Labour leader Andrew Little says his party decided to back Winston Peters in the fight for Northland after the first polls came out showing the New Zealand First leader with a commanding lead.
But he expects Mr Peters would have won with or without Labour urging their supporters to "send a message" to the Government – a thinly veiled endorsement of the 40-year political veteran.
"There's no question when you look at the numbers it clearly helped Winston Peters, but you know – the Northland voters spoke, and if you look at the polls they'd spoken much earlier on," Mr Little explained on Firstline this morning.
"It was pretty clear to us from a couple of polls earlier in the campaign that there was a lot of support behind Winston Peters."
And rather than fight for second and risk splitting the vote and letting National's newcomer Mark Osborne win, he chose to "adapt our campaign to suit those conditions".
"We weren't just going to come second, as we traditionally do in Northland – we were going to come a distant third and we just made the decision well, what's in it for us in the end?"
- READ MORE: Full coverage of the Northland by-election
Mr Little doesn't believe letting Mr Peters win this time will hurt Labour at the polls in 2017 – the party has never won the seat anyway. He also rejects suggestions giving New Zealand First more power isn't in Labour's best interests.
"It gives the Opposition one more vote and the Government one less vote in the Parliament. In the end, we just looked at the numbers and the sentiment that we were picking up on the ground. People were clearly getting in behind Winston – he's very much the prodigal son. He's come back, he's been welcomed back, and people wanted him there.
"Northlanders, they wanted him – they wanted a high-profile, well-established politician because they were frustrated with the level of advocacy they were or in fact weren't getting."
To form a Government, it's likely Labour would need backing from one of – or both – New Zealand First and the Greens. Mr Peters has a strong dislike of the Greens, last year claiming they had "extremist policies" and vetoing their presence in Government under Helen Clark.
The Greens in the past have said they'd be willing to work with Mr Peters, despite his "racism".
Mr Little says Mr Peters might want to consider who voted for him at the Northland by-election before he rules out working with the Greens in the future.
"The Green Party didn't even stand a candidate – they typically do in Northland. They didn't this time. He's got to look to the Greens and say actually, he got some support from Greens supporters in this election too.
"But I think from my point of view, we have things in common with New Zealand First, we have things in common with the Greens – my job is just to make sure we're heading in more or less the same direction and setting ourselves up for 2017."
Mr Little hopes to meet with Mr Peters this week to discuss how they can "keep some cohesion" on the Opposition benches for the rest of the Parliamentary term.
3 News
source: newshub archive
