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.