We must maintain equality and fairness
Ria Bond
Age: n/a Occupation: Business contractor Marital status: Longterm partner
What sets you apart from the other mayoral candidates?
I am a former list member of Parliament based in Invercargill and actively advocated for constituents of the Invercargill public throughout my role, prior to and during Parliament. The experience working in government has provided multilevel essential skills and abilities to become mayor. I have a strong business and governance background and bring years of experience in roles from chair to directorships. Invercargill needs a mayor with strong leadership and vision, and must work with councillors to get results for ratepayers and businesses. I am a mentor for Business NZ and a Rotarian.
How would you promote function and unity within the council governance team?
A focused leader means a focused team. A good team leader always has the goal in mind and sets clear expectations. As mayor, I intend to meet with each member to ascertain their skill sets, views on the role of council members, level of governance abilities, what their sense of operational is and more. I need to know the strengths and weaknesses of elected members — this allows me to provide training to upskill, motivate my team, handle and delegate responsibilities, listen to feedback and solve any problems from the start to be a team.
What are your personal views on the Three Waters reforms?
While I can appreciate the Government’s intention behind the Water Services Entities Bill, the tragic Havelock North drinking water contamination in 2016 highlighted systemic failures in our water system across service provision, regulation and source protection. I’d rather see direct investment by Government into updating local infrastructure growth as needed, not remove local decision making and add red tape bureaucracy. Greater efficiency by centralisation proposed by the minister will fail.
Our city needs to retain control of our ratepayer assets. I oppose the Three Waters reforms.
How would you promote Invercargill as a place to live and work?
We need to tell our story of our city better, to attract visitors and families to live, work and play here. From slogans to images, our messages are disjointed — miss the sense of excitement and belonging. More emphasis showcasing our local champions, heroes, migrants, our city’s progression, beaches, innovative local businesses, housing affordability, our less stressful lifestyle, sports complexes, heritage, the cando attitudes; show our humour, parks, cycling tracks; get the museum built. We need skilled workers. We need to work together across all sections of our city, work out our asset inventory and sell it better.
What do you believe the problems are with the existing Local Government Act and how would you fix it?
The challenges we face are significant. Our country has changed from when the current system was formed. A huge chunk (90%) of our tax and rates collected in New Zealand goes to Central Government, with very little investment back into our city and regions.
Invercargill City Council delivers plenty of services to our community. We need levers to protect our local democracy — local decisionmaking is being eroded. We must maintain equality and fairness. We have to ensure we can push back on the Government and ensure local voices are heard.