Labour leader Phil Goff says his party's win in the Mana by-election is solid and he isn't interested in criticism over the reduced majority achieved by Kris Faafoi.Mr Faafoi won the seat held by Labour for over 50 years by a slim 1080 majority. His 10,39
Labour leader Phil Goff says his party's win in the Mana by-election is solid and he isn't interested in criticism over the reduced majority achieved by Kris Faafoi.
Mr Faafoi won the seat held by Labour for over 50 years by a slim 1080 majority. His 10,397 votes made up 47 percent of what was cast while National's Hekia Parata got 9317 votes or 42 percent.
In the 2008 general election, Ms Parata ran against Winnie Laban who held the seat with a 6155 majority. Ms Laban won 53 percent of the vote to Ms Parata's 35. The gap has closed from 18 points in 2008 to 5 points on Saturday.
Mr Goff said he was not disappointed by the reduced majority.
"Not at all. We got 47 percent of the vote which was 2 or 3 points higher than the percentage of the party votes we got in 2008.
"That was a good result for us and for Kris, he was taking over as a first time unknown candidate from somebody who was a legend in the Mana electorate, Winnie Laban. That 47 percent lived up to our expectations and we were thrilled with it."
He said Mr Faafoi had run a solid campaign.
"Kris was a first time candidate taking over from somebody (Ms Laban) who'd had 11 years to establish herself and was hugely popular across the electorate and fighting against a third time candidate, second time in the Mana electorate, who'd been running a constituency office there for two years. He did really well."
Prime Minister John Key told reporters that he saw Ms Parata's result as a win and it would raise questions about Mr Goff's leadership.
Mr Goff dismissed that saying: "That's just straight political spin and he celebrates his loss at the by-election. I hope he'll celebrate his loss next year in the same way."
Mr Faafoi told NZPA he was ecstatic with the result.
"I'm relieved it's over and I can get on with the work of being MP For Mana," he said.
"As I said in the beginning, it was always going to be a tough battle and we were worried about the turnout, but in the end we got there."
Ms Parata said it gave her a strong platform to fight again on.
"I'm just absolutely, really, really delighted with the result we've achieved."
Mr Faafoi, a former political reporter who was Labour leader Phil Goff's chief press secretary, will be a new MP when he is sworn in after special votes are counted.
Ms Parata is a sitting list MP who contested Mana in 2008 and plans to fight for the seat again in next year's general election.
Jan Logie from the Greens was third with 1493 and union candidate Matt McCarten fourth on 816.
