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?
    Dr Rus­sel Nor­man, Ron­go­tai can­di­date, Greens Co-leader:
    100,000 new jobs in a clean green econ­o­my, 100,000 chil­dren freed from pover­ty, and clean rivers — our peo­ple and our coun­try mat­ter.
  2. You have 30 sec­onds to con­vince some­one to come to Welling­ton. What’s your pitch?
    Welling­ton is live­ly, urban, fun, com­pact, cre­ative, polit­i­cal, colour­ful, and friend­ly – nes­tled amongst hills, rimmed by beau­ti­ful beach­es and the wild south coast, a place to enjoy and call home.
  3. Where do you stand on the issue of open­ing up gov­ern­ment data?
    The Greens have chal­lenged the degree of secre­cy around data that should be in the pub­lic domain. Account­abil­i­ty means freely avail­able infor­ma­tion.
  4. Describe your bicy­cle, or your favourite bus route?
    Avan­ti Blade. I enjoy walk­ing and cycling over the hill from Hataitai and round the har­bour to Par­lia­ment. Favourite bus route would be head­ing home to Hataitai.
  5. When did you last use the library, a com­mu­ni­ty cen­tre, or a coun­cil-run sports facil­i­ty?
    We bor­rowed DVDs from the local library last month, and I’m reg­u­lar­ly involved in pub­lic meet­ings held in com­mu­ni­ty cen­tre venues – essen­tial com­mu­ni­ty space for com­mu­ni­ty activ­i­ties and activism.
  6. Would you wel­come a cen­tral gov­ern­ment dri­ven “super-city” amal­ga­ma­tion of local author­i­ties?
    I want to pro­tect local democ­ra­cy and iden­ti­ty, and amal­ga­ma­tion can threat­en both.
  7. What city inspires your vision for Welling­ton? How?
    A city that’s easy to get around and is pedes­tri­an-friend­ly with a light rail sys­tem, as an attrac­tive loca­tion to do busi­ness, work, study, raise a fam­i­ly and enjoy …
  8. Is the con­cept of demo­c­ra­t­ic rep­re­sen­ta­tion impor­tant to you? How so?
    I urge every­one to vote to keep MMP. What­ev­er your colours, MMP is good for democ­ra­cy – MMP means more diver­si­ty, more women, more young peo­ple, and every vote counts every­where.
  9. What achieve­ment for Welling­ton are you most proud of?
    Warm­ing Welling­ton homes as we con­vinced the gov­ern­ment to rapid­ly scale up our home insu­la­tion pro­gramme – this helps keep every­one warmer, health­i­er, low­ers house­hold ener­gy bills, and helps our envi­ron­ment.
  10. What role do you think cen­tral gov­ern­ment should play in local roading/public trans­port issues?
    Cen­tral gov­ern­ment must ensure local coun­cils can ade­quate­ly pro­tect house­hold bud­gets from esca­lat­ing oil prices and simul­ta­ne­ous­ly rapid­ly reduce trans­port emis­sions. Bet­ter fund­ing of real pub­lic trans­port solu­tions is essen­tial.
  11. How can we make Welling­ton more envi­ron­men­tal­ly friend­ly?
    Stop the fly­over! Motor­way mad­ness means a fly­over mon­stros­i­ty to destroy Wellington’s com­pact urban char­ac­ter. There are much smarter trans­port solu­tions to save mon­ey, time, health — and our envi­ron­ment.
  12. What will you do to ensure diverse rep­re­sen­ta­tion on gov­ern­ment issues?
    I will con­tin­ue to push for open and diverse con­sul­ta­tion in devel­op­ing pol­i­cy, rea­son­able con­sul­ta­tion time­frames, ade­quate time for select com­mit­tees to read sub­mis­sions, and for par­lia­ment to con­sid­er leg­is­la­tion.
  13. What’s your per­son­al his­to­ry of liv­ing in Welling­ton?
    Wellington’s been home for a decade, Hataitai for six years with Katya, and now our son Tadgh. I enjoy Wellington’s con­trasts, from urban polit­i­cal life to south coast snorkelling.
  14. What pol­i­cy of your par­ty do you think will have the most impact on Welling­ton?
    Set­ting a clean green eco­nom­ic direc­tion that makes sense for this century’s chal­lenges, gen­er­at­ing real jobs with decent rates, which means a pros­per­ous car­ing coun­try and qual­i­ty pub­lic ser­vice.
  15. Do you gen­uine­ly believe you have a chance at win­ning the seat you’re con­test­ing, or is this more of a par­ty cam­paign?
    We’re very focussed on the par­ty vote because that’s how we get more great Green MPs.