Northland Labour candidate Willow-Jean Prime (left) with supporters Louisa Kopa, Joey Rapana and Mylie George at the Klondike Tavern in Kawakawa. Photo / Peter de Graaf
Northland Labour candidate Willow-Jean Prime (left) with supporters Louisa Kopa, Joey Rapana and Mylie George at the Klondike Tavern in Kawakawa. Photo / Peter de Graaf
Northland's youngest candidate in the 2014 general election says she will stand again in 2017 if the party selects her.
Labour candidate Willow-Jean Prime, 31, earned just over 8000 votes in the race for the Northland seat won convincingly by National's Mike Sabin with more than 16,800 votes.
Mrs Prime,a lawyer and current Far North District councillor, said she would now carry on with her council role and her PhD in law at Waikato University, and spend some time with her husband, Bay of Islands College teacher Dion Prime.
She had a lot of encouraging feedback during her campaign and would stand again at the next election if selected.
She had also campaigned for the 2013 local body elections but the general election campaign was on a much bigger scale requiring more money and a bigger team built from the ground up.
Her team had worked closely with Te Tai Tokerau candidate Kelvin Davis and Tamaki Makaurau's Peeni Henare, and took a lot of satisfaction from their wins.
Over the next three years she also planned to get involved in the re-invigoration of the Labour Party, helping to develop policies and feeding the party Northland ideas. She did not believe taking the Northland electorate from National was an impossible task.
"[But] for that to happen people will have to look closely at what National does for Northland, and what their current representation is achieving."
Mrs Prime could have got into Parliament via the party list only if Labour had polled around 34 per cent. Its share of the vote was just a disappointing 24 per cent.
