Election hopefuls packed the Onekawa School Hall on Tuesday night for the Hawke's Bay Today candidates evening for the Napier electorate. From right: Martin Langford (DemocracyNZ), Mark Hutchinson (Labour), Julienne Dickey (Green Party), Pawel Milewski (Act), Katie Nimon (National), Laurie Turnbull (New Zealand First), and John Clive Smith (Independent) Photo / Paul Taylor
Election hopefuls packed the Onekawa School Hall on Tuesday night for the Hawke's Bay Today candidates evening for the Napier electorate. From right: Martin Langford (DemocracyNZ), Mark Hutchinson (Labour), Julienne Dickey (Green Party), Pawel Milewski (Act), Katie Nimon (National), Laurie Turnbull (New Zealand First), and John Clive Smith (Independent) Photo / Paul Taylor
Below is a transcript of the Hawke’s Bay Today Napier candidates evening at Onekawa School on Tuesday night.
Chris Hyde (Hawke’s Bay Today Editor):
We’re going to start with an icebreaker. The candidates have been told to bring a small personal item that reveals something about themselves and speak to it. They’re going to get 30 seconds each to talk about that and what it means to them.
Now traditionally, what we would do is we would draw straws to decide who goes first at this point. We don’t need to do that these days, I decided to let artificial intelligence tell us who should go first and then no one can complain that it was rigged.
I brought my black belt. I’ve been studying karate for over 10 years and passed my black belt exam last year. I was quite a bit older than everybody else, so I was happy that I was able to keep up with everybody else. I think that some elements of karate can be useful in politics. I don’t mean throwing punches, it’s more about the character and discipline and the structure.
Katie Nimon (National Party candidate):
This is a mug that my husband and I got on our honeymoon. We went out to Coromandel and went to the rail up the hill where the pottery is made. And it just so happened that a really good friend that I went to university with just popped out and he is a potter there making these mugs.
With Jeremy and I, our one little sort of inner-sanctum thing is that we have a cup of tea every night before we go to bed together. A cup of tea is really important to me, and I love having a mug that means something. So, this is about our honeymoon and also seeing a good friend.
Martin Langford (DemocracyNZ candidate):
Evening everybody. This is a set of keys for an MG that was built in 1972. And it was my first car when I qualified and got a job in hospital. When I was offered a job by [name inaudible] years ago, he had some pamphlets and brochures, and in them was an MG and the backdrop for Hawke’s Bay. We took that as a really good omen and that’s why we decided to come across here. Twenty-six years later, myself, my wife, my daughter, and the car are still here in Napier. It was a good omen.
John Clive Smith (Independent candidate):
Mine is a book. And that’s consistent with how my life has been now for more than 50 years, consulting books. I was only 32 when I stood for Parliament in Hamilton and I didn’t end up back on the hustings again until three years ago. I met three seniors in that time, and they were a great source of enlightenment to me. One of them said to me, beware the frame of mind, and I’ve never forgotten that. Another was a famous doctor. She was famous in those days anyway. Dr Eva Hill, because she wrote books like why be scared of cancer for example. She also bucked the establishment, anyway ...
Chris Hyde (moderator):
Sorry John, I hate interrupting your korero but we have to do it to keep things moving.
Julienne Dickey (Green Party candidate):
When I was 26, I left NZ and went and lived in a log cabin in Redwood Forests in California. I found this piece of redwood and I fashioned it into something that’s a bit like a mother and child. And what it reminds me of is the joy of being young. And the joy of being almost completely unburdened by possessions. And the love of nature. I lived in the Redwood Forests. I absolutely loved it, and I’ve loved it ever since, and one of the reasons I’m in the Green Party is I want everybody in the world to be able to share in the joy of nature.
Green Party Napier candidate Julienne Dickey. Photo / Paul Taylor
Thank you so much. This is a picture of my mum in Wairoa at the debutant ball. And of those four ladies they all worked at Oslers during the war. Unfortunately, they’ve all passed away now, but this means so much to me, because it’s my mum and that’s where I come from and I’m so proud mum was there.
