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?
    I am National’s Can­did­ate for Wel­ling­ton Cent­ral – I want your party vote for Nation­al and your con­stitu­ency vote so we can build a bright­er future for all New Zeal­anders.
  2. You have 30 seconds to con­vince someone to come to Wel­ling­ton. What’s your pitch?
    Wel­ling­ton is a won­der­ful place to vis­it – a vibrant mix of artist­ic and com­mer­cially cre­at­ive people. The most beau­ti­ful city in the most beau­ti­ful coun­try in the world.
  3. Where do you stand on the issue of open­ing up gov­ern­ment data?
    I believe that the gov­ern­ment should pro-act­ively pub­lish all inform­a­tion unless there is a good reas­on (e.g. pri­vacy, com­mer­cial sens­it­iv­ity, nation­al secur­ity) to with­hold it.
  4. Describe your bicycle, or your favour­ite bus route?|
    Not cur­rently own­ing a car, the num­ber 3 from Karori to Lyall Bay is the one I use most often. I love the ride past the Botan­ic­al Gar­dens.
  5. When did you last use the lib­rary, a com­munity centre, or a coun­cil-run sports facil­ity?
    I vis­it the lib­rary weekly on aver­age, and last used a coun­cil com­munity centre about three weeks ago for a meet­ing.
  6. Would you wel­come a cent­ral gov­ern­ment driv­en “super-city” amal­gam­a­tion of loc­al author­it­ies?
    I believe some con­sol­id­a­tion may be bene­fi­cial, espe­cially around region-wide resource man­age­ment, e.g. for water. But the Wel­ling­ton Cent­ral CBD has little in com­mon with many neigh­bour­ing author­it­ies.
  7. What city inspires your vis­ion for Wel­ling­ton? How?
    I’d love to see a Wel­ling­ton with Vienna’s music and cul­tur­al exper­i­ence, Vancouver’s Pacific Rim cos­mo­pol­it­an­ism – a com­pact cap­it­al like Edin­burgh with an eclect­ic mix of archi­tec­ture.
  8. Is the concept of demo­crat­ic rep­res­ent­a­tion import­ant to you? How so?
    I have lived in coun­tries where demo­cracy doesn’t exist – and it’s hor­rible to have no say in how your coun­try is run. Demo­crat­ic prin­ciples are core to National’s philo­sophy.
  9.  What achieve­ment for Wel­ling­ton are you most proud of?
    Nation­al stand­ing up to the self-serving Aus­sie uni­ons and win back The Hob­bit, sav­ing thou­sands of jobs, $500 mil­lion+ of invest­ment and pre­vent­ing an icon­ic industry from being des­troyed.
  10. What role do you think cent­ral gov­ern­ment should play in loc­al roading/public trans­port issues?
    Gov­ern­ment does have a role: Nation­al inves­ted $88 mil­lion in refur­bish­ments and new units for our rail net­work.
  11.  How can we make Wel­ling­ton more envir­on­ment­ally friendly?
    Improve­ments to trans­port: $2 bil­lion for the Lev­in-Air­port cor­ridor will keep traffic mov­ing instead of sit­ting in traffic jams, emit­ting fumes.
  12.  What will you do to ensure diverse rep­res­ent­a­tion on gov­ern­ment issues?
    As a one man melt­ing pot of assor­ted Brit­ish Isles, Por­tuguese and Maori ances­try I hope to add fur­ther diversity to our Par­lia­ment as Mem­ber for Wel­ling­ton Cent­ral.
  13. What’s your per­son­al his­tory of liv­ing in Wel­ling­ton?
    I’ve lived all my work­ing life in Wel­ling­ton, in Thorndon, Karori, Mount Vic­tor­ia and Te Aro, except for a three-year assign­ment to the Middle East.
  14.  What policy of your party do you think will have the most impact on Wel­ling­ton?
    Our eco­nom­ic policies will cre­ate a more vibrant, dynam­ic eco­nomy with more jobs, growth, smart indus­tries (e.g. the ICT sec­tor) and bet­ter oppor­tun­it­ies for young Wel­ling­to­ni­ans.
  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 need your party vote for Nation­al. But I believe can also be a strong voice in the John Key-led gov­ern­ment and next MP for Wel­ling­ton Cent­ral.