A Focus On Te Atatu

Wellington – The electorate of Te Atatu is on paper a safe Labour seat and the iPredict market is currently picking there is more than an 80 percent chance it will hold the seat, but there are a number of interesting factors in play.

The current MP is Chris Carter who was thrown out of the Labour party for disloyalty including a clumsy attempt to organise a coup against Leader Phil Goff.

This followed Carter becoming the focus of ministerial and MP travel perk stories.

Carter may yet decide to run as an independent or for another party and a stock on this issue is currently rating this as an 11 percent chance.

It is unlikely Carter could win the seat, but despite his reputation in some circles for arrogance he was a hard working local MP who could hurt Labour’s chances if he felt like doing so.

Carter won the seat with a majority of 5289 over National’s Tau Henare, but National in fact won a greater share of the party vote by 13,183 to 13,171.

Henare is standing again for National against Labour’s Phil Twyford, though the iPredict market does not rate his chance highly.
 

Henare has been working hard in the seat for some years and Twyford is a relative newcomer to the area as his hunt for an electorate to call his own finally came to an end.

Another possible wild card is a third serious candidate throwing their hand in the ring.
 

Te Atatu is the one of many seats Winston Peters is rumoured to be considering standing in.

If this is the case and he does stand a chance then the other candidate winning the seat stock for Te Atatu could be considered to be seriously under priced, though even if Peters does stand it would seem extremely unlikely he could take it.

Ends