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James Shaw pulls out of Wellington Central race, backs Tamatha Paul
The race for Wellington Central has taken another turn, with Green Party co-leader James Shaw announcing he will not be contesting the seat.
While Labour and National are yet to announce their candidates, Shaw has already picked who he wants to take his place: current Wellington City Councillor Tamatha Paul.
Shaw is the latest candidate to declare he’s out of the running, following National’s Nicola Willis, who’s contesting the adjacent Ōhāriu seat instead, and current Wellington Central MP Grant Robertson, who announced last week he intended to run as a list-only candidate.
Shaw has contested the seat at every election since 2011. He said as recently as last week he intended to put himself forward for the seat again, but Robertson’s announcement left him with a choice to make.
“With Grant saying he wasn’t going to stand, the seat becomes a lot more winnable, because it’s an open seat with no incumbent, like Auckland Central in 2020. And so I think if we had run to win, and I had stood as a candidate, I think I could have won it. And I think it is winnable for the Greens,” he told RNZ.
Grant Robertson, who has held the Wellington Central electorate since 2008, announced nearly a week ago he would not contest the seat again at this year’s election and would run as a list-only MP. Photo: RNZ / Samuel Rillstone
He was looking beyond the election, and instead at another term as climate change minister. He decided the electorate needed an MP who could focus on the city, its people, and its challenges.
“If we win the election this year, and I come back as climate change minister, I hope with an expanded set of responsibilities depending on how the election goes, then it would be very difficult for me to do a perfect job of being a constituency MP at the same time,” he said.
Wellington Central is seen as one of the safest Labour seats in the country, with the party holding it since 1999. But it has also been one of the highest-polling seats for the Greens.
In 2020, 30 percent of the electorate gave the Greens their party vote. While Grant Robertson romped home with 27,366 candidate votes (57 percent), Shaw trailed second-placed Nicola Willis by just 107 votes.
“We’ve got more support in Wellington Central than we have in any other electorate around the country,” Shaw said. “And that’s been true for decades now.”
Shaw said running as a list-only candidate would allow him to focus more on increasing the party vote around the country.
“As Green Party co-leader, my chief responsibility in the campaign is to ensure that we get more people giving their party vote to the Green Party than we ever have before. And if I was to try and run a winning constituency electorate campaign, that would be a distraction. Frankly, I wouldn’t be able to do either of those campaigns full justice,” he said.
It turns what had at the beginning of the year been a foregone conclusion for Labour into a 2023 battleground, with three brand new faces set to contest the electorate.
“Tamatha is an extraordinary campaigner,” Shaw said. “She got more votes at the last council elections than the next three candidates combined. She is capable of building movements, and running outstanding campaigns.”
SOURCE RNZ
The chief executive of the Parliamentary Service is confident there will be enough room to accommodate the increased number of MPs and their staff coming into Parliament.
On current numbers, up to 131 MPs could be sitting in the Chamber following the election, brought on by a record overhang result.
Clerk of the House of Representatives Dr David Wilson told the Spinoff that currently the debating chamber had enough chairs to seat 124 MPs – including the Speaker of the House – and work was being done to accommodate more by altering the seating arrangement.
In a statement, Parliamentary Service chief executive Rafael Gonzalez-Montero said planning for a larger Parliament had been going for “some time”.
“Now that the election results have confirmed an increase to the number of members we are looking at several options.
“We are confident we will be able to accommodate all members within the Chamber.”
VNP / Phil Smith
Gonzalez-Montero said office accommodation for members and their staff would be “stretched” for a short time, but the new Members’ Building was only a few months away from “practical completion”.
That building – located behind Parliament – was due to be ready to occupy in April next year and had capacity to accommodate around 30 backbench MPs.
“All members should be in fit-for-purpose accommodation from that point,” Gonzalez-Montero said.
Following the 2023 election, 123 MPs sat in the Chamber – a record number at the time. That decreased to 122 following the resignation of National MP Judith Collins.
Collins held the seat of Papakura and stepped down in May and Parliament voted against holding a by-election because it was too close to the election.
The election result also meant high-ranking National Party MPs like Chris Bishop, Paul Goldsmith, Nicola Willis and Gerry Brownlee – Speaker of the House and an MP for 30 years – would likely not make it back into Parliament.
Only resigning or retiring MPs were permitted to give a valedictory speech meaning none of them would get the chance to give a valedictory statement.
Asked if their would be special allowances for valedictories, Wilson said in a statement that normally only MPs were allowed to speak in the House but the House could suspend its own rules or temporarily alter them.
“It could do so to allow former members to address the House.”
Wilson said no such arrangements could be made until the next Parliament opened and members sworn in.
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