Mark Hutchinson (Labour candidate):
This is a picture of me with my eldest child when he was less than a day old. I’m looking exhausted.
So why I picked this is because I think when your first child is born your dreams switch from being your own to being dreams for their future. What I want for my kids’ future is that if they work, I want them to be able to buy their own house and to have the dignity of doing it with their own effort. And I also want them to live on a planet where they feel safe to raise their own kids. Let me tell you, our teenagers feel like we are leaving the planet burning for them.
Chris Hyde
Thank you very much to everyone. I apologise for interrupting you John, I know that that was important for you and I hate interrupting, but rules are rules and we do have to get through the night.
Having lived in Napier working as a dental surgeon for 26 years, I feel connected to the area.
I even commuted to Waipukurau for around two years as we didn’t want to leave our family home. My wife and I, Marie, have raised two children to be independent adults, and I now have the ability to be focused on the job at hand and if elected, be your representative.
Being a health professional, I have experience and knowledge of the healthcare system. My career has trained me well to listen to people’s problems, points of view, and an ability for critical thinking and providing solutions and viable alternatives.
Being a small business owner, I understand the problems and challenges faced by 90 per cent of businesses in New Zealand. I know how government decisions can wreak havoc on hard-working Kiwis. I’m a people person, my children don’t believe that, but I am someone who can find common ground with those I need. I am not afraid of hard work. I relish the challenge. I thrive under pressure with a strong moral compass and a desire for truth and justice to try and at last I want to be the voice of the electorate in Wellington. Thank you.
I knew nothing about fluoridation when I was living in Hamilton. I was 32 years of age until I was enlightened by people out there. That included having contact with a backyard bookseller. When I found out also from this doctor Eva Hill, she’d been against fluoridation since coming to Hastings in 1955 and spoke at the Municipal Theatre when Hastings was the flouride city and Napier was supposed to be the other way around. But of course, now we’ve got a situation where the Government is going to enforce fluoridation on the city where I’ve resided now for 35 years, one of the attractions being that it is fluoride free.
If I have anything to do with it, it will remain that way. And in fact, fluoride will be taken out of the water everywhere in New Zealand. In the Napier Library, a couple of years ago there was this book thrown into the discard. I’d never seen it before, and I thought ‘I recognise that lady on the back’, that’s Dr Eva Hill. But she didn’t write the book and photos on the back because simply because she was recommended.
That is just one of my motivations and some of you might remember last year, I stood for mayoralty as well. And really that was 100 words out of 150 concentrating on forced flouridisation. I could concentrate on so many things this election but I’m focusing on this so I can finish the story.
Katie Nimon:
Evening everyone, I’m the National candidate for Napier. And I always want to say that the reason that I believe I will be the best MP for Napier is because I know that Napier is not just Napier City, this electorate goes all the way up to Gisborne, even further up Mātāwai, and the issues are broad ranging.
I’m connected to those communities, because everybody’s issues are important and I’m here to view all of those. I have spent my life and dedicated my life to service and to community. I have worked in advisory committees for EIT, The School of Hospitality and Tourism. I’ve grown the tourism industry in Hawke’s Bay, as collective of businesses, business events, and worked really hard to help kids get to school for a very long time.
And so that’s really, really important to me, to represent people and be well catered to people. This job is about representing the people. It is not about my beliefs, it is about everybody else’s beliefs and being open, being honest, hearing those concerns, and coming back to people with the honest truth of what is the best outcome for them. It is about representing them with a National government, and making sure that all of Napier is included in the best decision-making. I will be there for every single person in this entire electorate, I’m a listening ear, I’m committed and connected. Thank you.
National Party Napier candidate Katie Nimon. Photo / Paul Taylor
Mark Hutchinson:
I chose to raise my three kids here and I built a successful business here from scratch. My dad grew up in a state house here in Marewa — my mum, who is sitting in the second row, was a primary school teacher in Taradale for her whole career. My roots here are deep in nature. I’m not standing to be an MP for a career shift, I’m quite happy with my career. The reason I’m doing it is that I care about people. I want to make a difference.
