There was an interesting story on the NZ Herald website this morning. It is a story about a group of pro-life campaigners telling the National Party not to select a member of Family Planning as their candidate for Wellington Central.
A fiercely anti-abortion lobby group is putting pressure on the National Party not to select an experienced doctor whose job has involved authorising and performing abortions.
Right to Life said the potential selection of medical practitioner Rosemary Fenwicke as a candidate in Wellington Central “would have serious consequences for the National Party at the forthcoming election”.
Firstly what Right to Life forget is that Wellington Central is one of the most liberal electorates in NZ. This is not something that is really going to sway a huge number of potential National voters away from Rosemary Fenwicke.
However, what caught my eye in the story was this bit.
She refused to confirm whether she was seeking the nomination for the Wellington Central seat and said Right to Life’s comments were “very premature”.
National’s electorate chair Richard Westlake said nominations for the position were not yet closed and he could not comment.
Sure, the nominations haven’t closed yet. But I find it rather interesting that she is refusing to confirm if she was seeking the nomination. Firstly there is the handle of her Twitter account. If you were not seeking the nomination for Wellington Central, or you didn’t want to confirm it publicly, why did you create a handle of @rosy4wellcent?
Add to this the amount of National Party related retweets that she has sent.
Along with an invitation to the announcement of the new Marine reserve in Kaikoura.
She is also tweeting about attending the Young Nats AGM. Young Nats have always played a key role in National Party election campaigns. They are a key source of loyal foot soldiers to leaflet drops, human hoardings and all of the other people intensive elements of election campaigns.
Finally, there is also tweets about attending Superblues meeting as well.
All of the evidence that I have presented, I believe, to an impartial would appear to suggest that she is seeking the National Party nomination for Wellington Central. If you are going to refusing to confirm it, do not have you social media presence suggest otherwise.
Before nominations formally close, an aspiring candidate is allowed to say they are seeking the nomination. But once nominations close, then the rules say you can’t speak publicly on it. So Fenwicke is just playing by the rules.
That is good information David. Though I do question if maintaining a social media presence based around a Person X for electorate Y style would fit within those rules? Including a Facebook page.
Also, there is a quote in the story, that I have included, from Richard Westlake saying that nominations haven’t closed yet.