safer seat for Ross Robertson and done National few favours in Manurewa, where George Hawkins is seeking a seventh term. But some political observers are raising doubts that the "3Ms" will again deliver Labour their customary tranche of votes.
A major swing against the Government is likely to be reflected in both a reduced share of the party vote and tighter local MP contests.
Certainly, the area's status as default Labour is no longer being taken as read, with major and minor parties out in force. National's Cam Calder (Manurewa), Mita Harris (Mangere) and Kanwal Bakshi (Manukau East) have been burning soles since April in an orchestrated bid to lift the party vote. Bakshi's high list-placing (38) has gone down well with Labour-leaning Indians across South Auckland, particularly Sikhs.
New Zealand First has solid support among retirees in Manurewa and Papatoetoe, while the Progressives and United Future also punch above their weight here.
All parties are alive to the potential to boost their party vote by engaging the stay-at-homes - participation in the 3Ms in 2005 (between 72 and 76 per cent) was the lowest in the country despite Labour's efforts to drag its people to the polls. National hopes its "change" message will do the trick. Mike Williams argues the disenfranchised are inherently Labour supporters and sees scope to improve even the union vote.
Christian and family values parties also see the 3Ms, with their high Pacific Island populations, as fertile ground. Taito Phillip Field's Pacific Party, the Family Party, the Kiwi Party and to a lesser extent United Future are all vying for the moral conservative/family values vote, especially in Mangere.
The Family Party (which has sprung from Destiny NZ) is crowing about drawing two high-profile candidates from traditionally Labour families in Jerry Filipaina (Mangere) and Poutoua Papali'i (Manukau East). Party leader Richard Lewis swapped from Manukau East to Manurewa to make room for Papali'i.
Church condemnation of civil unions and prostitution law reform had little influence in 2005 but throw in the anti-smacking law and broader concerns about nine years of "nanny state" and there's the makings of a backlash.
Across the 3Ms, Labour may also be judged guilty by association with violent crime. Media depictions of South Auckland as a gang-riven crime capital may be far from reality but the mid-winter cluster of high-profile murders and armed robberies has shaken the community. In Manurewa, National's Calder is one of those tapping into this insecurity. He recalls knocking on the door of an old lady who offered him some flowers from her back garden. "She unlocked the back door to let herself out, locked the door behind her while she cut the flowers, then repeated the process to let herself back in. It's shameful."
Bakshi is adamant that law and order is the top issue in the 3Ms - but will such issues really turn the red tide? To spend even a few days in South Auckland is to debunk the media image. Walking the streets of Manurewa, shoppers are relaxed and approachable. At the retirement haven of Mangere Bridge, people sitting in parked cars happily wind down windows to chat with National's affable Mita Harris.
"I know you're a Harris," says a Maori grandmother, "you're good looking."
The Indian owner of the local Mitre 10 says older customers don't feel secure. "The Government is not looking after us - after Manurewa they should have brought more police in."
An elderly European woman is dismissive of Field's chances. "What he's done may be okay in the islands - but it's not here."
With its colourful, largely Pacific clientele, fruit shops selling tropical produce and a choice of fish shops, the nearby Mangere Town Centre has a distinctly different look to Manukau's shiny Westfield mall.
One retired man says he's voting Pacific Party. "Phillip Field has had 12 years. He's grown in the job; he's experienced." A hairdresser applauds National because its tax cuts "give us $7 more than Labour". Others say tax cuts are a drop in the bucket when measured against soaring food bills.
A middle-aged Samoan says the Government has lost touch with ordinary New Zealanders. "Everyone is wanting change."
In Manurewa, which stretches north to Puhinui, opinion is similarly diverse. Many voters have yet to give much thought to November 8.
Worries about global financial meltdown, macro-economics and retirement savings are distant concerns to many voters preoccupied with the daily struggle to put food on the table and pay electricity and credit card bills.
At a candidates meeting in Papatoetoe, education and youth crime issues resonated with the audience of about 80 mainly party faithful. Labour and the Progressives' Matt Robson were applauded for preferring early childhood intervention and long-term fixes over tougher punishment. Tougher penalties are no deterrence, says Robson, when "offenders can't even read the bloody laws".