I want to make Hawke’s Bay a thriving place where our kids can stay, and all of their family at all ages can thrive. And to do that, I think we need to have really good social services, really good infrastructure, and a really booming economy. I think that what I bring to the role is depth and breadth of experience over 30 years.
I spent 10 years working as a child and family psychologist, so I know really well what it takes to help young people succeed in life, and where they go off the rails and what needs to be done about it. The last 20 years, both in the UK and here, I’ve worked with senior leaders and large businesses, leaning into difficult challenges with them and helping them to get things done. I’ve worked with people from all different backgrounds, all different political persuasions, and I’ve got a reputation for helping them to get things done and that’s what I’m bringing to you here.
Kia ora koutou.I grew up in Auckland, I whakapapa to Scotland and Tainui. I ran organisations in the UK in the mental health and disability fields, so I’m very committed to issues around disadvantage and discrimination. I worked as a management consultant with over 100 companies and organisations and understand the importance of having an ambitious vision, a long-term strategy and applying ethical standards to drive success.
But I’m not here to ask for your vote as an electoral candidate. Instead, I’m asking for you to party vote, because I passionately believe that the Green Party has the right policies for climate and environmental protection, and social justice.
With enough Green MPs, we can influence the direction of travel in New Zealand so that New Zealand can be a beacon of a fairer, greener, more-equitable society.
New Zealand has enough wealth to ensure that everyone has a safe, warm, affordable home and enough resources for a good life. To make that happen, or to allow not to happen is a political decision not an economic one. So, for the sake of the planet, this beautiful country, for the sake of future generations, for the sake of fairness, for the sake of a thriving Hawke’s Bay, I urge you to party vote Green. Thank you.
Laurie Turnbull:
To start off, I’m actually running for Napier for the party vote. So, what I’d like to say is I’m originally from Wairoa, I have six children. I’ve worked overseas for many years. I guess for me the passion is for Hawke’s Bay. I think whoever is the candidate elected on October the 14th really needs to look at a very, very critical area in Napier, which is the cyclone recovery, because I know there’s a lot of stuff still happening — whoever the MP is really needs to get in on the ground and get this stuff sorted.
I know Labour found $90 billion down the back of a couch. If they use that money, that will go a long way into fixing all the issues that Hawke’s Bay is still facing.
I think the cost of living is a real critical point. I think 62 per cent of those interviewed said that the cost of living is just insane. So whoever the candidate is really needs to get in and get this under control, drop it down, so everybody can just get on with life without having to worry about where the next meal is coming from. We’ve also got law-and-order problems and housing, we don’t want people still sleeping in cars at Napier. So, it’s just about whoever it is really needs to get into Napier and fix up our electorate.
Pawel Milewski:
I’m running for the party vote campaign. So this is not about me personally, it’s about what Act Party has to offer your party votes in the heart of this next election. I’m a Polish immigrant, I moved to this country 15 years ago and I’m a small business owner. I run a small engineering consultancy right in the heart of Napier. Being a structural engineer, I have a thing for numbers. When you look at the numbers, really the only party that has all their numbers in line is Act.
We have a fully costed alternative budget that shows how the government waste has added up. I encourage you to go to the website and have a look. We show how $16 billion of government waste will be cut pretty much from the get-go if we have a change of government.
Really, when you look at it from an engineering point of view, if engineers were designing buildings the way Labour is running the books in this country, the houses would be falling down. It’s true, the numbers don’t lie. So, this is why today I ask you to give your party vote to Act so we can have real change in this country.
After this year’s events with Cyclone Gabrielle, climate change is the biggest issue in Napier this election. What decisive bold action does your party intend to take to reduce our carbon emissions?
Martin Langford:
I and DemocracyNZ believe in evidence over ideology. We should stop blaming our food producers, the most efficient in the world, for being our worst polluters. This is not true. It’s palpable nonsense. DemocracyNZ would encourage individuals and companies to reduce their general waste, reduce, reuse, and then recycle and then, only then, tip.
We say no to the farming tax. Pine cones cannot be eaten, but if we replace our food-producing land with carbon farming and pine forests, what will replace our home-grown free-range food? We need to focus on producing healthy, affordable food for everyday New Zealanders. New Zealand is responsible allegedly for only 0.17 per cent of global greenhouse emissions. Yes, we need a clean environment. So let us focus on reducing real manmade pollution starting with us the consumer, and accept some self-responsibility. Thank you.
