Candidates grilled as election hots up

Labour candidate Willow-Jean Prime addresses the 300-strong crowd at Kerikeri's Turner Centre.

Mass surveillance, law and order, fishing quotas, and where Winston Peters will reside if he wins the Northland by-election were among the topics raised at a candidates' meeting.

Unlike a meeting earlier in the day at Kaitaia, all leading candidates attended last Friday night's Kerikeri meeting at the Turner Centre.

Once candidates had introduced themselves 10 people in the audience were chosen at random to put a question.

The general consensus afterwards was that Rueben Taipari Porter (Mana) was the most passionate, particularly on deep-sea oil exploration, and Winston Peters (NZ First) the slickest. Willow-Jean Prime (Labour) was the most composed and had the firmest grasp of the facts while Mark Osborne (National) had the loudest supporters. Robin Grieve (ACT) won respect for steadfastly promoting unpopular ideas and Rob Painting (Climate Change) for turning any topic at all back to climate change.

Joe Carr (Focus NZ) and Bruce Rogan (independent, campaigning on Mangawhai debt issues) adopted the unusual strategy of urging people not to vote for them. Mr Rogan said he was "too old, weather-beaten and cynical for Parliament" while Mr Carr promised to rate each party's policies then advise voters which candidate would be best for Northland.

Mr Peters continued his mantra that Northlanders had the chance of a lifetime to send the Government a message it would not forget.

Mr Osborne detailed his long connection to Northland - a wedding night under a mandarin tree in the Bay of Islands fell into the "too much information" category - and promised he would not turn into a meek backbencher.

"I'm not a small guy. I'm not going to fade into the background."

National supporters used two of the 10 allocated questions to ask Mr Peters whether he would move to Northland if he won. Mr Peters' response was that he had always planned to come home - he hails from Whananaki - and a win would simply speed that up.

The most poignant question from the audience came from a commercial fisherman who wanted to know which party would overhaul "the racket called the quota management system".

"I'm 67, I shouldn't be out there working. I want to sell my boat but I can't, and it's because of poor government policy. I'm sick of being a slave," he said.

Another question focussed on the mass surveillance of New Zealanders. Mr Osborne said he would have to defer the question to the Prime Minister while Mrs Prime said it was a breach of New Zealanders' rights.

Mr Carr said the revelations had tarred Mr Key's "honest John" image and Mr Painting worried that information-gathering designed to protect New Zealanders had been used to discredit the Government's political opponents.

Bolstering Mr Osborne's support in the audience was Arts, Culture and Heritage Minister Maggie Barry, who proved an unexpectedly loud heckler. Other MPs included Shane Reti (National) and Meka Whaitiri (Labour).

Apart from some minor skulduggery with the question tickets by one party's supporters, there was no evidence of "dirty tricks" at the Kerikeri meeting. Mr Peters' supporters, however, claim false rumours were spread that Friday afternoon's Kaitaia meeting had been cancelled, prompting him to drop it from his schedule. That meeting was attended only by Mr Carr, Mrs Prime, Mr Porter and Mr Rogan.