The chances of her beating incumbent National MP Dana Kirkpatrick or Labour candidate Jo Luxton are low, meaning she would be relying on a high list ranking to get to Parliament.<\/p>\n
The party has already recruited some high-profile names, including Stuart Nash in Napier, Taine Randell in Tukituki and Michael Laws in Waitaki.<\/p>\n
\u201cI won\u2019t know where I\u2019ll be placed on the candidate list until around the end of September,\u201d Lawrence said.<\/p>\n
\u201cOnce I know the outcome, I\u2019ll decide what I need to do.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe have a lot of skilled candidates who represent a wide range of the community.\u201d<\/p>\n
NZ First MP Jamie Arbuckle caused a political kerfuffle this term when he was elected while holding a council seat in Marlborough and didn\u2019t give up the seat because he worried about the cost of a byelection.<\/p>\n
He ended up donating his council salary to charity.<\/p>\n
When asked about a potential repeat of Arbuckle\u2019s situation, Lawrence said she wanted to represent her country and \u201cif elected, the public would expect me to do it properly\u201d.<\/p>\n
Lawrence is already familiar with NZ First, working fulltime as an outreach advisor for parliamentary services for the party, looking after Tair\u0101whiti, Hawke\u2019s Bay and across to Taranaki.<\/p>\n
Her role involves connecting MPs and the caucus with the regions she looks after and coordinating meetings with local communities, businesses, and councils.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe nature of my job has meant that I can be flexible when I am busy with council business.\u201d<\/p>\n
Lawrence said her love of politics began when she was head girl at Tamatea High School.<\/p>\n
\u201cI just thought to myself, when I\u2019m older, I want to get involved with the council.\u201d<\/p>\n
In 2022, she ran for a seat on the Napier City Council and didn\u2019t get in.<\/p>\n
\u201cBut I really enjoyed the campaigning,\u201d Lawrence said.<\/p>\n
\u201cAnd then Winston Peters just started coming up on my social media saying things that I had been thinking about.\u201d<\/p>\n
She started reading the party\u2019s policies and as it was election year, put her hand up to volunteer and \u201creally enjoyed it\u201d.<\/p>\n
She said if she did get into Parliament, she would be advocating for family issues.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019ve got a 12-year-old daughter and have been a mum on my own for quite a few years now.<\/p>\n
\u201cI have a big family and I have relied on them to support me, so I understand what parents go through.\u201d<\/p>\n
She said she was also drawn to the party \u201cbecause it supported the regions\u201d and that she liked Peters\u2019 \u201cpragmatic approach\u201d.<\/p>\n
Lawrence said she was enjoying her role as a councillor.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere have been a couple of hairy moments, and with the reforms there\u2019s a lot of extra work and a lot of learning to do, but I have absolutely enjoyed it.\u201d<\/p>\n
LDR is local body journalism co-funded by RNZ and NZ On Air.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The chances of her beating incumbent National MP Dana Kirkpatrick or Labour candidate Jo Luxton are low, meaning…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":524869,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[259777,696,1975,4995,9852,1558,19956,38290,9828,5903,42678,1888,2082,2294,78,130,3607,111,43,139,69,381,8808,37451,131,80],"class_list":["post-524868","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-new-zealand","tag-200km","tag-announced","tag-at","tag-away","tag-based","tag-been","tag-candidate","tag-councillor","tag-different","tag-election","tag-electorate","tag-first","tag-for","tag-general","tag-in","tag-more","tag-napier","tag-new-zealand","tag-news","tag-newzealand","tag-nz","tag-region","tag-running","tag-sitting","tag-than","tag-zealand"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/524868","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=524868"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/524868\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/524869"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=524868"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=524868"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=524868"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}