Zelie Allan contesting Waitaki
A Waimate-born breast cancer survivor will seek the Waitaki seat in the forthcoming general election - and she says health is a key battleground.
Zelie Allan has been confirmed as the Labour Party’s candidate for the seat that has been held by National’s Jacqui Dean since 2005.
Dean has previously confirmed she will again seek the seat.
Health was a key policy area in which Allan hoped to have a significant influence.
Allan was diagnosed with breast cancer in 2014 and, since then, has seen up close how the health system worked for regions such as Waitaki.
‘‘Ten months of my life was given up to this disease, with an operation, chemotherapy and radiation, so I have first-hand experience to how important our health system is to each and everyone of us.’’
Allan supported a petition started by Dunedin North MP David Clark, which sought to start the Dunedin Hospital rebuild before the general election in September. Many in her electorate relied heavily on Dunedin Hospital, she said.
Oamaru Hospital was vital and a service the community did not want to lose, she said.
It was important to ‘‘get funding back into our health system instead of the stripping of $1.7 billion from Health Services over the last 6 years’’, she said.
She is mother to two sons and one daughter. The eldest, her two sons, aged 20 and 22, were affected by a tertiary education system that leaned heavily on the notion of ‘‘user pays’’.
She hoped she could be elected with a party that would provide three years of free post school education, while helping employers take on apprentices.
Allan has lived in Oamaru for more than 20 years. She was born in Waimate and attended high school there. She spent her childhood on a farm in Morven.
She has enjoyed a ‘‘varied’’ working life, having first spent 18 years at Gillies Foundry and Engineering in Oamaru before joining Fulton Hogan.
Allan was a shareholder in a contracting business while owning and operating a lawn mowing business. She bought her current retail business, Revamp Clothing, in 2000. She opened Style 358, in Oamaru’s North End, four weeks ago.
‘‘I am proud of what I have achieved and I would like to see more people succeed in the regions.’’