Invercargill-based list MP at risk of losing place in Parliament
Liz Craig - a current Invercargill-based list MP - has been ranked 44 on Labour’s list which puts her in serious jeopardy of losing her place in Parliament based on current polling.
Liz Craig may need to win the Invercargill electorate seat to remain in Parliament beyond October following the announcement of the Labour Party’s list rankings.
Labour released its MP list rankings on Monday ahead of October’s election.
Craig - a current Invercargill-based list MP - has been ranked 44 on Labour’s list which puts her in serious jeopardy of losing her place in Parliament based on current polling.
Craig was ranked 41 before the 2020 election and had no problem becoming a List MP after narrowly losing the Invercargill electorate to National’s Penny Simmonds.
With Labour having 65 MPs in Parliament after the 2020 election Craig booked a spot in Parliament as a Labour list MP.
However, at current polling - around the 32% mark - Labour would get about 41 MPs - over 20 fewer MPs than they currently have.
If that current polling is a strong indicator, it’s likely Craig will need to win the Invercargill electorate to return to Parliament.
Craig lost the Invercargill electorate at the 2020 election by just 224 votes to the National Party’s Penny Simmonds.
Although at that time there was a red wave engulfing the 2020 general election. Labour lost just five electorate seats, with Invercargill one of them.
Labour did attract 47% of the party vote in Invercargill in 2020 compared to National’s 29%, although Simmonds still managed to win the electorate seat.
In an emailed statement from Craig following an interview request about the list rankings she wrote: “It’s great to be part of such a diverse and talented team, and I’m pleased to see the depth of experience on the Labour List that was announced today.
''With so much at stake at this year’s election, I will be putting all of my efforts into running a strong campaign here in Invercargill.
"Invercargill has benefited significantly from a Labour Government, with support for projects like the Invercargill CBD Redevelopment and the Stead Street Stopbank Upgrade. Things like the Winter Energy Payment, healthy school lunches and free prescriptions are also helping people with the high cost of living.
“So, it's important we see a Labour Government returned on October 14,
and I will be putting all of my efforts into seeing this occur.”
This will be the 16th government election I have voted in and for some reason this year I find myself uninspired with the election.
Its a feeling that after voting and paying taxes over many years the country is worse off than it was 50 years ago. We had a great health system where now that I am older it is a lottery whether you get the required treatment or not, we had an amazing education system but successive governments have tinkered with it so we now have good teachers going into other careers rather than spend their time doing paperwork rather than teaching, we had farmers who were doing great stuff producing food for the world rather than paperwork for the regional councils, we had councils that wanted people to succeed and would help that happen, we hardly ever heard the word "consultant", we had a solid base of workers in Invercargill that kept the local economy humming, we looked after young mothers with Plunket and would never have thought they should leave the hospital a day after giving birth and the list could go on and on.
Maybe it's just what happens when you get old and grumpy, but I feel we have gone slowly backwards, and we have accepted that.
Is the solution to the country's woes a four-lane highway from Whangarei to Tauranga? Or is it locking young people up for doing dumb shit their parent let them do?
This election seems to be pandering to either get into power or stay in power rather than a vision of the society or country we want to live in.
We fail to embrace the good stuff like the schools that shine and the farmers who do great things because we prefer to get down in the bottom of the barrel and scratch around looking for reasons to make stupid rules for everyone. We have councils that can talk and talk and talk and we have consultants who can charge like a Spanish bull but we need leadership that is aspirational.