We invit­ed all can­di­dates in Welling­ton elec­torates to con­tact us with their answers to fif­teen crowd­sourced ques­tions. Answers are restrict­ed to 30 words each, and we pub­lish them exact­ly as we receive them.

  1. Who are you and what do you want?
    My name is Jonathan Fletch­er, I’m hon­est, hard­work­ing, com­pas­sion­ate and trust­wor­thy. I’m a hus­band and father of three. I want to be the Nation­al Par­ty MP for Rimu­ta­ka.
  2. You have 30 sec­onds to con­vince some­one to come to Welling­ton. What’s your pitch? Best café’s in NZ, no traf­fic, friend­ly peo­ple, beau­ti­ful scenery… and that’s the Hutt Val­ley!
  3. Where do you stand on the issue of open­ing up gov­ern­ment data?Absolute­ly, except where it isn’t in the wider inter­ests of NZ either due to rea­sons of secu­ri­ty or com­mer­cial sen­si­tiv­i­ty.
  4. Describe your bicy­cle, or your favourite bus route?I don’t have a bike, but my favourite train route is the Wairara­pa Line to Welling­ton.
  5. When did you last use the library, a com­mu­ni­ty cen­tre, or a coun­cil-run sports facil­i­ty?I signed the kids up to the Upper Hutt library a cou­ple of weeks ago, used the Hapai Club a fort­night ago, and was at Hutt Rec yes­ter­day with the…
  6. Would you wel­come a cen­tral gov­ern­ment dri­ven “super-city” amal­ga­ma­tion of local author­i­ties?No, it’s about coop­er­a­tion, not amal­ga­ma­tion – it’s got to be dri­ven by the peo­ple and at this stage the res­i­dents of the Hutt Val­ley gen­er­al­ly don’t want to amal­ga­mate.
  7. What city inspires your vision for Welling­ton? How?My vision for Welling­ton isn’t inspired by anoth­er city, it’s inspired by the poten­tial I see in the Welling­ton region. The film indus­try, the café cul­ture, the scenery, the events…
  8. Is the con­cept of demo­c­ra­t­ic rep­re­sen­ta­tion impor­tant to you? How so?It’s impor­tant because my grand­fa­ther and his gen­er­a­tion risked their lives for it and it offers us self-deter­mi­na­tion, account­abil­i­ty and an oppor­tu­ni­ty to par­tic­i­pate.
  9. What achieve­ment for Welling­ton are you most proud of?Sav­ing the Hob­bit Movies. John Key’s lead­er­ship through that issue was some­thing that NZ can be proud of. Labour’s poli­cies will shut down the film indus­try in NZ.
  10. What role do you think cen­tral gov­ern­ment should play in local roading/public trans­port issues?Cen­tral gov­ern­men­t’s role is to look at the wider net­work and strat­e­gy and make sure local road­ing deci­sions fit into that, fund­ing is often an impor­tant part.
  11. How can we make Welling­ton more envi­ron­men­tal­ly friend­ly?Edu­ca­tion
  12. What will you do to ensure diverse rep­re­sen­ta­tion on gov­ern­ment issues?Lis­ten to my con­stituents.
  13. What’s your per­son­al his­to­ry of liv­ing in Welling­ton?My employ­er moved my fam­i­ly and I here sev­en years ago for six months, we loved it so much we would­n’t leave. We have lived in the CBD, John­sonville, Brook­lyn…
  14. What pol­i­cy of your par­ty do you think will have the most impact on Welling­ton?Bal­anc­ing the books while con­trol­ling our debt – it gives our gov­ern­ment and our econ­o­my options and the abil­i­ty to look after our less-priv­i­leged.
  15. Do you gen­uine­ly believe you have a chance at win­ning the seat you’re con­test­ing, or is this more of a par­ty cam­paign?Yes we believe we have a great chance of win­ning Rimu­ta­ka. A vote for Jonathan Fletch­er will give Rimu­ta­ka a strong voice in John Key’s Nation­al Gov­ern­ment. Two ticks please.