Around half the voters in these seats earn less than $30,000 a year. They are keen to get ahead; unsympathetic to dole bludgers. Manurewa is thick with industry by day, drawing thousands of manual workers. So, too, the thriving Mangere airport precinct.
These communities have benefited from nine years of economic buoyancy. People remain optimistic. Unemployment has plunged; the youth gangs that used to hang around the malls and shopping strips by day were nowhere to be seen in my visits. By night, as frightened dairy and liquor store owners will attest, it can be a different story.
The 3Ms have more than their share of the disenfranchised - those with no job, no interest in national politics and who take little notice of mainstream media.
Manukau East has a significant Indian population in Papatoetoe, many of whom voted Labour last time. Bakshi should make inroads there.
In Mangere, Harris is betting that votes are won more by personal contact than National Party policy pronouncements.
They're up against history. Older Samoan voters, in particular, sound as one: "Labour has always looked after Pacific people."
Among the young and European voters, however, there is some clamour for change. Whether South Auckland remains indelibly red could come down to whoever mobilises its sometimes reticent communities best.
Mangere
* 59 per cent Pacific/21 per cent European.
* 71 per cent Christian (NZ's highest).
* 6.4 per cent earn over $50,000.
* 2005 majority: Phillip Field (L) 16,020.
Maukau East
* 44 per cent Pacific/25 per cent European.
* 40 per cent born overseas.
* 6.8 per cent earn over $50,000.
* 2005 majority: Ross Robertson (L) 9890.
Manurewa
* 35 per cent European/32 per cent Pacific/27 per cent Maori.
* 9.1 per cent earn over $50,000.
* 2005 majority: George Hawkins (L) 11,707.
Deeper than politics
There's a saying that you could dress up a ham sandwich and call it Labour and the people of Mangere would vote for it. But thanks to the Field factor, the contest to be the MP for Mangere looms as something of an arm wrestle.
Taito Phillip Field's split from Labour over corruption allegations in 2006 damaged the local branch to the extent that the unthinkable happened - a National candidate won the Mangere ward in a Manukau City Council by-election. The fallout lingers, with the five-term MP railing against Labour's "ungodly" legacy including civil unions and prostitution law reform.
Field is targeting the Christian Pacific vote in an electorate which is 59 per cent Pacific Islander and where churches outnumber dairies. He has mana as the country's first Pacific Island MP. Older voters allude to his experience and long-term commitment, particularly to Samoan interests. He has long been entwined with the Samoan churches and ministers spoken to by the Herald, while stopping short of endorsing candidates, are continuing to remind their flock of the Government's "anti-scripture" policies.
But with six Samoan candidates, including three on a Christian mission, it's a crowded platform and the Samoan vote will inevitably be dispersed.
Labour candidate Su'a William Sio - who entered Parliament as a List MP on April 1 after Dianne Yates' retirement - is guaranteed to return to Wellington via the party vote thanks to a high list-ranking. That's a line the Family Party's Jerry Filipaina is pushing - "give me your electorate vote and Mangere could have two Pacific voices in the Beehive".
But Labour will be aghast if Sio fails to prise the electorate, which David Lange represented, from Field. Sio, a long-time Otara resident and city councillor, has moved his family into Mangere and is running a smart, dignified campaign.
At a candidate meeting in Papatoetoe last week, the holy trinity - Field, Family's Richard Lewis and the Kiwi Party's Kevin Stitt - hammered the Government's record on prostitution, the "anti-smacking" legislation and civil unions. Field even threw in abortion.
Sio, who says he's endured some negative campaigning by his Christian rivals, is quietly confident. He is contrasting his opponents' "very narrow view of families and traditional Christian values" with Labour's "inclusiveness" and "support for diversity".
"They are preaching Old Testament - we are living the New Testament."
Sio says some parties have misread the electorate, assuming God-fearing Samoans influenced by church leaders will block vote on moral grounds. That didn't happen last time for Destiny NZ. The community, he says, is much more diverse in ethnicity and outlook than outsiders assume.
