August 25, 2010 12:00pm by David Farrar

Faafoi confirms Mana nomination

Labour chief press secretary and former ONE News reporter Kris Faafoi has confirmed he will stand for selection for the Mana seat north of Wellington.

Faafoi said he would immediately quit his role if selected – nominations close on September 9 with selection on the 18th.

Kris is the favourite to win the nomination, and become the MP for Mana. He’s a nice guy, who will not alienate anyone.

Danyl M make the point:

On the other hand, it seems like an awful lot of Labour’s new intake are professional political operatives who became MPs after working as staffers in the leaders office. When you’re trying to be a broad, community based social democratic party representing a wide variety of New Zealanders I think you need to cast the net a little wider than the end of the hallway when you’re looking for new talent.

A fair point.

The selection is not a dead cert. As I have said before, I think Josie Pagani i very talented, and she could well gain grassroots support. But where head office has such a powerful say, it is hard to see them turning down the Leader’s chief press secretary.

If Kris gets selected, it will be interesting to see who replaces him in his press secretary role.