She is engaged to Ben King, who holds one of the most senior roles in the public service as chief executive of the Department of Prime Minister and Cabinet.<\/p>\n
\u201cI am looking forward to spending the next 61 days running a strong campaign in Kaipara ki Mahurangi, for a National Party that is fixing the basics and building the future,\u201d Rowe said in a statement. <\/p>\n
Jessica Rowe is National’s candidate for the Auckland electorate of Kaipara ki Mahurangi. Photo \/ National Party<\/p>\n
\u201cWith the economic recovery underway, now is not the time to place more costs on Aucklanders. That is why I am proud to support National\u2019s pledge of no new taxes, because Kiwis deserve to keep more of what they earn.\u201d<\/p>\n
The selection ends speculation over who National would give the seat to. Consider a safe National electorate and one held by former PM Sir John Key, the seat would be sought after by any candidate eyeing up a long tenure in National\u2019s caucus.<\/p>\n
It was particularly relevant for candidates on the party\u2019s list or those unlikely to win their electorate. Should National continue to poll in the 20s and hold many of the seats it won in 2023, there could be very few MPs who enter Parliament through the list. <\/p>\n
Minister and senior National MP Paul Goldsmith, who has tried and failed in five elections to win Auckland\u2019s Epsom electorate, initially appeared to be eyeing a run in his electorate, telling TVNZ\u2019s Q&A last month it was a \u201cbeautiful seat\u201d.<\/p>\n
\u201cA couple of people have suggested it to me and I\u2019m thinking about it,\u201d Goldsmith said when asked if he had had any conversations about running in the electorate.<\/p>\n
But he later ruled it out in a video on Facebook, saying he had \u201cinadvertently put off a lot of speculation\u201d.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt is a beautiful seat. But I am standing in Epsom. It\u2019s my home. I\u2019ve campaigned there for 15 years,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis year, if you support National, we\u2019re asking not just for your party vote, but also the constituency vote, because I want to win Epsom and I want to continue to serve the community.\u201d<\/p>\n
Adam Pearse is the Deputy Political Editor and part of the NZ Herald\u2019s Press Gallery team based at Parliament in Wellington. He has worked for NZME since 2018, reporting for the Northern Advocate in Whang\u0101rei and the Herald in Auckland.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"She is engaged to Ben King, who holds one of the most senior roles in the public service…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":593045,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[2246,6935,51,150749,19956,3276,13116,7123,186,5903,42678,2740,42,78,13832,5844,6722,82120,3556,43,4762,98905,4482,64576,12622,7248,58423,44836,1361,61,40,38,41,39],"class_list":["post-593044","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headlines","tag-2246","tag-adviser","tag-auckland","tag-belongs","tag-candidate","tag-chris","tag-contest","tag-current","tag-currently","tag-election","tag-electorate","tag-former","tag-headlines","tag-in","tag-jessica","tag-journalist","tag-minister","tag-ministerial","tag-national","tag-news","tag-party","tag-penk","tag-replace","tag-rowe","tag-sacked","tag-seat","tag-selected","tag-selects","tag-that","tag-to","tag-top-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topnews","tag-topstories"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/593044","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=593044"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/593044\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/593045"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=593044"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=593044"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=593044"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}