MP, councillor start FB page to promote political debate
A New Plymouth MP and a district councillor have created a social media page to get more people engaged with politics.
Glen Bennett and Anneka Carlson have started public Facebook page Politics Taranaki, which they thought of while catching up over a New Year brew.
‘‘We’re hoping to build a community of politically active people in the region,’’ Labour MP Bennett said.
‘‘At the moment Facebook seems like a great place to build that community, but it’s actually about the inperson connection.’’ Facebook was a forum to start it, but the page needed to be bigger than that as social media often became an echo chamber with at times unhelpful conversations, he said.
So every month the group will host a get-together at pubs and cafes to get people talking face-toface.
‘‘Glen will be there, hopefully a whole bunch of councillors will be there, and people can just ask questions, and we can talk about issues and what people’s thoughts are,’’ New Plymouth District councillor Carlson said. ‘‘Hopefully that can get conversations happening.’’
Carlson and Bennett agreed the political conversations in the region were not hitting the mark.
‘‘For a long time I’ve found people who’ve wanted to be politically active but don’t know how to or where to,’’ Bennett said.
‘‘So it’s, how do we get people wanting to be more interactive with politics? Particularly through the age groups,’’ Carlson added.
The group, which currently has less than 100 members, is aimed at all age groups, but Bennett hoped it would engage the younger generation.
‘‘For a lot of younger people specifically, they leave town, go to university and suddenly become politically active. But why can’t we be politically active now and build that?
‘‘Whether they’re Right, Left or in the Centre, wherever they sit in politics, we just want to have good, decent conversations about politics.’’
An informal get-together will be held on January 25 at 5.30pm at Shining Peak Brewery for people interested in discussing what they want from the group and how it will work.
‘‘Whether they’re Right, Left or in the Centre, wherever they sit in politics, we just want to have good, decent conversations about politics.’’
Glen Bennett
MP for New Plymouth