The Opportunities Party would like to thank the people of Mt. Albert for engaging with our candidate, Geoff Simmons, and with our ideas in this by-election.
The people we have met during the course of this campaign have shown us they are uninspired and cynical about traditional politics and the resulting low voter turn out has borne this out.
This by-election has just been the start of the conversation we want to have. The Opportunities Party is proud of our campaign and the 600 preliminary votes we won today. Given we are a new party this result, representing 4.6% of the total vote, is a strong showing especially for just three weeks of campaigning and 3 months since we announced the party.
We congratulate Jacinda Ardern on becoming the representative for the electorate. With Ardern’s win the people of Mt Albert have voted to bring Raymond Huo off Labour’s list and into parliament.
The people we met in Mt. Albert responded strongly to many of the issues we raised: rents, a forced rental lifestyle with ownership out of reach, families under pressure, pollution, transport gridlock, immigration and leadership that serves the politicians not the people. They are all biggies and whether you’re a city mouse or a country mouse we need to grapple with these issues as a country.
In the coming weeks we are excited to announce TOP’s vision for the economy and our policies on vulnerable families, health and climate change. We will soon be announcing more quality candidates like Geoff Simmons, and TOP leader Gareth Morgan has announced a Road Trip to all our main centres in the South Island to discuss how we can make our economy and society stronger, and really give every New Zealander a fair go.
Our strategy to hold real influence in the next government is to win at least 5% of the party vote and to showcase our policies to Kiwis through our TOP candidates. After this by-election we are more certain than ever that our policies are the only ones that stack up economically and socially for the country.
