Green light
Remember “relentlessly positive”? Labour’s campaign refrain from 2017 was reprised by Jacinda Ardern this year, but it was Chloe Swarbrick’s relentless campaign, a combination of old-fashioned foot slog and digital savvy, that gave her the prize that had eluded even Ardern in previous elections.
In one of the many unexpected results on election night, Swarbrick defied polls that had tipped Labour’s Helen White as the likely successor in Auckland Central to National’s retiring Nikki Kaye. Swarbrick leads by a majority of 492, with special votes yet to be counted.
Auckland Central is New Zealand’s most youthful electorate, with pockets of conspicuous wealth and some areas of obvious social distress. In the wake of Covid-19 lockdowns, there are increasing numbers of business closures and for-lease signs in commercial spaces.
Swarbrick may be young but is a seasoned political campaigner. At age 22, she contested the 2016 Auckland mayoralty race, the lift in her public profile paying off a year later when she entered Parliament on the Green Party list – our youngest MP since Marilyn Waring in 1975. Her championing of causes from mental health to cannabis law reform has further propelled her to prominence.
Born and raised in Auckland, Swarbrick spent periods of time, with