DemocracyNZ Napier candidate Martin Langford. Photo / Paul Taylor
Laurie Turnbull:
New Zealand First supports the necessity of a transition to a zero-carbon future where people and the planet and businesses can all thrive. We recognise that change is interconnected with many environmental and social sustainability issues. That means responding together across the sectors including transport, industrial, industrial heat, electricity, agriculture, forestry, waste, and water.
We will work to prioritise actions across all these areas. Successfully addressing the issue means New Zealand will have a competitive advantage with all its exports to the rest of the world. Customers place a high value on sustainability, so this is the right thing to do for our planet and it also it makes economic sense.
Mark Hutchinson:
So a vote for Labour is not only a vote to accept climate change, it’s also a vote to actually do something about it. A great example of a policy that’s really working that National and Act will overturn is the clean car discount. We’ve massively increased the number of EVs on the road, and we’re moving towards a transition. In terms of carbon and farming, it’s unfortunate for New Zealand that a large amount of our emissions are methane. Unfortunately, we have to follow global trading rules, because we are a trading nation.
If we don’t meet our carbon targets, we don’t get privileged access to our key markets. So why not become global leaders in sustainable agriculture and sell that to the world. Let’s get on the boat, and if you make something out of it for our country, instead of being the Flat Earth Society and pretending it’s not coming — it’s coming. Europe is stopping making diesel cars from the early 2030s, so we need to get moving.
It’s not the right thing to do to take $2.3 billion out of the Climate Fund and give it to the richest landlords in this country when the planet is burning. We need to do something and we need to do something for our kids now.
Well, over the last six years, Labour has proven that it’s easy to put forward a policy on climate that makes a good headline, but unfortunately, it does not reduce the emissions. The best proof of that is that the gross emissions over this Labour government have increased. Act recognises that climate change is a very serious issue and recognises that New Zealand needs to play its part. But we also recognise that it’s a global issue and cannot be addressed in isolation.
This is why we are proposing to tie our emission reduction targets to the emission reduction targets of our trading partners. It just makes sense if they reduce their targets, we reduce ours and that way we reduce emissions. If we make deeper cuts than our trading partners, this is not going to reduce emissions but will make us poorer as a country and damage our economy. This is Act’s approach to climate change.
Katie Nimon:
We’ll start with the bold decisive moves. Number one, harnessing biotech to help agriculture reduce their emissions without penalising them. Number two, doubling the amount of renewable energy infrastructure that we have in New Zealand, so we are making more affordable renewable energy and are not reliant on coal because since Labour banned coal mining in the South Island, we burnt more imported coal in a year in 2021 than we did in a decade.
What we’re going to do is build 10,000 EV charging stations around the country because we can’t just give people a rebate on their clean car. We need to make the charging and the infrastructure and the energy more affordable and more accessible to make it a sustainable outcome.
But we have got to stop punishing people that back up our economy and that is the farmers. So we are not going to put them into an emission trading scheme until at least 2030 where we can get some practical pricing for them, and we have to give them the tools to help them reduce their emissions. We can’t continue to incentivise offsetting over reduction.
CO2. All this nonsense now for decade after decade that apparently the world is in great danger. I didn’t swallow it, but I didn’t bother buying a book until about 13 years ago when I bought Ian Wishart. I didn’t bother with another one because that was just sufficient until I stood for the regional council four years ago.
And then I’ve increased that part of my library by another 13 and none of those authors go along with this nonsense of global emergency and global warming. In fact, we could do with a bit more of it. Think about it, the gas of life, CO2, our enemy? Bulls***.
Julienne Dickey:
In the last six years, the Green Party has done more to protect the climate than successive governments have in the last 30 years. But we need to go further and faster and there’s an awful lot to say and very little time so I’ll just wrap it up.
