An advocate for rural communities

Age: 60s Occupation: Farmer Marital status: n/a

1. What sets you apart from the other mayoral candidates?

I have an extensive lifelong farming and business background. Southland is a predominantly rural and farming region (apart from Te Anau) with more than 4000 farms in the province. I have had many leadership roles in the community. These include eight years as inaugural chairman of the Tuatapere Hospital Trust; fundraising chairman of the St James Theatre $2.3 million redevelopment; longterm trustee of Mid Dome Wilding Tree Trust; pastpresident of Southland Federated Farmers; experience and understanding of policy and advocacy with the roles I have been involved with; a strong voice for all of Southland; my integrity and dignity for the role. 2. What are your personal views on the Three Waters reforms?

I am opposed to the current mandated model of the Water Services Entities Bill (Three Waters). This is fundamentally theft of the communityfunded infrastructure by central government, along with what appears likely to be several layers of bureaucracy associated with the four national water entities.

I believe it is almost certain to increase water services rates and with no local accountability. We need to keep Three Waters in our community hands.

3. What is the biggest challenge facing Southland in the next five years and what impact would your leadership have on this?

One of the biggest challenges will be how we handle Three Waters. However, there are a number of other challenges that we face, such as significant natural areas and indigenous biodiversity; maintaining our infrastructure to an acceptable level across the region; and staff shortages in many of our industries including farming, tourism, healthcare and hospitality. I will prioritise and ensure we do all we can on behalf of our community to finding the best solutions and outcomes to all these issues. 4. What do you believe the problems are with the existing Local Government Act and how would you fix it?

From my understanding of the Local Government Act and in layman terms, it is the communities and their council who should have the say and make decisions for local issues. I would advocate strongly for the Southland residents and on their behalf when addressing our challenges.

I believe the minister responsible for local government at times has too much influence and power by overriding and mandating decisions that should be left to local councils and communities.

5. What impact is the workforce having on council budgets?

Unfortunately, with staffing shortages across the public and private sector, we are seeing an increase in staff jumping ship, so to speak. Councils are increasingly relying on consultants who command very high fees. This is a problem and it definitely needs to be addressed and realistic, workable solutions found by looking how the council can retain their staff and promote a culture where they would like to remain without having to be a part of that vicious circle.