Benson-Pope's electorate won't mention tennis balls

David Benson-Pope

David Benson-Pope is a man campaigning for Parliament in the shadow of a police investigation.

Standing in the centre of the Cabinet minister's Dunedin South electorate is Bayfield High School - the school where Mr Benson-Pope taught for 24 years and where it is alleged he assaulted five former students in the 1980s.

This is where the infamous tennis-ball-in-the-mouth incident is alleged to have happened, an incident that no one in the electorate mentions.

The person least likely to mention those events is David Benson-Pope himself.

When the Herald first approached Mr Benson-Pope's office to set up an interview he was hesitant, no doubt stung by the bad publicity this year and unwilling to run the risk of further public reminders of the investigation so close to the election.

Mr Benson-Pope did eventually talk about the alleged assaults but only in the vaguest terms.

The fact that there was a police investigation under way, he said, meant it would be inappropriate for him to comment.

He did say that most of the people in the electorate saw the allegations for what they were, and said if there had been a problem it would have surfaced 23 years ago when they were said to have happened.

It would seem the Dunedin South electorate, which stretches from Mosgiel in the south to the tip of the Otago Peninsula and is home to around 41,000 voters, is inclined to agree.

One local man told the Herald Mr Benson-Pope could have been accused of shoving watermelons in the mouths of students and it would not have dented his popularity.

He has one of the largest majorities in the country - 14,724 in 2002 - and this election he looks set to increase it, despite the bad publicity.

Mr Benson-Pope grew up with many of the people in the electorate, he went to Otago University with others, he worked alongside them and he has taught them and their children.

For over 14 years he was their city councillor and for the past six years he has been their MP.

The favourable image Mr Benson-Pope enjoys in his electorate is often not the way he is perceived by the rest of the country.

He is seen as the gruff, abrupt face of the Government - due largely to his role in shepherding through the Civil Union Bill which got him offside with socially conservative voters.

But in Dunedin South it appears that not even a police investigation can can shake his constituents, 63 per cent of whom voted for him at the last election.

Constituent Les Henderson said the investigation had no influence on his decision to vote for Mr Benson-Pope and the whole event had been an over-reaction to what always used to happen in schools.

Gemma Gold, a 33-year-old full-time mother from Mosgiel, said events in the classroom 20-odd years ago had no relevance to today.

But the assault claims have been enough to convince Ron Chalker not to vote for the MP.

The 76-year-old Mosgiel resident said he was convinced that something must have happened.

Tennis balls are not mentioned by the voters Mr Benson-Pope approaches while out campaigning.

Even the hecklers don't take the easy shots - those, it seems, are left to National Party TV advertisements which feature a background of bouncing tennis balls.

Mr Benson-Pope still has close links to Bayfield High - his twins Samantha and Henry go there and many of his campaign team are past students and current and former teachers.

The police investigation is likely to be completed in the next few weeks, but the result seems almost irrelevant in Dunedin South.