General Election battle: NZ First MP Ron Mark seeks Wairarapa seat

Ron Mark as Minister of Defence and Veterans Affairs in Waipukurau in 2018. Photo / File

The battle for the National-held Wairarapa electorate, including Central Hawke's Bay and Tararua, is again looming as one of the toughest General Election battles with confirmation New Zealand First list MP and Cabinet Minister Ron Mark will again seek the seat.

Its tightness was highlighted at the last two elections, with Mark among the top-three polling third placegetters in the country. The top three in Wairarapa in 2017 all claimed seats in Parliament.

Two-term National Party MP Alastair Scott announced last year he would not be seeking a third term and National has chosen farmer Mike Butterick as its candidate this year to defend the party's winning majority of 2872 from the election three years ago.

Single-term Labour list MP Kieran McAnulty is again in the race, which has another high-profile candidate in former Wellington Mayor Celia Wade-Brown, who said in May her Green Party bid was targeting increasing the party vote in the electorate. A fifth candidate is Act's Roger Greenslade.

Now 66, Minister of Defence and former military man Mark has served six terms (18 years) as a list MP, first entering Parliament in the electorate and list MP split of the first MMP election in 1996.

He lost his place when NZ First failed to win any seats in the National Party's return to Government in 2008, and then spent four years as Mayor of Carterton before standing down in 2014, when he regained a seat in the House.

A feature of the last two elections has been his support at the ballot box with 8630 votes in 2014 and 7753 in 2017, more than double the votes received by most third-placed candidates in other electorates,

Mark said the Labour-NZ First Coalition had done a lot of good work throughout the Wairarapa, but constituents had told him they "need someone with teeth to represent them".

"I was born and raised here, I've served the community as the Mayor of Carterton, I have deep roots in the community and I have the résumé and motivation to represent the 'Rapa," he said.

Wairarapa is one of the most vast of the non-Māori electorates, stretching more than 270km north to south, and while it is dominated by Masterton with a population of about 20,000 (one of 10 towns in the electorate with populations over 1500, Mark said: "The electorate is immense, you will see me on the road from Cape Palliser to Waipawa and Herbertville to Woodville."