KEY POINTS:
The booze culture Labour MP George Hawkins remembers from growing up in "dry" Mt Eden is vastly different from what it is in his Manurewa electorate.
It was the habit of young men to head home on the trolley bus after six o'clock closing with a cardboard box
and six bottles of beer, enough to last two or three weeks.
But in pockets of Mr Hawkins' beloved Manurewa, alcohol is a way of life. "It's not just, `Let's go on the booze on Saturday night'. It's seven days a week. It's like going and buying a pie, it's that easy."
When the beer runs out, it is just a quick trip to the corner shop to get more, or to get your older mates to get some, or to send mum out to get some for the young ones.
Mr Hawkins tells of a woman he met who was beaten up by her son because she wouldn't get him booze.
The crime stories that have emerged from Manurewa have sullied the name of an area that was once home to John Walker and Scott Dixon and was where Jonah Lomu played rugby.
Mr Hawkins has got plenty of positive things to say about the area _ especially the pride in its schools _ but he does not believe in keeping quiet about its problems. "I am not prepared to do that."
He would rather talk about them and try to get some action. This week he got Parliament's permission to fast-track his private member's bill that would, over time, cut the number of liquor outlets in impoverished areas. It had been sitting in the MPs' ballot and might never have been drawn.
It is probably the most action he has had as a backbencher in this term of Parliament, where colleagues these days regard him as a quiet maverick.
His mates in Manurewa lobbied to change the boundaries of his electorate, making his safe seat safer and the marginal seat of Botany safe for National on paper.
He asks written questions of ministers in a way that Opposition MPs do. And he has refused to take the hint that it might be time to retire.
Mr Hawkins, 62, has represented Manurewa since 1990. With a majority of 11,707, his seat is safe, and he savours it with the relish of someone who laughs out loud at the envy of seatless colleagues on the party list who would rather like his electorate.
"I've got some bad news for those people who are hanging around like vultures. I am going to be here for a long while _ could even be six years rather than another term."
Last year, Mr Hawkins had an operation for bowel cancer and took two months off. He had a lot of visitors.
"They didn't want to hold your hand, they wanted to take your pulse."
Mr Hawkins' political story holds more than a touch of stubborn battler.
Before entering Parliament, he was Mayor of Papakura. It took him four goes before he had even made it to the council. He has also been a photographer for the Auckland Star and a teacher.
He tried and failed several times to gain Labour selection before succeeding in Manurewa in 1990.
The year before, he and his wife, Jan, lost a son and "the sting went out of me". But Sir Roger Douglas and other Labour right-wingers, including Richard Prebble and Michael Bassett, persuaded him to have a go.
Mr Hawkins was one of seven 1990 Labour newcomers in a caucus of 29.
After Labour was returned to office in 1999, he served two terms as Police Minister. In the second term he came under immense pressure over police failures, such as the 111 system.
When word got out that Mr Hawkins could be demoted in a reshuffle, two colleagues, Cabinet minister John Tamihere and finance and expenditure committee chairman Clayton Cosgrove, made it known they would resign their positions if their friend was dumped.
Mr Tamihere said at the time: "He is an extraordinarily loyal person _ that's why he gets what he gives."
Mr Hawkins was not demoted at the time but after the following election, he did not regain a ministerial post.
He refuses to take the hint to go. And the party hierarchy won't push him out in a damaging selection row that it would probably lose anyway.
Mr Hawkins reckons others have eyed his seat for years. Within two years of entering Parliament he had a stroke _ which has left him with a speech impediment.
At that time he thought it was the end of his career _ and so did others.
"But it made me think that some things are really worth fighting for."
GEORGE HAWKINS
* MP for Manurewa since 1990.
* Former Police Minister.
* Married to Jan.
* Was Papakura Mayor before entering Parliament.
* One-time art teacher at Rosehill College, Papakura.
