The war over Wellington Central
Anthony Hubbard
Sunday Star Times (June 27 1999)

When there’s an election to be won, politicians will feed their own to the wolves. ANTHONY HUBBARD reports on a new film which throws a lurid light on politics.

Wellington Central is an elegant jungle where political parties devour their young – in the 1996 election, Prime Minister Jim Bolger sacrificed fresh-faced National candidate Mark Thomas.

Bolger needed Act’s Richard Prebble more than he needed the rookie Nat. If Prebble won Wellington Central, Act would get into Parliament and provide a right-wing partner for National. The knife duly flashed.

A new film tells the inside story of the battle for this crucial seat. Tony Sutorius’s Campaign also throws a hilarious and lurid light on New Zealand politics.

One of the most poignant moments comes when Thomas, an ingenuous young PR man, hears the fatal news. Sutorius, who shot, directed and produced the film, captures the young candidate gabbling into a cellphone in his car. He is just learning the awful truth.

The bewildered candidate turns to the camera. Apparently, he says, Bolger has just said "I was a fine candidate and he felt very sorry for me, but it looked like Act was going to be in Parliament because Prebble was going to win in Wellington Central. Which is a little disappointing...". The PM had, in effect, told National voters to switch from Thomas to Prebble. If Act won a constituency seat, it would by-pass the 5% parliamentary threshold – which it seemed unlikely to reach in its party vote.

Thomas then has to put a spin on the disaster for reporter Anna Kominick. He waffles cheerfully about what the PM must have really meant, smiling his dirt-eating smile.

He thanks her for her call, hangs up and whispers a two-word obscenity about the PM. The second word starts with "p".

[He calls Prime Minister Bolger a "fucking prick" –ed]

Sutorius, a 28-year-old documentary film-maker, has captured similar intimate moments with Labour’s Alick Shaw, Alliance candidate Danna Glendinning, and then Wellington Central MP, United’s Pauline Gardiner. The only major candidate to bar him access was Prebble.

Prebble’s party workers, however, were generous with their time and their talk. Some will regret it. Following a successful rally on the Wellington wharf, a group of activists are chortling together.

"That was three times better than I expected," says one. "That’s how the Nazis must have felt at Nuremberg," says another.

Shaw, a former restaurateur with fly-away hair and a salty tongue, proves a volatile candidate. "Jesus, I just don’t understand these f---ing people," he says, sitting in his car and snarling at a headline on the front page. The media are rarely popular during elections.

On another occasion Shaw sits glumly on a sofa, his hair fluffed and a cigarette writhing in his mouth. "Today’s not one of the good days," he says. Actually, he sighs, the last week hasn’t been very good either.

Some scenes are cameos of exhaustion and despair. Glendining’s campaign is doomed: all that work, she says, and she knows where its headed. "I’ve got to put things in place to stop the pain that is going to be there. I just know what it will be like," she says, trying to choke off the tears. "You’ve got to say you’re wonderful, because you can’t admit to the other candidates you’re in the depths of despair." She weeps: the phone rings. "How are you?" she says brightly, her glassy politician’s voice blurred with tears.

In Gardiner’s kitchen, the MP’s dog is twirling on the lino, chasing its tail. Gardiner says: "I’ve done a hell of a good job for the last three years, and worked my butt off. In the normal course of events that would get me into Parliament. But anything goes this time."

Sutorius says he made the film because it was the first MMP election "and there was a lot of idealism about what it might deliver. I had a sense that would either pay off magnificently or backfire a bit heinously, so I decided to document that process."

He tried repeatedly to get funding for his film: all he got was $5000 from a private trust. So he did it himself with the help of friends, family, and other film-makers.

The political idealists, he says, were disappointed. A young woman worker for National tells the camera: "I’ve had all my idealism sucked out of me." But Sutorius says this wasn’t because MMP failed. Rather, expectations of it were unrealistic. "The brutality of politics, which I think was maybe the main thing people hoped would change, actually comes from deeper within the political culture – in fact, probably from within the culture generally."

Was the Wellington Central election a tale of brutality? Sutorius says it was certainly a tale of good, well-meaning candidates who thrust themselves into a very tough environment.

The losing candidates would have made good MPs, he said, but they didn’t have the political skills, and the thickness of hide, needed to get them into Parliament. "I think ultimately there was only one politician standing in that election," he says, "and that was Richard Prebble."

Sutorius says he tried to be fair to everyone, and ended up liking the losing candidates. He didn’t get close enough to Prebble to decide whether he liked him or not, "but I would say I respect him as a politician". Prebble’s campaign, in fact, comes across as cool, competent and controlled. "Cast the educated vote, for Act" he repeatedly tells his audiences. "You get six Members of Parliament for just one vote."

The Alliance’s campaign, on the other hand, seems a shambles. Glendining is seen chasing her minder’s car as it starts off, turning up late for a student rally, and having a bewildered talk on the phone about a meeting nobody told her about.

National’s campaign was run by the elegant James Austin, who in a wonderful moment of dramatic irony reports the party president has summoned them to say "how supportive he is of our campaign".

Later, ominously, the president is reportedly refusing to sign a letter to members supporting Thomas.

Was the Bolger move an act of treachery or simply a rational decision? Sutorius says you can argue Bolger was doing his duty to the party. But "I personally find that uncomfortable, having got so close to Mark and having seen how hard they’d all worked and the promises that had been made to them earlier. It left a pretty filthy taste in the mouth."

A bond seemed to develop between the hapless Nat and the loosing Labourite. "I’m pleased to be a member of a party ," Shaw said on election night, "where I can rely on my leader not to kneecap me in the campaign."

Later, he and Thomas are seen chortling together and joking to the troops on the megaphone. It was a result, Thomas said "that neither of us wanted". However, he says, after prompting by Shaw, "the Christians are dog tucker!"

In any case, the young PR-man rose suavely to the occasion. Lot of us have got a lot to learn about MMP, he laughs, "my party in particular. And obviously I’ll be trying to help my party with this learning process over the next couple of years."