2020 election: NZ First roster: MP Jenny Marcroft down to 17th

New Zealand’s first MP, Jenny Marcroft, has been moved to 17th on the party’s list, the only current MP not to be in the top 10.

NZ First launched its 2020 list today. The top seven positions are held by the party’s current MPs, but Marcroft is in a position where it is effectively impossible for him to return to Parliament.

The only women in the party’s top 10 are Tracey Martin, 3, and Talani Meikle, 8.

Meikle works for the party’s deputy leader, Fletcher Tabuteau, in Parliament and is helping to organize the party’s campaign.

She has been a party supporter in the past and her high rank gives her a great chance of entering Parliament if the party can get more than 5 percent.

Leader Winston Peters is number one and Tabuteau is second, followed by Martin, Shane Jones and Ron Mark as the top five. Former MPs Denis O’Rourke and Mahesh Bindra are at 10 and 12 respectively.

Marcroft has yet to comment. She is standing in the electorate of Auckland Central.

NZ First MP Clayton Mitchell retires from politics in the election.

The party got 7.2 percent of the vote in 2017, but is campaigning for its survival after fighting at the polls for the last term as a partner in the Labor coalition.

Peters has said that Covid-19 has made the campaign an uneven playing field.

You need to get at least 5 percent of the party’s votes or win an electorate to return to Parliament.

He’s pointing to Jones’s lean toward the Northland electorate.

A TVNZ Colmar Brunton poll of Northland early last month had Jones with 15% support, adrift of National’s Matt King (46%) and Labor’s Willow Jean Prime (31%).

Labor has ruled out making a “deal” on the electorate by removing Prime or asking Labor voters to back Jones with their electorate vote.

The full list of NZ First:

1. Winston Peters
2. Fletcher Tabuteau
3. Tracey Martin
4. Shane Jones
5. Ron Mark
6. Darroch Ball
7. Mark Patterson
8. Talani Meikle
9. David Wilson
10. Denis O’Rourke
11. Erika Harvey
12. Mahesh Bindra
13. Jamie Arbuckle
14. Mark Arneil
15. Joshua Gunn
16. Stu husband
17. Jenny Marcroft
18. Tricia Lawrence
19. Robert Gore
20. Robert Griffith
21. Jackie Farrelly
22. Anthony Odering
23. Taylor Arneil
24. Anne Degia Pala
25. John Hall
26. Brenda Steele
27. Robert Monds
28. Antony Woollams