I’ve just finished thank you messages to many of the people who encouraged or guided me on the selection. Thankfully the wait was not too long for the favourable decision.  

The democratic process followed by National involves the candidate in wooing as many of the selection  delegates (60 in the Wellington Central case) as want to meet. Typically a meeting takes about an hour. I can honestly say that I enjoyed every meeting. I was asked not one silly question. The membership impressed me.

Pity the  poor candidates in Selwyn electorate. That electorate has decided to adopt a unversal primary model, so 700 widely dispersed members must be lobbied, as well as attending many meet-the-candidate meetings. The  Parliamentary election will be a doddle in comparison.

Wellington Central’s  packed selection meeting promises much for the campaign to come. There must have been more observers than voting delegates.

The formal 10 minute speech promoting myself was one of the hardest I’ve ever prepared. I tried to discipline myself with full notes (very rare for me) to over-ride the urge to understate and to be conversational. I discarded draft after draft. In the end I thought the content was OK, but the delivery definitely lacked theatrics.  “Skiting” does not come easy for men of my generation.

The selection committee were  impassive. Taking their adjudication role seriously they gave none of the normal responses to desperate speaker glances round the room for  affirmation. Fortunately for me they must have decided that while a speech-making competition was entertaining, there were other factors to take into account.

Paul Quinn’s approach got dramatically better with each practice. He will be a formidable candidate in time, and David Broome too showed the benefits of a love of public speaking. The quality of candidates, the penetration and balance in the questioning made the whole process a credit to the National party.

All in all the rigour made me appreciate just how lucky I’ve been in the past not to have to go through challenged selection procedures. I’d rather draft and speak 10 times to 150 amendments to the Sentencing Act than face that again too soon.

Now I’ll have Easter, and catch up on some legal work. Next month the excitement starts, organizing the campaign team.