Moera diversity on the board
Don’t call Karen Yung a politician.
The newly-elected Petone Community Board member recoils at the very thought.
When she recently set up a public Facebook page for herself, she chose to identify as a ’’community’’ to avoid having to label her self the P-word.
And unlike most people running for political positions, Yung found it uncomfortable asking people to vote for her. So she didn’t.
Instead, Yung had conversations with people about how they could participate in this year’s local elections. If they wanted to vote, great. If they ended up voting for her, well, that was just a bonus.
During the campaign, Lisa Bridson described the council as ‘‘pale, male and stale’’.
Yung, who was born and bred in Lower Hutt, is anything but. She believes she is the first Asian to be elected in the city since George Gee was Petone Borough mayor in the 1970s.
But it wasn’t a lack of ethnic diversity on the community board which worried Yung.
‘‘Part of my motivation to stand was that the last board was all male,’’ she said. ’’There’s a degree of accessibility that gets limited when you don’t have diversity.’’
Yung is also a proud Moera resident, an area she felt could sometimes be forgotten by a very Petone-focused board.
The 27-year-old works part time at the Trade Aid shop in Petone and also helps out at a family friend’s fish and chip shop in Avalon.
The rest of her time is spent helping her church, St Paul’s Waiwhetu, volunteering at Randwick School’s breakfast club, and working on Moera community projects.
Yung decided to stand for the community board ’’quite late in the piece’’.
‘‘In the end there were about 12 of us and I thought ‘oh dear, what have I done’.’’
Her campaign was a cheap one, possibly the cheapest in the city with about $50 spent.
‘‘I decided to not use billboards because environmentally I think they’re horrendous, so I made little flyers on recycled paper.’’
Yung said she would like to see a far lower spending cap for council elections, perhaps $1000.
‘‘Some people will never have the money to put in to run [for council]. I wonder how that would change things.’’
She wants to bring some critical thinking to the community board and a Moera focus.
‘‘Hopefully we can make politics more relevant in some shape or form.’’