1. Who are you and what do you want?

I’m an Aro Val­ley native. I want New Zealand to become an eco­nom­i­cal­ly, social­ly and eco­log­i­cal­ly sus­tain­able role mod­el for the rest of the world to fol­low.

2. What makes you dif­fer­ent?

I’ve had an inter­na­tion­al career in sus­tain­able busi­ness and lead­er­ship devel­op­ment. I’ve worked as a free­lancer, in small start-ups and with glob­al com­pa­nies.

3. What do you love or hate most about Welling­ton?

I love the ‘nat­ur­al cap­i­tal’ of our hills and har­bour, our her­itage neigh­bour­hoods and our thriv­ing arts, enter­tain­ment and cul­tur­al precincts around Cuba Street and Courte­nay Place.

4. What are you going to do about rental prop­er­ties and the state they’re in? “ – Amy, Welling­ton Cen­tral (via @Political_Cuts)

We want a War­rant of Fit­ness for all rent­ed hous­es, $3 mil­lion extra fund­ing to help fam­i­lies tak­ing action against sub­stan­dard rental hous­ing, and to insu­late anoth­er 200,000 homes.

5. “If you could re-imag­ine the econ­o­my what would it look like?” – Emma, Welling­ton Cen­tral (via @Political_Cuts)

A ‘cir­cu­lar econ­o­my’, pow­ered by renew­able ener­gy, regen­er­a­tive by design, where bio­log­i­cal mate­ri­als are designed to harm­less­ly reen­ter the bios­phere, and tech­ni­cal mate­ri­als recir­cu­late with min­i­mal loss of qual­i­ty.

6. “How would you improve work­ers’ rights in the elec­torate and ensure that young peo­ple enter into secure, long-term con­tracts?” – Brit­tany, Welling­ton Cen­tral (via @Political_Cuts)

We’d bring in a new min­i­mum redun­dan­cy pack­age of four weeks’ pay; boost bar­gain­ing pow­er and make work­places safer and more and demo­c­ra­t­ic; and remove the 90-day tri­al peri­od.

7. “What are you going to do to make NZ more egal­i­tar­i­an?” – Mike, Ron­go­tai (via @Political_Cuts)

We’d lift the min­i­mum wage to $18/hour by 2017; cre­ate a tax-free band on the first $2,000 income; and a new top tax rate of 40% above $140,000.

8. “What are the key things you will do to make things bet­ter for vul­ner­a­ble chil­dren?” – Ali­son, Ron­go­tai (via @Political_Cuts)

A Children’s Cred­it of $60/week extra; a Parental Tax Cred­it of $220/week in the first weeks of life; and $500 mil­lion per year into children’s health and edu­ca­tion.

9. How do you plan to keep pre­mier artists and busi­ness­es from flee­ing the Cap­i­tal? — ‏@OrchestraWLG

Home to a num­ber of uni­ver­si­ties, research insti­tutes, ICT and ener­gy com­pa­nies, Well­ng­ton will par­tic­u­lar­ly ben­e­fit from the Greens’ $1b invest­ment in Research & Devel­op­ment.

10. What do you wish your 17 year old self knew about fem­i­nism? @zenpeacekeeper

I wish I’d under­stood what abuse so many of my 17 year old female friends already faced; and what still lay in store for far too many of them.

11. “What would you do to fur­ther improve the electoral/Parliamentary sys­tem in NZ, and to encour­age par­tic­i­pa­tion? – Sam, Welling­ton Cen­tral (via @Political_Cuts)

Remove the one-seat “coat-tail­ing” rule; reform Elec­tion Financ­ing; set up a reg­is­ter of Lob­by­ists; pub­lish Cab­i­net deci­sions on the Inter­net; and sup­port a writ­ten Con­sti­tu­tion.

12. Will you sup­port a full enquiry into #Dirty­Pol­i­tics? Will they prac­tice clean pol­i­tics for them­selves and their par­ties? – @BevanMcCabe

Yes, yes and yes. I sup­port the Greens’ call for a Roy­al Com­mis­sion; I am com­mit­ted to prac­tic­ing clean pol­i­tics myself; and I would seek to extend the prac­tice.

13. What’s your per­son­al his­to­ry of liv­ing in Welling­ton?

I was born in Welling­ton Hos­pi­tal and went to Welling­ton High School and Vic­to­ria Uni­ver­si­ty. I lived in Lon­don for 12 years, return­ing home to Aro Val­ley in 2010.

14. What pol­i­cy of your par­ty do you think will have the most impact on Welling­ton?

The Greens’ plan to invest $500 mil­lion over five years upgrad­ing Wellington’s trans­port infra­struc­ture will secure Wellington’s future as a vibrant, peo­ple-friend­ly city “where tal­ent wants to live”.

15. Do you gen­uine­ly believe you have a chance at win­ning the seat you’re con­test­ing, or is this more of a par­ty cam­paign?

I am ask­ing you to Par­ty Vote Green. I’m num­ber 12 on the Green Par­ty List and will be elect­ed if we win over 10% of the Par­ty Vote.