By 3news.co.nz staff
Among the election casualties are a range of Labour Party stalwarts including Stuart Nash, their candidate in Napier.
He was considered one of Labour's brightest MPs.
He lost to the incumbent National Chris Tremain who had his majority cut by more than 6000 votes.
“I’m a little bit gutted,” says Mr Nash. “I’m gutted for myself, I’m gutted for Kelvin Davis, who is one of my best mates, Carmel Sepuloni and also the other Labour MPs who didn’t make it. I thought we were a good team.”
“But that was yesterday, today’s a new day.
“You’ve got John Key who’s got seven PR in his office. We haven’t even got that amount of media staff looking after 43 MPs.”
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Mr Nash says from here he is focusing on the next election.
“I’m going to take today off, we start again tomorrow.
“If you have a look at it, it’s quite interesting. We all know things go around in swings and roundabouts. ACT’s decimated, you won’t see NZ First again, I very much doubt. National is about to run out of support partners. 2014 you will see Labour back and I don’t know where National will end up, they will have no support partners.”
Non-listed MP Damien O’Connor won the West Coast, after being dropped from the Labour list by saying they were a “gaggle of gays”.
Mr Nash says in this caucus term there have been some sewer rats who have come out and said things they should not have.
“Chris Carter came out and said what he said, which was totally uncalled for. He broke everything that Labour holds sacred.”
He says he will play no part in speculating whether or not Phil Goff will maintain his leadership.
“Let me tell you one thing about Phil Goff, this is a man of huge integrity. For two and half years he was told he couldn’t make it. In the final month when we finally saw what the man was made of, people realised, ‘shivers this guy has got what it takes’.
“If the media could have focused on the positive side of Phil Goff for two and half years I think the result would have been different.
“John Key was having photo ops in front of Taj Mahal while Goff was traipsing up and down the country.”
Mr Nash says it is Mr Goff’s decision to stay on as leader and he has been around for a long time. But he says if the re-elected Mt Roskill MP wants to stay, someone would have to mount a very strong case to show that they were better than Phil Goff. “He has run a brilliant campaign.
“Watch this space, three years will fly and I guarantee 2014 you will have the Labour leader speaking as the next prime minister.”
3 News