City versus country: New Zealand's big political divide

Rupert Ryan has forgotten one very important thing. "Fart." says the Hawke's Bay orchardist with a waggish smile as he adds the word to a list scribbled on scrap paper in between bidding at the stock sales. "Yeah, fart. I'd forgotten that one - that's a biggie."

The likeable, astute and ever-so-slightly mad orchardist was only breaking his own chatter to talk about breaking wind.

He's made a list of reasons why he thinks rural voters wore their blue home-spuns to the polling booths in such force last Saturday, and the whole affair's got the apple grower ranting.

There's the issue of access over rural land, which caused a lot of anger with farmers. There's the Kyoto protocol. Resource management. Don't mention the Treaty of Waitangi, young lady. And the motorcade. Nobody drops their troops in it when they're just trying to help you. Not in the heartland. There's fart tax. There's taxes in general. For Ryan, "mainstream New Zealand" has become those who get off their chuffs every Thursday to collect their benefit.

And in Ryan's electorate of Tukituki, where every third person wears their cheeks rouged from frost and eyes bright from wind and every second is pushing a pram, the Government's perceived failure "to do a damned thing" to make Australia buy our apples has been a particularly poisonous issue.

And, looking every bit the fruit-bowl cowboy in denim-on-denim, a toothpick clamouring for dear life on a chapped bottom lip, the apple-cheeked Ryan reckons, "It was just time for a change."

Compared to National's abysmal performance of 2002, the results last Saturday were a revolution for the centre-right party. Dr Brash and his team took 10 electorates from Labour and doubled their party vote in most electorates. In Tukituki, a rural area fairly representative of the provinces, the blues collared 46 per cent of the party vote compared to Labour's 37 per cent, and candidate Craig Foss took out incumbent Rick Barker, a cabinet minister, by a 3000-vote majority. Three years ago, Foss lost it by more than 7000 ticks. Meanwhile, neighbouring Napier switched from red to blue for the first time in 50 years.

When readers opened their Sunday paper, they were met with a very different map of voting New Zealand. Rhapsodic in blue, on first glance it looked, surely, as if National had won.

Political commentators - still recovering from getting it so wrong the night before - moved quickly on to the next big political thing: the divide between rural and urban. A gaping chasm, they frothed. Heavy defeats in provincial seats, the papers proclaimed. Labour was surprised, needed to rebuild and would review its provincial performance, Labour party president Mike Williams admitted.

"I'm not so sure about all that," says Professor Jack Vowles, head of politics at Auckland University. A voice of caution, defining the left as Labour, the Progressives and the Greens, Vowles agrees there has been a swing away, and it has been more apparent outside the major cities, "but it's only 3 or 4 per cent. There is something in what's going on, but it's clearly a much more marginal phenomenon than some commentators are implying."

There is certainly nothing new that National is favoured by farmers, by those who work the land and in primary industries. And, Vowles points out, after the last elections, the only way for National was up, and the rural electorates were always going to be their best showing.

"Governing majorities tend to decrease over time. And if you are coming from a long way back, then you look like having had a big achievement. But a lot of where National have come to is a result of how bad they were in 2002."

And another thing, says Vowles. The swing was towards National but not away from Labour. All up, Labour went down by a mere half a per cent from the 2002 elections. In some electorates, notably in South Auckland, Labour gained.

Back in Tukituki, the numbers and the locals seem to match up. National gained 8000 votes but Labour lost only 900. On the streets of Hastings, an impromptu survey of passers-by turned up as many Brash-bashers as Helen-haters.

ACT, (down 2000 votes from 2002), United Future (down 1200) and NZ First (down 1500) were the biggest losers. It's the same trend in most provincial electorates.

Opinion agrees it was a two-horse campaign. "You only saw two billboards in Hastings these elections," says prominent local orchardist Phil Alison.

"National, who got theirs up months ago, and then, much later, Labour. National ran a very, very good campaign."

Alison thinks many turned to Labour, and, once MMP bedded in, to the smaller parties, after becoming disillusioned with National in the 1990s. Turning their backs on their farming roots, the Tories were seduced by technology, focusing on IT and the knowledge wave. "A lot of the country people got really pissed off with Jenny Shipley and John Luxton. Most rural people felt abandoned. I certainly know most orchardists think that and many voted Labour, not that they'd admit to it." After the first term of Labour, they were pleasantly surprised. But then came "the dykes and the special interest groups", says Alison.

