It's a cold night in Howick as the National Party gets together to select its candidate for Manukau East. It has booked a small room at the Howick Recreational Centre expecting perhaps about 60 people to turn up, but it soon becomes clear that it has underestimated the interest.
The race
between Samoan businessman and list MP Arthur Anae and Chinese lawyer and Manukau city councillor Ken Yee draws an unexpectedly large group of observers.
More than 100 Pacific Islanders have braved the cold and the unfamiliar streets of Howick to lend their weight to Anae's bid.
"We've never had a meeting quite like this," says electorate chairman Keith Shearer as they reconvene to the recreation centre's biggest meeting room.
There is still not enough seating, so the arrivals are arranged according to voting status - paid-up party members and voting delegates up front, observers at the back.
As it happens, this results in an interesting division: Palagi and a smattering of Asians - the real Nats - in the front, Pacific Islanders at the rear.
By a strange coincidence, the seating neatly mirrors the division in what is perhaps the most diverse electorate in the country.
A microcosm of the New Zealand electorate, Manukau East spans extremes of culture and advantage - from the conspicuous wealth of Botany Downs in Howick to the struggling suburbs of Otara, Flatbush and East Tamaki.
Pacific Islanders make up nearly a third of the electorate, Asians some 17 per cent and Maori 15 per cent, but with only a few Pacific delegates able to vote, Anae looks doomed.
His speech about the need for National to reflect the diversity of the New Zealand electorate, and the promise that he will sway Manukau East's Pacific voters National's way, goes down well, though, and he wins by 37 votes to 21. His supporters at the back break out into a Samoan victory song. You would think Manu Samoa had won against the All Blacks.
"I don't know what they were singing," Shearer enthuses later, "but it sounded pretty special."
Cut to the announcement of the National Party list several days later, and it is clear the Manukau East result was a bit of glitch in the grand plan.
With Anae sitting precariously at number 28, and the only other Pacific Islander languishing at 53, it is hard to escape the conclusion that National has thrown in the towel as far as Pacific Island votes go.
Anae has been on the cusp before, and got in last time only because of Don McKinnon's appointment as Commonwealth Secretary-General. He has dropped even lower as the party makes a show of wooing Maori and Asian votes.
Anae has no quarrel with the attention for Maori - although the majority of Maori might, justifiably, be underwhelmed at what passes for an attempt by the Nats to show they care.
But in the tussle between Pacific and Asian interests within the party it has come down to a numbers game. National fancies its chances with the Asian community. The day before the party list was drawn up, Pansy Wong (elevated to number 10) and Eric Liu (tempting the party vote at 34) hosted a rally at St Marys in Parnell. It drew 1300 Asians - a brilliant marketing ploy, Anae says a touch sourly. Certainly, Bill English and Michelle Boag were impressed.
Anae, on the other hand, has a mission impossible weaning Pacific Islanders away from Labour, particularly in the stronghold held by long-serving MP Ross Robertson with a 7000-plus majority.
Anae believes he can tip the vote by appealing to staunchly Labour Pacific Islanders to give him their electorate vote.
He glimpses a chink in the sitting MP's armour. Robertson may be out at the Otara market every Saturday but he seems out of touch with that part of his electorate. He cites as one of his main achievements the work he is doing to push through a code of conduct for MPs.
It's hardly the kind of issue that would seem to prey heavily on the minds of his Otara constituents.
The presence of Matt Robson, who is expected to be confirmed as the candidate for Jim Anderton's Progressive Coalition, is another complicating factor. Robson is well liked in the Pacific Island community and could take votes from Robertson.
But it is clearly going to be a tough road for the lone Pacific Island MP in the National Party.
Anae might well look enviously at the placing of Labour's three Pacific MPs, and wonder if he is in the wrong party. After all, when it comes to Pacific policies, his sympathies lie a lot closer to Labour.
He has even congratulated Labour in Parliament for delivering his initiatives. In his push to revisit the 1982 Privy Council decision on Samoan citizenship, Anae is definitely out on a limb.
He argues, though, that Pacific Islanders need a voice in both major parties.
"I've been singing the song," says Anae, "that the browning of Auckland will determine the vote in the future, and that the National Party is history if it doesn't become more reflective of the country's diversity."
It's the same song Bill English has been singing. He has been building up the Brownie points, taking care to be seen at every important Pacific Island function, talking the talk, dancing the siva and declaring for the umpteenth time how he married the first Samoan girl he met.
Unfortunately, he seems to have thought that that was enough.
It's a cold night in Howick as the National Party gets together to select its candidate for Manukau East. It has booked a small room at the Howick Recreational Centre expecting perhaps about 60 people to turn up, but it soon becomes clear that it has underestimated the interest.
The race
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