Snow White & the Seven Dwarves

March 29 South Auckland, by Salient Correspondent, Evan Leslie.

According to Peter—male-chauvinist-oig-of-Victoria-University-1973-Rotherham, there wasn't a spare [unclear: posie on] the barricades to be had for love nor money.

"The pace of the Socialist Action election campaign in Mangere is stepping up daily," he wrote in the March 11 'Socialist Action.'

"Teams of campaign supporters are active in the electorate, selling single copies and subscriptions to the campaign paper Socialist Action, and distributing the 16,000 campaign leaflets."

And "in the Mangere town centre a table has been set up where shoppers are able to meet and talk to Brigid Mulrennan the socialist candidate."

A gallant and charitable fellow, Rotherham added, "The National and Labour candidates are there too."

As the Labour and National candidates stood by quietly under the verandahs amid all this flurry of vote-catching, Brigid was, on her own modest admission, carrying the fight "into every household in Mangere."

'Socialist Action' readers were promised that this "intense campaign" would be brought to a climax on March 26-election night—when "an end-of-campaign" wind-up rally was offered "all of Brigid Mulrennan's supporters in the Renown Orange Hall, Papatoetoe.

what is clear is that the discontent with Labour is making people more receptive to the kind of programme advocated by the Socialist Action League.

It would have been a cheap round.

For when the more than 13,000 ballot papers were counted and all the polling booth results had been tallied, Brigid's haul was found to be a mere seven votes.

Not allowing for the special votes, the investment Socialist Action made in the fallow fields of Mangere (remember those 16,000 campaign leaflets) make the oil companies exploring off New Zealand's coast look like cheapskates.

Perhaps a more reflective "socialist" might have seen it coming. After all, as a dinkum dyed-in-the-wool Trotskyite, Brigid doesn't allow for the possibility of Socialism in One Country,.. How then could she have sought to find socialism in one electorate.

There are serious lessons to be drawn from the Socialist Action campaign in Mangere.

First, Socialist Action can no longer rely on the nutters' vote which carried Kay Goodger into triple figures in the 1974 Sydenham by-election.(Kay's vote was accurately predicted by one seasoned commentator who said: "There must be at least 100 nutters in Sydenham."

Second, for all their windy rhetoric, the Socialist Action League do not practise what they preach.

One issue of the "campaign newspaper" devoted half a page to scathing criticism of the Communist Party of New Zealand for running a "racist cartoon" in the 'People's Voice' a number of years ago.

The cartoon depicted a Japanese militarist sporting large buck teeth and spectacles.

Touting this issue, presumably into "every household in Mangere" was an SAL member wearing a singular T-shirt. His garment depicted a huge ugly Asian face, big buck teeth and all, from which protuded a Marijuana cigarette, topped with the legend "Cambodian Red."

This correspondent wonders just how many votes this "socialist" managed to garner among the market gardeners and other national minority folk in South Auckland.

Lenin always maintained that the earmark of a serious political party was its attitude to its own mistakes. But throughout its inconsequential history Socialist Action has never heeded this behest of Lenin's.

No doubt the editors of the "campaign paper" will be able to pick some sort of victory out of the Mangere aftermath and, who knows, for some bright spark of the "socialist" campaign there might even be a little kudos.