We’ll strengthen the Zero Carbon Act to ensure government decisions are consistent with the 1.5C global warming target, introduce a price on agricultural emissions, support businesses and farms to transition to sustainable and regenerative practices, and greatly increase native forests and wetlands as the most effective carbon capturing sites.
We’ll ban brand-new extraction of fossil fuels, scale up renewable energy, continue the clean car discount and increase alternative means of transport. We’ll also support households to improve energy efficiency, prohibit new fossil gas connections and buildings where there is a viable alternative and so on and so on.
What have you done since Cyclone Gabrielle in Hawke’s Bay? And how can we be sure that you won’t just show up for photo opportunities?
Pawel Milewski:
I actually live in Eskdale, so on the day I was there on the edge of the water. I didn’t do any photo ops.
About the Act Party, less than two weeks after the cyclone we put together a plan of 15 points that could be done to stream the red tape and to mitigate the outcomes and some of those points can still be implemented. The Government didn’t take it up, but hopefully you have a change of government in a couple of weeks’ time, and we can still do it.
This includes creating a special economic zone for the affected areas where we would have simplified consenting rules so we can repeat straight away and don’t have to wait for the paperwork from the council for a long time.
Act Party Napier candidate Pawel Milewski. Photo / Paul Taylor
John Clive Smith:
The storm, it’s not uncommon, and Hawke’s Bay has had in the last 150 or so years. I’ve taken the trouble to go and listen to local historian Michael Fowler on two occasions with his presentation of the history of flooding in Hawke’s Bay. Well worthwhile. And if you haven’t been to hear him and see his presentation, I think he’s on in Havelock North before the end of the week, I highly recommend it because then you realise that with the rivers that flow through this area it’s nothing new. It doesn’t happen every year, thankfully.
Laurie Turnbull:
Well, I don’t think you have seen my photo anywhere, so obviously I haven’t been out looking for photos.
I think most of the time I’ve spent is going back to my home in Wairoa which was really badly hit, especially my side of the family and my mum’s house got flooded. So, I guess it’s about just going back home talking to Craig who’s the mayor and talking to heaps and heaps of people about what we can do in the future to protect our little town.
I guess it’s just about making plans for when these things come again. I think they’ve just got $70 million to have a look at doing something about future-proofing Wairoa, but it’s going to take a lot more than that, I think.
I guess it’s just these things will keep happening and we’ve just got to make sure that we get ready for the next ones that are coming and hopefully, they’re not going to be as bad as this one. Thank you.
Martin Langford:
It’s not a brag list, but we were told to say what we were doing.
So, I’ve transported damaged house contents for the dump from Brookfield with my family in a trailer when it’s the free dump.
We’ve done silt removal from the roots of trees at Swamp Road and Waiohiki. We were involved with the laundry service for Whirinaki where people could do the laundry because they didn’t have the ability out there. We’ve done management of DHB patients and medical freight at Air Napier when the Wairoa road was closed. I went on Wednesday afternoons and volunteered there.
We’ve hosted volunteers who have come to work with Neela, Zeb and Martha. The last couple just left this weekend. We’ve distributed donated goods and provided PPE, which we had at work. We’ve had three months of helping at Friday at dinner club for the flood affected still in temporary accommodation over the winter. We’ve provided free dental treatment to volunteers and flood victims, and I have been commissioned to assemble a model train for an auction that’s coming up at the I am Hope fundraiser.
All right. For the first couple of weeks, I was helping out with Civil Defence response. Part of my role when I was still at the regional council and that was pretty harrowing.
As part of that, obviously, it was fast-tracking getting people the supplies that they needed, and that was a really difficult, difficult thing to deal with.
After that, I kind of went into, you know, the mode of connecting with community members. So I spent a lot of time going out and visiting people. I specifically didn’t take photos. Where you did see photos is where people wanted us to help tell their story.
I spent a lot of time connecting with community, making sure that the National Party was very, very aware of what was going on, how we could fix it, what we could do better and what we could do to make sure that when we get into government, we can do the right thing by these people and make sure they have a faster and fairer of response.
I’ve been up Wairoa, Tiniroto, Gisborne, to all of the outlying areas of our electorate that have been really hard hit and in some places are still completely isolated, advocating for them, listening to them, connecting with community leaders and connecting with the community to make sure their voice is heard because this is a tough process and it is still going.
