The leftward and other blatherings of Span (now with Snaps!)

Tuesday, September 21, 2004

my 2c on the local bods

everyone who has a political blog knows who they are going to vote for in any given election anyway, but here goes...

surprise surprise - vote LEFT - for those in my neck of the woods, Auckland City, this means voting for City Vision for Council, Community Boards and Regional Council, and give the City Vision Health candidates rankings 1 - 5 for DHB. pretty easy really.

as for the mayoralty - well i reluctantly ticked Hubbard. two reasons: 1) he's the only candidate who can beat Banks. 2) he's probably going to go with whoever gets the majority on council, so could work with City Vision. If Banks wins again and there is a left majority i suspect the council will be quite dysfunctional.

It all underlines how important it is to change the majority on Council, not just the mayor - i'm sure there are other cities where this is the case too. There is so much concentration on the mayoralty race, but in fact the balance of power is just as crucial. This is the first time i've really been involved in local body stuff (although i did a bit for McCarten's bid for the mayoralty last time) and i find it near impossible to get any sense for how things are going. I've found the sheer money that the right has intimidating and galling - Banks hasn't sloshed much around, but CRN and their mates are everywhere with glossy leaflets, colour billboards with pictures, and full page Herald ads, not to mention the supplement the EMA et al funded last week. I found their leaflet confusing though - the way the people were divvied up amongst the folds and where the headings were put made it difficult to read. They must be worried about David Hay getting the ARC though - they are really pushing him now, all of a sudden.

oh and if you're in the Roskill Ward - there's a nice young man called Michael Wood who's running for the Community Board on the City Vision ticket - he's really a rather good guy, despite being in Labour, and i rate him quite highly ;-)

5 comments:

Stephanie said...

damn should call my parents and remind them who to vote for since I've been the person who votes on behalf of the household for local body elections.

Aaron Bhatnagar said...

Dear me..... David Hay comes from one of New Zealand's wealthiest families, should it be a surprise that he wants to spend extra on his campaign out by Avondale-Roskill, where he hails from? And objectively, its not so much about raising profile just for him as it is for the entire C&R Now team.

And by the way, why is City Vision waging such a lousy campaign this time around? Rumours abound that CV has run out of money and can't afford to campaign further.... and I think from a neutral perspective, you would have to agree that the CV campaign has been a bit lacklustre this time around. Probably because the Labour/Alliance people are so uneasy about the nutty green faction that has come on board.

Maybe they might do better with some young blood like yourself on board? :-)

Regards

Aaron

Span said...

to be honest i don't have much to compare this campaign to - i've never paid that much attention to local bods in the past. the whole thing, regardless of sides, seems reasonably lack lustre to me. but then i'm also not in a very exciting ward - i imagine things are far more interesting in Eden Albert and Hobson.

i also think that the CV campaign might have been more interesting if there was a mayoral candidate to rally around. your point about the Greens has some credence - not that they are all nuts, but they aren't used to this kind of campaigning and they don't seem to quite get some things that Labour and Alliance people are totally up with immediately. it's important that the Greens are on board for this time, but more importantly for the long term, so that we can build a strong left ticket in Auckland City over time.

as for Hay - i didn't even really realise he was running for ARC until the last week or so when his name was added to billboards - i wouldn't call that a very effective campaign.

stef - i remember hovering over my dad when he was voting for the local bods in 1998 and watching in horror as he ticked Selwyn Abbaford for something - his comment was "i liked the sound of his ticket" - Selwyn was the only person on the aforementioned ticket...

Stephanie said...

selwyn abbaford... isn't that one of tim selwyn's many monikers?

Aaron Bhatnagar said...

My assessment of the City Vision team is that they desperately need to get some young blood on board. Too many tired old faces like Richard Northey, Bruce Hucker, Penny Sefuiva and Glenda Fryer. Its the same generational change that C&R confronted in the late 1990s.

At first C&R rejected the influx of younger people (with fresh ideas et al), and so the Auckland Now ticket was formed, with predominately younger and fresher faces with policies reflecting their values and beliefs. When a number of the C&R people were defeated in 1998, the desire for generational change was accepted internally by C&R, and so the two tickets have merged quite happily (we did this in the 2001 elections). As a result, we have had a number of younger people come forward. I was elected in 2001, we have a number of age 30-something candidates standing this time, and there is a good feeling with the older folk in C&R Now that they have passed the torch on to a new emerging generation.

In a sense, City Vision have all this to look forward too - or be wary of internally.

Regards

Aaron B