Candidate wants to draw attention to Act

Former school principal and Act Party Tukituki candidate Duncan Lennox says don't vote for him. Photo / Glenn Taylor

With the general election this week, Hawke’s Bay Today is spending time with election candidates. Business Editor Patrick O’Sullivan talks with Act Party Tukituki candidate Duncan Lennox.

Act Party Tukituki candidate Duncan Lennox looks surprised to be given a marshmallow with his hot chocolate. He doesn't drink coffee and he doesn't usually wear a jacket and tie, but is on his way to a meet-the-candidates evening in Otane.

Campaigning is limited to accepting invitations to speak, organising brochures and updating the supporter database.

"At least I am on the ballot, which will have the Act logo next to it, which means it will make Act more noticeable," he said.

The 71-year-old former school principal is no stranger to poverty. The youngest of seven children says his family were once homeless, forcing them to break up the family.

"The older members went through both the depression and the war so the family went through some very hard times," he said.

"They were scattered among relatives and friends in different parts of the North Island because they didn't have housing."

The only home he remembers, before the Labour Government gave them a house in Hastings, "was a lean-to attached to a bach out at Haumoana".

He said if Act ever came to power it would probably end state housing. He said the house they were given wasn't fantastic - an old villa - and the "hard times" of the depression/WWII era were unlikely to be repeated.

He left the district for his first teaching job at Otara Intermediate in Auckland.

In the 1960s, he met his South Island-born wife Glenyss while a missionary in Papua New Guinea.

In 1987 he founded Hastings Christian School.

"We had 16 kids in the lounge of a house - all ages from new entrants to what in those days was form two - all in one room. No resources, just a blackboard, some desks and me."

He has lived in Flaxmere for decades and says current social problems existed before poverty.

"When we first moved there it was the heyday of the freezing works but there were a lot of problems way back then, even though they had all this money.

"Alcohol was a big problem, gambling was a big problem and there was a lot of marital violence."

He said the Domestic Purposes Benefit exacerbated social dysfunction.

"I think it has been problematic where women could have children without having a husband or partner living with them on a permanent basis. Besides which peoples' income could not match what the women were getting paid on that system.

Roger Douglas' book Unfinished Business politicised him.

"I was surprised how close what he was advocating tied to what I saw as Biblical principles of economics and government."

He ran in the 2008 election and did not run in 2011 because he was doing his "big OE".

He said people shouldn't vote for him.

"I'm running to draw attention to the fact that the Act party is still alive," Mr Lennox said.

"David Seymour will win Epsom which means the party vote has the potential to bring in another member."

Vital Statistics

Duncan Lennox, 71

• Act Party candidate for Tukituki
• Second-time candidate
• Founder of Hastings Christian School