Heartland - Te Kuiti

Too right we voted. We voted the right way too.

– A Labour Party supporter at Murray Simpson's election night event

Well, I'm prepared to work with whoever will work for the best interests of New Zealand.

– A sombre Jim Bolger addresses the need for his party to talk to the New Zealand First party

Obviously, some of the things, some of the hard decisions that Jim's made are going to hound him a bit tonight.

– A National Party supporter alludes to the unpopular budget Jim Bolger's government produced

Well I got indefinitely suspended from school and I really didn't want to go back to school. So the school granted me a certificate of exemption, which meant that if I got on a course I wouldn't have to go back to school so I came here . . . and it's good. We do a bit of shearing, you know, everything on a farm to do with deer, innoculating sheep, dipping them, we work with cows — we work with everything basically...

– A local teenager on her farm work experience with Maniapoto Skills Agency

Most people that complain it's through pure ignorance, because they don't understand what is going on. A lot of problems with Māori has come through because they don't really know who they are. They know they're Māori but they've got nothing to identify with to be Māori — they haven't got their language. And I think maybe that's the difference between our children and children in schools like ours. We have some quite good discussions as far as politics go. Whether they understand it or not is beside the point. If they grow up hearing politics all the time they're not going to be apathetic when it comes to political things, and our people need to get political. In fact New Zealand needs to get political.

– Te Wharekura o Maniapoto teacher Marlene Te Kanawa

I think Te Kuiti, this place here, is still the original New Zealand, you know? Everybody gets on, regardless of what social structure they are, they all get on very well. I think it's still a bit of old New Zealand.

– Murray Simpson, Labour Party candidate for Te Kuiti

That was eight hundred and ten in nine hours.

– Champion shearer David Fagan is asked about his recent sheep shearing record

Don't you sometimes feel obliged to give the other shearers a go? I mean, there won't be any left at that sort of rate.

– Gary McCormick jokes with champion sheep shearer David Fagan

...You have to do about 500 of those to make a little cloak like that one over there . . .  I can do about 60 of an evening, while watching TV.

– Diggeress Te Kanawa on how many whenu (warp cords) for korowai (cloaks) she can produce in one session

This man is a professional streetwalker. Is that the right expression?

– Gary McCormick meets Te Kuiti's sandwich board man, promoting MMP in the looming referendum

Election night 1993 was of interest to the nation because the prospect of MMP elections to come. It was high drama in Te Kuiti because the polls leading up to the election indicated a clear victory to the National Party and most of the members present in the Waitomo Cultural Centre settled in expecting to celebrate the usual victory at the end of the evening. Labour man Murray Simpson, with no expectation of victory, blew up his own balloons and heated a dozen saveloys across the road at the Workingmen's Club ...the mood at National Party headquarters grew grimmer by the hour. Jim Bolger was delayed by 90 minutes in making his customary visit to the hall...

– Gary McCormick describes election night 1993 in Jim Bolger country in 1994 book Heartland, page 105

The combined general election and electoral referendum held in New Zealand on 6 November 1993 was an unprecedented opportunity for voters to decide not only the fate of an incumbent government but also of the first-past-the-post electoral system under which it, like its predecessors, had won office. The potentially far-reaching results were an unusual mix of continuity and change: the government held office, but by the narrowest of margins, while the referendum unambiguously endorsed proportional representation as the country's new method for electing Members of Parliament.

– Analysis of the outcome of New Zealand's 1993 general election and MMP referendum, Electoral Studies, Volume 13 Issue 3, September 1994, pg 240

I think they'll hold on, but perhaps with a reduced majority...

– A National Party supporter at Jim Bolger's election night do awaits the final outcome

...unfortunately today youngsters just wouldn't appreciate them because it's a different world today. I like to get older folk in here. It takes them back to their younger days, and some of them just stand here gasping and said, 'Oh look, we can remember the days when we used to have all these different types of toys'.

– Antique toy and game collector Alf George shows Gary McCormick his 'boys' collection

I don't know which way it's going but it looks very, very good.  

– Te Kuiti Labour Party candidate Murray Simpson on his party's strong showing early on

I've always said to the true blue supporters here you could put a diseased tom cat up for the true blues and they'd fly in. But it could be said about a Labour electorate.

– Swinging voter Bruce Benefield on Te Kuiti's loyalty to the National Party

People refer to you as God in Te Kuiti — when you walk down the street things grow silent and people watch you pass by. How do you find the stress and strain of that sort of thing. Does it bother you at all?

– Gary McCormick quizzes farmer and ex-All Black 'Pinetree' Meads about fame