The provinces were starting to feel neglected. Headlines screamed for the Government to sort out Transmission Gully and Auckland's traffic woes while provinces like Hawke's Bay dealt with boy racers and killer intersections on their own. Seemingly irrelevant law like prostitution reform and civil unions were passed while the orchardists' fruit lay puffy and rotting.

It's not a question of country folk being too conservative or bigoted, says Alison. Wairarapa had a transexual in power; National MPs supported the prostitution reform. "So what if a couple of gays want to live together? It doesn't bother me in the slightest. Do they need to be able to get married? I don't know.

"I would rather have seen [the Government] attacking a lot of other issues first."

There is a feeling of discontent towards the Treaty of Waitangi gravy train - but only, he says, because in the country, Maori and Pakeha work and live next to each other. They are more equal than in the city and can see none of the settlement money filters down to the Maori they know.

"Certainly from my perspective Labour misread the provinces. You don't want to be bullshitting rural people too much. They don't like it."

Meanwhile, a revitalised National party, a far cry from the motley crew of last elections, was going back to its roots. Cafe worker Nancy, who did not vote National but was impressed with the dedication, mused: "The National candidate, Craig Foss, came around and knocked on our door, and I thought, when was the last time an MP did that round here?"

And born-and-bred local Anna, added: "My kids started pointing to billboards around the electorate and saying, look mum, there's Craig Foss. They started to think he was some sort of celebrity."

And Labour's Rick Barker? "He was invisible." Most say he is a nice guy who did a pretty good job. But he was just never home.

Of course, it is the party vote which lies at the bottom of the gaping chasm/ marginal divide. But experts and locals say the provinces are more likely to vote first-past-the-post style and not split their vote.

Vowles says a strong candidate may have a small influence on a voter's party vote, while Electoral Commission figures show rural areas were more likely to favour first-past-the-post in the '93 MMP referendum.

An impromptu survey of Hastings shoppers showed one clear winner on the day - the two ticks trend. "[MMP] is difficult to understand," says Alison, who believes many would have been influenced by the strength of the candidates when exercising their second tick. After all, in regions like Tukituki, he says, people don't go to the pub and talk politics. They just don't care enough.

"It's rugby, weather, beach houses and who's got divorced lately. Not politics."

It's an attitude that could be extended to all the provinces, and one that could lead to genetic voting - vote as your parents did, and in these parts that favours National.

Which arguably makes Peter Beaven, chief executive of Hastings-based Pipfruit New Zealand, former orchardist and Labour voter, a rare breed. He has always voted Labour despite his occupation, and doesn't bother asking who his fellow pipfruiterers support. He already knows the answer.

Beaven believes many in Tukituki and the rest of the country were swayed by the tax cuts. "Before the tax cuts came up, it would have been hard to believe this is the way the election would have gone. Rich people want more but they don't need more. Tax cuts are aimed at people who have money. And Hawke's Bay is doing quite well at the moment."

Hawke's Bay Chamber of Commerce head Richard Heath agrees.

Raised in the region, Heath returned six years ago from Auckland to a real renaissance. Business was booming, people had huge amounts of high-value capital.

"A million-dollar home would have made front page headlines three years ago. They're a dime-a-dozen now."

The other day, Heath heard Rick Barker's campaign manager spout forth "an extra-ordinary amount of vitriol" about how National ran a campaign based on "greed and racial divisiveness". Nonsense, says Heath. "People in the regions just don't like big government. There's a real sense of self-reliance out here."

People prefer rewards for hard work over state hand-outs and a governing party that will facilitate business development, not hinder it.

Luckily for Labour, the divide between country and city is not great. Yet. And with an increasingly city-driven population, Labour might be pleased that in some urban areas their support increased.

It is next time round that is most crucial, says Beaven. "Provincial New Zealand sent Labour some pretty clear messages. The first thing [Labour] have got to do is be bloody careful about who they go into coalition with. If they go in to coalition with the Greens, they'll be gone next time. Rural New Zealand certainly see the Greens as a threat."

According to Rupert Ryan's list, that seems the case. But he's not worried. "Look at the lineup: Don Brash, John Key, Tim Groser. We've never seen a team like that before."

While the national results may not have gone its way, the party is acting like the winners of old, says Ryan. After election night, Tukituki voters woke to find spray-painted in blue capitals where Craig Foss's campaign billboards once stood, like giant greeting cards: "Thank you, Hawke's Bay!"

Ryan leans back, rescues the toothpick from the ever-moving lip and looks at me sideways with an impressed smile. "That just says everything, doesn't it? That's something special."

- HERALD ON SUNDAY