In the immediate event, it was a matter of looking after friends and family and you know, especially elderly members of the family.
From the minute I got the role of candidate, I had a real think about, well, what would you do if you were the MP? And so I got around a bunch of agencies and organisations and I started advocating for stuff that was needed.
You’ll see recently that there’s been money allocated to Hawke’s Bay Tourism to restart tourism, the Art Deco Trust, and the excellent work that the Hawke’s Bay Chamber of Commerce is doing to support businesses that have been impacted. I advocated really strongly and pushed really hard for that, and I feel that’s the sort of job that I would do if I was an MP.
I’ve been up Wairoa four times, proportionately a very heavily impacted community. They have over half of the Category 2 homes. And so I’ve been advocating really strongly for the support that Wairoa has been getting. Obviously, I had a business that was impacted and so my staff were evacuated, and my business was shut down for a couple of months. So there was a piece of work trying to keep that afloat as well.
Well, I’m not a career politician and I’m not aiming to be in Parliament, but I am passionate about Green Party policy for a greener, fairer world.
I’m seeking to increase the party vote for a strong voice in Parliament to advocate for those issues and since Cyclone Gabrielle that’s what I’ve been focusing on day in and day out, and what I’ll continue to do whatever the outcome of the election to lessen the likelihood that we’ll have these increasingly severe and increasingly unpredictable weather events, because only the Green Party has the vision commitment and boldness to do what’s necessary.
This, by the way, includes mitigation initiatives and providing support for those who lost their homes and their businesses, which is, as I see it, all around and it’s tragic. I might say that I’m full of admiration for people who on the ground, you know, got out and did the things that needed to be done at the time.
I’m afraid I got as far as making ceramic art for distribution out at Waiohiki but I did what I could because I’m a bit past shovelling.
Petrol is now close to or above $3 a litre. How will you and your party ensure the cost of fuel doesn’t cripple New Zealand families.
Well, the first thing we won’t do is pile on a fuel tax. The second thing we’ll do is provide tax relief to put more money into people’s back pockets so they can afford those things, but they get to decide what it is they spend their money on. Do they want to spend their money on public transport? Do they want to spend their money on fuel? It is up to them. We will provide further financial relief for the cost of living because that’s what this is about.
But ultimately, as I referred to earlier, we want to make renewable energy more affordable, because if that is the long-term vision, which we all signed up for, we need to make it more affordable and more accessible.
It is not an elite mode of transport, but we cannot for one second assume that the entire country can transition to EV that efficiently. We need to make sure that for those that need it, it is not out of reach. So we will not put on a fuel tax, we will make sure we have more renewable energy, but we will also put more money into people’s back pockets so they can afford the basics that they need.
Yeah. $3. I think that’s just a horrible thing. But I think New Zealand is more about getting stuff from overseas. We used to have a place called Marsden Point where we used to make our own fuel, which I think was quite a sad thing that it was sold to an Australian company that destroyed it. So our drive is to bring back Marsden Point and have fuel we can produce within New Zealand so obviously, it’s cheaper.
And I didn’t realise that in New Zealand, we actually only have enough fuel for three days. So if there’s any issues in the China Sea with the boats coming into New Zealand, imagine what will happen to the country after three or four days without fuel.
America has got four years, Australia has got six months. Let’s get Marsden Point back up and running.
John Clive Smith:
An AA analysis, that’s Automobile Association not Alcoholics Anonymous, reveals that almost half the cost of petrol is, in fact the range of taxes. So, there’s an immediate solution.
But you might say the tax is used for building our roads, keeping them in order. Yes. But the answer to that is to what the first Labour government 1935 on successfully did by using Reserve Bank credit and that was build all the state houses in New Zealand without debt.
Unfortunately, some of the hierarchy of that party then cowered and wouldn’t proceed with it, otherwise we would be much better off as a country. So there’s your answer. We get rid of the taxation and use Reserve Bank credit to back up the obvious deficit that would come about for construction of roads and their maintenance.
