Local MP's new office opened by Labour leader

August 9th, 2012
[by David Armstrong]

Damien O'Connor and David Shearer at the
office opening ceremony

The Labour party's goal of connecting better with "heartland" New Zealanders was the theme of a short speech by Labour opposition leader David Shearer when he opened Damien O'Connor's new Motueka office yesterday.

He said he had visited Motueka High School and saw some "great stuff" there. "It's great going into schools and seeing kids that are alive and energetic. It was just wonderful."

Slating what he called the government's driving down of standard with charter schools, he said that as an ex-teacher he can "get depressed about it. But going into the school today, you think, actually there is some fantastic stuff going on here and it's nice for the soul to see it on the ground."

He said Labour wants to reconnect with the heartland and the regions. "We think we didn't take enough care of that [in the last election], and the idea now is listening and understanding some of the concerns and trying to put that into policy," she said.

"I've spent some time in recent months speaking to a whole range of different people, and what we're seeing is that the heartland is being taken for granted by this government. We're talking about roading - all the big motorways that are going in into Auckland and Wellington at the cost of the regions.

"We're talking about polytechs - most polytech money is going into urban areas rather than into the regions where we could actually be training and keeping our young people here. We're looking at government cutbacks in services disproportionately hitting these areas."

John Krammer discusses the affairs of state with Damien and David

During his day spent in Nelson and Motueka, David also spoke with tourism operators about the Abel Tasman park and attended part of the pipfruit conference. Tongue in cheek, he thanked Motueka for turning on the sunshine (not!) and promised that a 2014 Labour government would fix that.

Damien's new office - next door to his older one in High Street beside Vodafone - provides more space for his two staff, including a place for private conversations with constituents. A short ribbon cutting ceremony was witnessed by a tight crowd of over 40 people including local leaders and stalwart labour party branch members.

Damien thanked the people who helped him to regain the West Coast Tasman constituent seat at the last election, against the trend, "and gave us the ability to open this office here".

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