Brian Rudman: Labour can't take Clark seat for granted

For an aspiring career politician, especially one tipped for greater things, an electorate seat is a necessary accessory. It gives you a certain freedom that being a mere list MP doesn't.

Importantly, it means you don't have to spend your whole time with one hand to the forelock, making certain you're not upsetting the hierarchy who draw up the dreaded party list each election.

That's why up-and-coming first term Labour list MP Phil Twyford is so keen to take over from departing Mt Albert MP and former Prime Minister Helen Clark.

He's owned a house in the electorate for many years, living in it since his return a few years back from high-powered jobs overseas with the aid organisation Oxfam.

He's even created his own branch in the electorate organisation. In normal times he'd be an ideal nominee for selection, and the one to beat, by other hopefuls.

But jeerings from the sideline by right-wing bloggers and their mates about the downstream consequences of Mr Twyford being selected, seems to have got the Labour leadership all a-twitter.

They want him to bide his time and take on Auckland Central in 2011, or dare I suggest, Mt Roskill, perhaps, whenever Mr Goff bows out.

The immediate problem is that Helen Clark and her former deputy, Michael Cullen, are about to depart.

Dr Cullen is a list MP, so finding a replacement is a simple matter of going down the list of unsuccessful 2008 Labour list candidates until one says yes.

Replacing Ms Clark, an electorate MP, requires a byelection. But if list MP Mr Twyford stands and wins Mt Albert then he will have to be replaced by the next list hopeful too.

The problem for Labour is that the next seven people on the list are yesterday's people, defeated MPs from last year.

The top two are Damien O'Connor, who lost West Coast, Labour's so-called birthplace, and Judith Tizard, MP for Auckland Central.

The hierarchy see the advantages of provincial "good bloke" Mr O'Connor returning, but are arguing that the return of Ms Tizard, and those below her like Mark Burton and Mahara Okeroa, would run counter to the rejuvenation process begun last election.

Certainly the writing was on the wall for them last year when Ms Tizard was bumped from 18 on the 2005 list to 38, Mr Burton from 16 to 39 and Mr Okeroa from 22 to 40.

Of course Mr Twyford has every right to contest the nomination regardless, but playing righteous rebel in the Labour Party does have its pitfalls. Ask Jim Anderton.

The bright side for Mr Twyford if he stands aside is that he might be well out of it. With Ms Clark gone, Labour could lose, just as it lost neighbouring Auckland Central a few months before.

Last November, the incumbent Prime Minster on 20,157 vote easily beat her National Party rival, Baptist minister Ravi Musuku, on 9806.

But this included a huge personal vote, with 16.5 per cent of National list voters ticking her as their MP.

The party vote was much closer, Labour leading National by 2436.

The other imponderable is how long the John Key honeymoon will linger. With that in mind, Labour would be smart to delay Ms Clark's resignation as long as possible.

As for an issue, Labour does have a tailor-made cause - the completion of the Waterview connection.

If the voters of Mt Albert have one thing to thank their longstanding MP for, it is Labour's decision to save the parklands along Oakley Creek, and a swathe of adjacent residential communities, by deciding to tunnel the last stage of State Highway 20 under the electorate.

One of National's first decision on taking office was to postpone this project and seek a cheaper option. Road transport lobbyists are pressing to return to a scorched earth, overland solution. If ever there was a defining election issue, it would be this.

Alongside this, fussing over the possibility of a couple of old MPs slipping back into the House for a while seems an irrelevancy Labour can afford to ignore.