Written By:
mickysavage - Date published:
9:14 am, September 22nd, 2013 - 25 comments
Categories: auckland supercity, local body elections, local government -
Tags:
Unions Auckland has released a how to vote card for the Auckland Council elections. For the first time they have settled on a group of candidates to support.
The next Council will be politically finely balanced and it is important that as many progressive candidates are elected as possible. There are two particularly important races, Rose v Cooper in Waitakere and Northey v Krum in Maungakiekie.
Out west Christine Rose is up against Linda Cooper. Linda has on the campaign hustings continuously claimed that she is an independent and decried my own group of Future West as being “politically aligned”. She has neglected to mention that she is currently number 74 on National’s Party list. She says she supports a living wage and environmental protection of the Ranges but has not been able to reconcile this with her Government’s attempts to undermine both. She is attempting to hide her right wing background by pretending to be a progressive.
And Richard Northey is under some pressure from a high spending and determined Denise Krum. SHe is number 69 on National’s list. Richard is a vital member of Council and has consistently voted progressively. He is also very well organised and provides intellectual backbone to the Council. Losing him would leave a rather large gap.
There is more information on Unions Auckland’s website.
Don’t forget to vote!
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They don’t seem to be aware that Franklin is part of Auckland City. Haven’t they got members in the Glenbrook steel mill and in Pukekohe?
I presume they have not endorsed anyone for Franklin because none of the candidates are progressive. Two of them (Cashmere and Kloeten) are standing on decidedly right wing platforms and Murphy does not show any overtly progressive beliefs.
Looks like the job is to get on with is that of identifying and supporting good people to step up for 2016.
Tautoko that. In every spot I want to see a full selection of people who are smart, environmentally sound, and a friend of the workers. We’ve got a few of these, but we need more.
Lyn Murphy is an ACTiod. Slightly to the right of Attila the Hun.
Interesting that ‘Unions Auckland’ apparently have not endorsed any Auckland Mayoral candidate?
If you do NOTHING else – please check out for yourselves who is really running Auckland – http://www.committeeforauckland.org.nz/membership
Then – remember who told you?
Kind regards,
‘Her Warship’
http://www.pennybright4mayor.org.nz
[lprent: The link gives “website not found” ]
The absence of an endorsement for mayor instantly made me think of you, Penny. Would’ve been good to see the left rally behind one person – you. Will be interesting to see whether the total left vote would’ve been enough to roll Brown.
The left are rallying around one person – John Minto. Did you miss the memo?
Must have.
The Unions Support Ross Clow and his Labour team in Whau.
Clow will topple Nolene Raffles who is closet C+R/Nats.
Is there an equivalent list for the Wellington region, and if not does anyone know whether one is planned. I would be most interested to see who was recommended in such a list.
Havn’t seen anything similar for Wellington, the little booklet delivered along with the voting papers gives a good idea of the people involved,
The Mayor was easy, i voted Wade-Brown and put Morrison and Yan at 5 and 4 respectively…
That is a very mean thing to tell me. It has left me with a dilemma
I am really curious about who you made number 6.
I can’t make up my mind which of the other three candidates it would have been.
Please say it was Goulden, who really seems the worst of the lot.
The trouble with the booklet is that it makes some of the candidates seem perfectly reasonable, such as Goulden, but his previous record on the Council appears to have been of a totally disruptive nature.
I haven’t voted yet, but will probably leave both Morrison and Young off entirely. Jack Yan seems OK; Goulden deserves a high number
It’s not quite the same but Wellingtonista has surveyed all the candidates on a range of questions.
http://wellingtonista.com/category/politics/elections-2013/
We really need a left wing ticket in Southland. They all run as independents and working people are not going to go out of their way to judge them all individually. If we had a left wing ticket working people can know and trust voter turnout might increase and break up the old boys club down there.
I think the “independent” category in local council elections can be a mask for slanted politics one way or another. I’d rather people stated their political values directly.
We’ve got a former Act Mp running for Mayoralty in Dunedin who is still and independent
I see Gerry Eckhoff, also a former ACT MP, is standing for the Regional Council. Just delightful.
You can get a bit of help identifying some independents from:
http://www.radionz.co.nz/national/programmes/downthelist/audio/2569996/down-the-list-for-22-september-2013
Has anyone got information on who are the Hamilton Left candidates for council and hospital board..
I live in the Hutt where for years the Tories/ACT candidates have pretended they are independent or not politically aligned. At the same time they, abetted by the gormless local media, attacked those of us on the left with enough integrity to post our political colours, saying national politics had no place in local body politics. Total bollocks as they espouse their NACT philosophy in local government but pretend they are not influenced by party politics. However, the public can’t be bothered to read anything about the candidates so provided the names are well known (real estate agent, media personality, sportsman etc), they get elected. Sigh!!
Disappointed they unequivocally put their weight behind a single candidate in the Waitamata council seat. Would have been better if they simply said we support these candidates, we strongly oppose these candidates, etc. Met Rob Thomas when he was door knocking in the area, he’s definitely very progressive when it comes to transport issues and that’s the number one issue for me.
Mike Lee’s been around for ages, time for some new blood!
Mike Lee’s stance on begging really put me off. He’s past his use by date.
I’m not much of a Richard Northey fan either. I spoke with him once during the first ACT government and he was a fervent discipline of and apologist for Lord Roger.
Surely you can come up with more progressive than hasbeens like Rose, Lee and Coney. When they were on the ARC, they proceeded to try to block everything the old councils wanted to do and protect the status quo. Hardly progressive. know Linda has Nat connections but she did a lot of great work at the WCC getting the New Lynn and Westgate developments to be more people friendly. People need to vote based on the individual and their record, not be told what to think by others.