We’ve provided a set of ques­tions for the may­or­al and coun­cil­lor can­did­ates to answer. First 25 words to an answer get pos­ted. Check our 2013 Elec­tion cov­er­age for all responses as they come in.

Here’s Mal­colm Aitken run­ning in Onslow West­ern Ward. 

  1. What should be the city council’s role in help­ing home­less people and beg­gars? Ask home­less people about it. Allow­ing wet houses. Sup­port­ing liv­ing wage. Sup­port­ing familly viol­ence and drug and alco­hol ser­vices where pos­sible.
  2. What would you do to make Wel­ling­ton more cycle and ped­es­tri­an friendly? Park­ing strategy to reduce con­ges­tion. More cycle lanes and cycle stands. Encour­age pub­lic dis­cus­sion involving cyc­lists, motor­ists, walk­ers, talk­ing togeth­er about each oth­ers’ con­cerns.
  3. How do you think traffic flow to the hos­pit­al and air­port should be improved? Light rail can be revis­ited. May be much more afford­able if it goes via New­town to Kil­birnie and does­n’t require a second tun­nel.
  4. What are your views on the sug­ges­tion Wel­ling­ton needs to be “more than just Weta and Gov­ern­ment” – what do you think are Wellington’s strengths? It is much more than those. Strengths include impress­ive loc­al busi­nesses, a nat­ur­al envir­on­ment and city­scape of start­ling beauty and cre­ativ­ity galore.
  5. What will YOU do to get more invest­ment, busi­nesses, and busi­ness con­fid­ence in Wel­ling­ton? Make it much easi­er for busi­ness when they deal with coun­cil (one stop shop). Exempt low infra­struc­ture sub­urb­an busi­nesses from busi­ness rates.
  6. What does Wel­ling­ton need more of, and what does Wel­ling­ton need less of? More Coun­cil­lors with ori­gin­al well-thought out ideas, more plan­ning for the “big one”, less hos­til­ity to dif­fer­ent view­points around coun­cil table.
  7. What would your city coun­cil provide for chil­dren and young people? Bet­ter hous­ing stand­ards via rent­al WOF. Safer mod­ern parks that are bet­ter main­tained. More child-friendly policies for coun­cil staff with chil­dren.
  8. What steps would you take to encour­age civic engage­ment? Loc­al Gov­ern­ment Week with chil­dren being May­or for a Day. Pub­li­city to tell Wel­ling­to­ni­ans what WCC does and how it works..
  9. Tell us about your per­son­al earth­quake plan / What’s unusu­al about your earth­quake kit? Pretty stand­ard.
  10. Why should we vote for you? My extens­ive know­ledge of the loc­al gov­ern­ment sec­tor, bundles of energy and abil­ity to build con­sensus. I’ve can­vassed res­id­ents’ opin­ions for months.
  11. Where can we find out more about what you stand for? http://www.vote..co.nz/mal­col­maitken ‚http://www.malcolmaitken.co.nz/.