Mayoral candidates worried about voter engagement
Low engagement and voter turnout are concerning mayoral candidates across the country hoping to take out the top job.
The last day to vote in the local elections is very near, and candidates say they’re not sure postal voting is the best way to go.
Some are also worried about whether voters themselves got a decent chance to engage before casting those votes.
Starting in the north, and New Zealand’s largest voter base - Auckland’s race has been fought among 21 candidates.
One of the frontrunners, current mayor Phil Goff, said having John Tamihere in the race had changed the game.
“It’s a lot different from last time, we had a lot of meetings last time, it’s been a more aggressive campaign from his side. Sometimes ‘facts’ are used that are far from being facts and I’m not used to that style of campaigning.”
As his mayoral campaign wrapped up, Mr Tamihere said he had absolutely no regrets.
He said running against the incumbent had been tough.
“The mountain we had to climb was quite big, but we knew from November what we were getting into.”
He said it would be an outstanding result to overturn Mr Goff.
In Wellington, incumbent mayor Justin Lester said there were half as many mayoral debates as the last election.
The turnout to meetings had been lower than last year, and there had not been as much interest. Mr Lester said there needed to be a change to the way people voted, with the government paying for a trial of online voting for local councils.
But he said the campaign had been fun.
His opponent Andy Foster said, while he ran in the 2016 elections, this was his first tilt with real resources behind him.
Famously backed by movie-mogul Sir Peter Jackson, Mr Foster said he had spent about NZ$56,000 of the permitted NZ$60,000 on his run thus far.
He felt like the real issues hadn’t been properly debated.
“I’ve seen absolutely nothing at all new from Justin (Lester), I’ve tried to put out a number of new ideas which are thinking outside the square, they’ve got some traction.
“We haven’t really had a great contest of new ideas because essentially, in my view, I’m the only one who’s put any new ideas out there at all.” The newcomer to Christchurch mayoral politics, Darryll Park, said incumbent Lianne Dalziel had a true mayoral race on her hands and said he was is enjoying his first foray into politics.
“It’s really been a real education for me and a real positive because I’ve learnt a lot, a hell of a lot, right through to climate change and the issues and people calling it a crisis.”
He said it was totally unacceptable that in this day and age there wasn’t a voting system that combined online and postal voting.