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?
    Nev­er ask that ques­tion! Er, I’m a geek and social­ist, and want to drastic­ally reduce cap­it­al­is­m’s obscene inequal­ity and save civil­isa­tion from peak-oil/cli­mate cata­strophe. Noth­ing too ambi­tious 😉
  2. You have 30 seconds to con­vince someone to come to Wel­ling­ton. What’s your pitch?
    “No no no, you can­’t come to Wel­ling­ton. It’s mine, all mine I tell you! *cackles mani­ac­ally*”
  3. Where do you stand on the issue of open­ing up gov­ern­ment data? It’s essen­tial; there must be com­pel­ling reas­ons for secrecy. And that includes SOEs, PPPs, etc too – “com­mer­cial sens­it­iv­ity” should­n’t apply to pub­lic ser­vices! “Nation­al secur­ity” has also been over-used.
  4. Describe your bicycle, or your favour­ite bus route?
    Too infre­quent, too expens­ive, and too cramped (less legroom than stand­ard buses). Increased fund­ing for pub­lic trans­port is a top pri­or­ity, espe­cially with peak oil hanging over us.
  5. When did you last use the lib­rary, a com­munity centre, or a coun­cil-run sports facil­ity?
    I’d use lib­rar­ies more if I did­n’t hate hav­ing to give the books back! And I vis­it coun­cil pools pretty reg­u­larly. These kinds of com­munity ser­vices are very import­ant.
  6. Would you wel­come a cent­ral gov­ern­ment driv­en “super-city” amal­gam­a­tion of loc­al author­it­ies?
    Not at all con­vinced that would be a good idea, no. STV should be used for all loc­al body elec­tions nation­wide, though, and health boards split into more man­age­able wards.
  7. What city inspires your vis­ion for Wel­ling­ton? How?
    New Crobuzon – we need more cac­tus people. More ser­i­ously, Wel­ling­ton should be a world lead­er, not look­ing for oth­er cit­ies to fol­low.
  8. Is the concept of demo­crat­ic rep­res­ent­a­tion import­ant to you? How so?
    Very import­ant; we should keep MMP, and intro­duce pref­er­en­tial vot­ing for both party and elect­or­ate votes. People should be able to vote for their genu­ine pref­er­ences without tac­tic­al con­cerns.
  9. What achieve­ment for Wel­ling­ton are you most proud of?
    Our top-qual­ity sci­ence fic­tion con­ven­tions.
  10. What role do you think cent­ral gov­ern­ment should play in loc­al
    roading/public trans­port issues?
    Require loc­al pro­duc­tion wherever pos­sible (buy­ing trains from over­seas and fir­ing loc­al work­ers is mad­ness); increase pub­lic trans­port fund­ing – road­ing cur­rently gets far too big a share.
  11. How can we make Wel­ling­ton more envir­on­ment­ally friendly?
    Enhance pub­lic trans­port; facil­it­ate and sub­sid­ise micro­gen­er­a­tion and energy effi­ciency (includ­ing com­puls­ory insu­la­tion for all rent­al prop­er­ties); man­u­fac­turer­/im­port­er-fun­ded recyc­ling and waste dis­pos­al. Long term, a bul­let train link…
  12. What will you do to ensure diverse rep­res­ent­a­tion on gov­ern­ment
    issues?
    Keep­ing and improv­ing MMP, which is far more rep­res­ent­at­ive than FPP or any of the altern­at­ives; invest­ig­ate options for facil­it­at­ing sub­mis­sions to select com­mit­tees etc and stop­ping abuse of urgency.
  13. What’s your per­son­al his­tory of liv­ing in Wel­ling­ton?
    Born here, love the city, and have no plans to leave.
  14. What policy of your party do you think will have the most impact on Wel­ling­ton?
    Phas­ing out GST – cheap­er goods and ser­vices for con­sumers, less bur­eau­cracy for busi­nesses. Or the $17 min­im­um wage. Or maybe cut­ting MPs’ salar­ies 😉 Too many to choose from!
  15. Do you genu­inely believe you have a chance at win­ning the seat you’re
    con­test­ing, or is this more of a party cam­paign?
    *LOL* Well, I’d have a slightly bet­ter chance if we had pref­er­en­tial vot­ing, and/or every­one based their vote entirely on this ques­tion­naire 8)