Just the ticket? First, tell us more about the backers
The emergence of an Invercargill City Council election ticket is fair enough – for it to have anonymous backers is not. Mayoral challenger and deputy mayor Nobby Clark has made public that a group of candidates is being assembled to campaign together as a force for change in the upcoming elections.
It’s unspecified change, at this stage, with the candidates, let alone particular policy planks, yet to be confirmed.
Even so, Clark’s performance as the predominant minority voice around the council table during the past three years would give an indication of some of the likely rallying cries.
And to the extent that we can judge from social media clamour, there’s a movement for change out there ready to be harnessed.
Campaigning by ticket is a legitimate approach, though hardly a requirement.
In northern councils, particularly larger ones, tickets are familiar enough, whether it’s right-leaning like Communities and Residents (formerly Citizens and Ratepayers) in Auckland, leftish like People’s Choice in Christchurch, or not conspicuously likeminded beyond specific local issues.
In any case, when it comes to elections democracy still prevails. Voters still get to decide whether to accept all, none, or some, of the candidates on a particular ticket.
And in smaller communities such as ours, candidates are more likely to be known by a sizeable proportion of the voters who are perfectly capable of picking and choosing from among them.
Clark has made clear that those standing under the ticket would not be expected to vote as a bloc as councillors – and that’s scarcely surprising. Nor is it surprising that this is not infrequently what happens, until it doesn’t.
What is surprising, and deeply unsatisfactory, is that the backers for the ticket campaign have not been revealed.
Clark readily acknowledges that more than one backer approached him but says he was clear any support they lent would not buy them any influence. Nor was that their intent.
But can we accept a “trust us on that’’? Absolutely not.
Let the public have the information to judge that there’s no puppetmastery, either in prospect or at any stage during the coming term. Without knowing who the backers are, the public is being fed nothing other than grounds for suspicion.
For that matter, it’s only fair to those who might wrongly be assumed to be the backers not to subject them to the discomfort of conjecture and distrust.
At national government level, belated (and still not-yet-satisfactory) attempts to tidy up the accountability for the background support provided to political parties are under way. That need is no less real at local government level.
Invercargill’s incumbent mayor, Sir Tim Shadbolt, has himself called for a clean-out of the council, though a team of candidates formed around Nobby Clark might not be exactly what he had in mind.
Although Sir Tim has ticket history of his own – Tim’s Team was successful in his 1986 win in Waitemata – in this new case he’s entitled to draw a distinction between the two cities when he says he’s unsure whether Invercargill voters would be comfortable with a ticket.
He says southern voters have always preferred candidates “who are able to stand up on their own to be counted’’.
Obviously, it’s important to bear in mind what options the voters have had before them.
And those options won’t, this election, be any narrower than in the past. Which is why it’s worth emphasising that those who see a role for themselves as contributing to change, or stability, or alloys of the two, have the option to put themselves forward, ticket or not, and make their case.
In which case, good on them.