Speaker: You ain't from round here
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I suppose it depends on where you are. In West Auckland the boundaries were redrawn on the advent of the Supercity in an apparently irrational or at least unsympathetic way, the upshot being that the most likely three Council candidates, though all clearly Westies having lived in the area for decades, are now actually resident outside the Ward boundaries, through no fault of their own.
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OMG - thank you for this Greg - The results for my local area are very surprising - 11/14 Local Board Candidates; 5/7 Local Ward candidates; 6/17 Mayor candidates and 15/19 Health Board candidates do NOT live in the areas they are contesting. It will shape my vote especially for those who have been in these positions for several years.
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Hell, I probably know more of what's going on than some of them, and I had to get out three months ago after working for the Red Cross off and on (mostly on) for two years, commuting from '"nice" St Martins'. No word yet on when I'll stop referring to Christchurch residents as "us" but it could be a long while yet. Maybe the EQC assessments will have even been finished.
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City wards aren't all that big. I've moved across two ward boundaries in the five years I've lived in Wellington. It must be a bit hard (especially if one is a tenant) if an attempted political career glues one to a particular postcode indefinitely. Then you've got the fact the earthquake must have made a lot of people find a new place to live.
What are you supposed to do if you've made plans to run for council in X where you live, and then you meet someone or get a job over in Y?
If it's about running for one of those staunch salt of the earth neighbourhoods, can you put a caveat along the lines of: I no longer reside in <shithole>, but still drink 10 stubbies of <insert generic cheap piss brand here> and have had my IQ tested and proven to be in double figures. Certificate attached.
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Chris Miller, in reply to
Personally if I'd recently moved I'd probably put something like "former resident of x years" in my mini bio thingie. People who've been heavily involved in the community usually list the groups/boards/etc they've been members of, it's the same thing, shows your local cred. I tend to assume people who don't note extenuating circumstances generally don't have them.
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Hmmmmm .... 0 out of 2 for the Rodney ward. Looks like my local body rep will join my MP (the hon. John Key) as living out of my area.
I'm waiting for Kim Dotcom to be eligible to stand for election!
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Throughout the city community groups and not-for-profits staff are buggered from overwork and burn-out. The poor struggle to meet horrific rents, while the middle classes in the firing line of the quakes are giving shrinks new benchmarks for sedation thresholds before they chill. People, me included, get inexplicable viral infections that go on for months as the adrenalin/cortisol combo aftermath hammers already-compromised immune systems while a rainstorm makes Elizabethan open sewers of our rivers.
The very real feeling of disempowerment that comes from not being able to literally trust the ground you stand on, never mind government and insurers, means people have a huge hunger to feel they have some say, some small control over their lives.
This is very well put. Thank you.
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Is there a site around which has more information? There's virtually nothing about most of the people who are standing here (Kaipatiki, North Shore). It looks like it defaults to saying a candidate doesn't live locally if they haven't given information.
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I'm in Wellington's Southern ward - 6 out of 7 live locally which is good, and a few of them make a point of having lived here for years. The only one who doesn't is the Green candidate..
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Papanui-Shirley ward in Christchurch - 2/7 council and 2/16 community board candidates are from out of area. Not bad. Pity they're such an uninspiring bunch.
We need good local representation so badly here. The extent of earthquake damage to our area has only become apparent to residents since the June floods. People around here are losing insurance cover, houses are probably unsaleable and any remediation is likely to involve the sort of major works that will take years. Being red-zoned is starting to look like a good idea. We need a council who will listen, act in the interests of the people and who can actually work with CERA and EQC.
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Hebe, in reply to
Is this about land levels having dropped Isabel?
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Isabel Hitchings, in reply to
Land levels have changed, as have waterways (Dudley Creek in particular) . It's a big, complex system that's been disrupted at many points.
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Thanks Greg. Very enlightening, and at least I feel I'll make some kind of informed choice.
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Hebe, in reply to
Thanks Wendy.It just upset my sense of fair play, which is to me one of the key things that New Zealand voters really care about.
(Note this comment may well come up as Hebe, who is my partner but techno skills are not my greatest strength - Greg) -
If a candidate doesn't identify his or her address and a check in phonebooks and the 'net fails to locate them, they're automatically excluded for 'lack of contactability' at the very least.
Could be a good tag on their posters too. "Not from round hereabouts!!" It's time this sort of detail was drawn to the attention of citizens. Heaven knows we have little enough information to judge their value as representatives. -
Rob Stowell, in reply to
Heaven knows we have little enough information to judge their value as representatives.
Amen. There's a few key questions I'd like answers to before I vote for anyone. But I'm gonna be out of town for the best chance to ask at a public meeting. Hoping there will be on-line Q&A but somehow "I'm committed to this community and well-qualified to serve" is about all we get from most of them ...
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Hebe, in reply to
No specifics, no vote for me.
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at issue, at issue, we all fall…
Spare a thought for those who may be allergic to candidates; feel free to use these as you see fit… -
Keir Leslie, in reply to
I agree. I think that especially in post-quake Christchurch, there's a lot of people who're living in places thy'd never planned to.
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tony j ricketts, in reply to
It's very hard to find much about the philosophical/political/party inclinations of most candidates (so-called independents, or with bland party names often involving 'team') and it could well be that the Green candidate was asked by his party to stand in an area where he stands a chance, as the Mayor (formerly Green) lives here and previously represented this ward. Our other identifiable candidate is a sitting Labour councillor.
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Christopher Nimmo, in reply to
There are Green candidates in Eastern and Lambton, so I suppose they wanted to spread things around. I assume that Peter Gilberd is the defacto Green candidate in Northern.
Southern would have had seven locals of course, except that one of them decided to shift up here to Northern at the last minute. Obviously not in a cynical move.
And in the meantime John Morrison does his best to be outrageously sexist and to stop students from voting
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I checked my local candidates, most of whom are listed as "Not living in the area ...", but I know where a couple of them live and they definitely live in the Ward. The site might not be accurate.
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Carol Stewart, in reply to
Did you go to the mayoral debate at Massey last night, Christopher?
That event was brought up by someone in the audience to challenge John Morrison, although unfortunately the person asking the question was very tedious and rambling and it was difficult to work out what he was asking. John Morrison certainly came across as being a bit of a sexist dinosaur. The live Twitter feed commentating on the event was hilarious at times - they parodied John M for a while:
Shut up Celia, the Old Boys are talking! -
There used to be a big poster down Cobham drive saying "VOTE JOHN MORRISON FOR STRONG LEADERSHIP" or something like that (I usually drive past at 70kmh, so only paid partial attention) in day-glow yellow.
Every time I drove past I muttered under my breath about defacing the sign to something like "JOHN MORRISON FOR A DICTATORSHIP", because that's how I interpret "STRONG LEADERSHIP" and it rubs me the wrong way.
Luckily for John, I'm usually running late for work.
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Amazingly, Stephen R, John Morrison wasn't even the most obnoxious candidate in the debate last night. That was Rob Goulden, who was petty, negative and vindictive throughout. He got a resounding boo from the audience when he slagged off Mayor Celia for cycling to the airport to meet Hillary Clinton that time.
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