FF:NZ How do we like our Mayors, then?

So what do we all think? have our regions chosen wisely? Gary Moore is back as christchurch's mayor, I s'pose that was expected due to our regions conservative population.

 

Manukau has had the same mayor since before I was born it seems. But we just keep voting him back in, because he does such a good job.

It's kind of pathetic that Manukau had one of the lowest voter returns in the country. Only 36%. I nearly wasn't going to return mine, but I did in the end.

Banks should be interesting, as Auckland's mayor.

 

personally i don;t know my new mayor, where i voted anyway, the mayor in dunedin, turner, well she is ok, i dont really dislike her, i just think she has had a fair turn, she has done ok, she should have let someone fresh try........term limits are something essential in local body politics in my opinion, people shouldn't be able to serve more than two consecutive terms in any office......

 

There was a guy running in Chch who was campaigning for non-vege bacon and egg pies.
personally, I like the idea, but its not quite enough to get my vote

 

I'm not sure our mayor is yet, might have to find out. I don't know much about them.

 

Mayor tim didnt even get challanged so he got it automaticly.

 

"WE" don't. (Dunedin).

Once again two of our candidates 'split' the vote, and now we have to endure Sukhi for another three years. Oh well, at least this will be her last term.

 

hehe, ? i thought she was an ok mayor?! ?

 

There was a guy running in Chch who was campaigning for non-vege bacon and egg pies.
personally, I like the idea, but its not quite enough to get my vote

His idea filters down into everything. Taking out all the unnecessary things which just end up making the greater picture worse. Comic shops where Star Wars is the only brand, TV channels without all that "news" stuff and just Star Wars movies.



He got about 458 votes, I think. More than some of the "serious" candidates. As I'm under 18, I didn't follow it too closely, so I'm not sure of all the policies of the other Chch candidates. I like the Bus Exchange, but I'm struggling to think of other initiatives of Moore's that I like...

 

I like the chalice, thats about it.

 

we had a beautiful candidate for mayor in dunedin, he was basically against footpaths, and wanted to encourage local employment by banning all non dunedin made shoes from sale within the city...........its priceless, can you imagine it, shoe smuggling would have started up, there would be shoe police, and several suspiciously large shoe stores would have opened in periphery towns around the otago region, like palmerston, balclutha and oamaru, oh well, maybe next time

 

We had an Indian candidate who promised to get us an Elephant for the zoo.

 

[best_peter_sellers_voice]Well, goodness gracious me.[/best_peter_sellers_voice]

 

Heh. I just saw on "The Panel" that we've had the lowest amount of people voting in the local body elections in 5 years. So in a newspaper article, (I can't remember which paper) the writer said that all kiwis who didn't vote should raise their hands, and tell the country how apathetic we all are.

 

Maybe it's the whole postal voting system.
If anyone is like me, most of my mail sits in a pile on the kitchen table and gets forgotten.

There's nothing quite like going to your local church hall or primary school on a saturday morning and ticking boxes with a big orange vivid marker. Voting should be an experience, not like paying the bills (when you 'get around to it').

I wonder how many people forgot about their voting papers until it was too late.

 

When I first opened them, I thought 'this won't take long. Just a quick vote for the Manukau Mayor', then I found all these other things you had to vote for. I hadn't heard of any of the people, so I opened the booklet, and voted based mainly on looks. Very shallow.

 

what pisses me off about local body elections is the unwillingness to consider new forms of voting, i mean as stated stuff all people actually vote......personally my voting papers were sent to my 1999 address, so I had to get a special vote.....they should consider say internet voting, or mobile voting booths.......local government has a lot of influence on our everday lives, it seems wrong that no one really bothers to vote, alot of the elected have very small mandates yet they do some awful things