Editorial: Keeping it local seems best for Labour candidates

Andrew Austin, editor of Hawke's Bay Today.

However you look at it Andrew Little's crisis of confidence will have done his party no favours in its race to get votes this election.

Mr Little suggested to colleagues late last week that he step down as leader after the latest One News Colmar Brunton poll put Labour at just 24 per cent, which was the party's lowest results in the poll's history. His colleagues told him not to resign.

You can understand why because taking on the Labour leader job so close to the election would be accepting a poisoned chalice. However, Jacinda Ardern probably could have pulled it off given her ratings are quite high.

But, Mr Little's admission of defeat will almost certainly harm his party as it could make Labour voters decide that there is no point in voting for a party that is probably going to lose. The polls indicate that voters are deserting Labour, but they are not going to National.

The left leaning Labour voters seem to be siding with the Greens while the more centrist voters are aligning themselves with Winston Peters' New Zealand First.

However, National is nowhere near declaring victory because the MMP system means anything can happen and a weak Labour could still find itself in government with the Greens and New Zealand First.

It is going to make for an interesting election where every seat and every vote counts.

Given Labour's popularity problems it is hardly surprising that their candidates for Napier and Tukituki are both running local campaigns.

To be fair to Napier MP Stuart Nash, he did so last election, while the Tukituki candidate Anna Lorck probably realises that her best chance of beating National's Lawrence Yule is by keeping it local and focusing on the issues that matter to people.