Act Party Whangārei candidate David Seymour is of the view local councils in Northland should be amalgamated to save cost. Photo / Michael Cunningham
Act Party Whangārei candidate David Seymour is of the view local councils in Northland should be amalgamated to save cost. Photo / Michael Cunningham
The Northern Advocate and NZME Northland digital and radio platforms, are giving you, the voters, a chance to hear why the candidates standing deserve your vote on October 17.
Northern Advocate reporter Imran Ali and The Hits Northland day announcer Charmaine Soljak have interviewed candidates from the three Northland electorates – Whangārei, Northland and Te Tai Tokerau.
We caught them on video, too, so head to thenorthernadvocate.co.nz and thehits.co.nz to read about the candidates, listen and watch what they have to say.
The Hits Northland, The Northern Advocate, and the Northland Age will introduce you to the candidates, so you can read, watch and hear about what they've had to say, and be well informed before you cast your vote.
Today we look at the next three candidates in the Whangārei electorate, with the rest of the candidates from the electorate appearing tomorrow and on Wednesday and Thursday we will have the Te Tai Tokerau candidates.
Here's what we asked them:
What is the biggest single issue facing your electorate and how would you deal with it?
What should be done to help the country recover in a post-Covid world?
Do you support moving the Port of Auckland's work to Northport at Marsden Pt and why/why not?
Do you support three district councils and one regional council for Northland or do you think they should be amalgamated?
Who has had the greatest influence on your life and why?
What needs to be done to address the chronic affordable housing shortage and inequality within Northland?
What is your position on allowing or prohibiting the release of genetically modified organisms and their products into New Zealand's environment?
What needs to be done to overcome NZ's methamphetamine scourge?
Northland's local councils should be amalgamated as the present structure is cost-prohibitive and involves too much red tape and bureaucracy, according to Act Party's Whangārei candidate David Seymour.
The former real estate agent said the question of amalgamation has been mooted more than once in recent years which could result in savings for Northland in the long run.
"There's a lot of bureaucracy, a lot of red tape involved with the three councils and there's a lot of salaries being paid out to different CEOs and senior managers where a lot of that could actually be condensed and managed from a central hub.
"Whether that hub is in Whangārei or maybe somewhere like Kerikeri, I don't know but I think it's really worth some serious investigation because I think there could actually be savings for Northland."
To hear the Hits host Charmaine Soljak's interview click here
Seymour said Act has a good plan on learning to live with Covid rather than being afraid of it.
"In Whangārei alone, the biggest issue probably is really employment so it's about getting industrial industry and tourism type industry up and going again. Unfortunately it all goes back to the lockdown situation."
"We need to get government out of our lives more and get rid of the sort of bureaucracy that ties everybody up to do business. It's not a monetary thing. Spraying money around is not going to solve the problem as such because all it's doing is putting the country into further debt.
"There are businesses there that are on the brink of closing so we need to look at how do we actually get more businesses going rather than just giving them money.
"We have to get people off the welfare system and back into employment by lifting red tape and changing the way we approach building and our RMA and building restrictions and those sort of things are just part of it," Seymour said.
Shifting the Ports of Auckland was a good idea but a mammoth task due to a lack of proper infrastructure to support such a move, he said.
"We've got pretty crap roads to put it bluntly from here to Auckland, they need to be uplifted, four-lane highway all the way through to move freight easily and also with rails. We need to get stuff on rail and get it going."
The younger generation doesn't have a grasp on saving money which impacts on their ability to own affordable homes, he reckons.
He said they'd rather have the fancy i-Phone, laptops and the i-Pads and the big screen TVs and 20-year-olds driving around in $25,000 cars.
Seymour isn't in favour of introducing Genetically Modified Organisms (GMOs) into Northland's environment, saying we should try and keep our whole horticultural and agricultural system as natural as we can.
Act Party Whangārei candidate David Seymour is of the view local councils in Northland should be amalgamated to save cost. Photo / Michael Cunningham
Hitting gangs hard is the best way to deal with the scourge of meth, he believes.
"They get a year inside for dealing, a couple of years inside for the possession of it and they just think it's a joke.
"It actually needs to be hit a lot harder and part of our reform of the Firearms Act is to be able to use the ability of, if the police find illegal firearms on these guys' premises, we start confiscating everything."
One of the people he admired as a younger person was former Act leader, National Party MP for Whangārei and Auckland mayor John Banks because he came from a pretty average sort of a family and was enthusiastic about what he did.
The other person in more recent times was his late boss Michael Springford of LJ Hooker in Whangārei who, Seymour says, was very influential on his sales career in real estate.
