Andrew Little was voted the winner in the Labour Party leadership contest. There were three other candidates: Grant Robertson, David Parker and Nanaia Mahuta. Andrew Little won by a very small margin from Grant Robertson: 50.52% for Little to 49.48% to Robertson.
Andrew Little is aged 49. He has had a strong leadership background. As a student many years ago, he was President of the New Zealand Universities Student Association. He trained as a lawyer, was the head of the largest Trade Union and later became the President of the Labour Party.
He now has to unite the Labour caucus and to decide which MPs will have important jobs in the caucus. His main job, however, is make sure that Labour wins the 2017 election.
Vocabulary
• contest (n) – a competition
• margin – gap, difference between two numbers
• Trade Union – represents workers who belong to that union; tries to improve pay and working conditions for these workers
• caucus – MPs belonging to the same party
(Note: There is a difference between the Labour Party and the Parliamentary Labour Party. Anyone can join the Labour Party by paying a membership subscription. Members support Labour policies. The Parliamentary Labour Party, however, consists of the Labour MPs – the Labour caucus.)