Independent candidate for Napier John Clive Smith. Photo / Paul Taylor
Martin Langford:
Contentious issues. Our party would look at reopening Marsden Point refinery if feasible, New Zealand needs to get self-sufficient in regard to energy. Currently, the greener options cannot keep New Zealand operating. There is a huge natural energy resource in New Zealand of oil gas and good quality oil, not Indonesian.
We are at the end of a very tenuous supply chain as Laurie has said, where energy is concerned. I thought it was eight days’ worth of fuel, so I was going a bit optimistic. How would a fuel shortage have affected Hawke’s Bay rescue and recovery during Cyclone Gabrielle? I didn’t hear of many electric vehicles coming to help. Bulldozers, helicopters, Unimogs, IRBs, jet boats, cargo vans, all powered by carbon fuel. Common sense must prevail.
Mark Hutchinson:
When fuel price was rising rapidly, Labour took 25¢ out of the fuel tax to stop inflation peaking so high. It’s not an ideal thing to do because actually, the ultimate goal obviously is to get rid of fossil fuels because we will all be better off if we are not dependent on an oil price, which is mainly driven by offshore factors.
It’s always been driven by the Iranian countries, by conflicts in the Gulf States and by people like Vladimir Putin starting wars. So accelerating our exit from fossil fuels is the best way for us to get the fuel price down. In the meantime, by stopping inflation peaking as high, it’s meant that mortgage rates have peaked less high than they would have, but it’s not sustainable. It’s like [inaudible reference] to try and stop the price of petrol going up. We need to wean ourselves off it.
So other things that we’re doing to put money back into people’s pockets are taking some costs off things.
Things like taking GST off fruit and veg, and money off childcare, they’re all little things but they all add up to better than tax cuts because what tax cuts do is they fuel inflation, which will increase interest rates, right?
Julienne Dickey:
Well, in fact, some of the Green Party economic policies around the income guarantee, the first $10,000 being tax free of income and a fairer, more progressive tax system will actually give most people more than National’s tax cuts. The reality is that even with reductions in fuel tax, the cost of oil is likely to increase with things that we can’t control like unstable world events.
So we need to end our dependence on fossil fuels. We need to replace petrol cars eventually with electric vehicles, and the Green Party, as I said before, supports the clean car discount. It’s done more than anything else to increase the demand for electric cars, and unfortunately, National and Act are committed to abolishing that.
And of course, we need better, more-flexible and affordable public transport. It’s disgraceful that National wants to scrap current discounted bus fares for those on low incomes to fund their tax cuts.
We’ve developed a plan for light rail and increased cycling and walking options including cheap e-bike hire through community hubs, and I’ll be the first in line for that.
Pawel Milewski:
So, if you think that fuel is expensive now, talk to the Labour Party because they are preparing to put more tax on it so it’s going to go up even more.
We would refund the ETS carbon credits that are in the price of fuel to every citizen. This is part of our alternative budget. The way it would work is at the end of the year, everybody would get the refund of whatever was charged for carbon credits in the price of your fuel per person.
ETS would still work that way. It would still motivate people to use lower-emission vehicles because if you have a lower-emission vehicle, you’re getting your refund anyway, so you can get your refund and maybe your neighbour’s refund if your neighbour has less.
Also, this is part of a bigger cost-reduction package. Fuel is not the only cost. We would stop the government waste that drives the inflation and that way we would reduce the prices and we would stop them from going the way they are going to.
Final round: Editor’s question + final statement
Chris Hyde:
Now these are made up of some questions that came in that we couldn’t put into that final round, and questions that we have in our newsroom, but they’re all an editor’s question — I take responsibility for them.
So, for this round, each of the candidates have one-minute and 30 seconds to play with and they have to answer the question and then move into their final statement.
We’re starting with Mark Hutchinson.
What would you do as a Napier Labour MP that Stuart Nash couldn’t?
Mark Hutchinson: I’ve got a broader background than Stuart. I’ve got a background that covers the health sector, so the background that I have in psychology, and I’ve also worked across a much wider range of sectors. So, you know, in the UK, I’ve worked at senior levels in big organisations like Sainsbury’s supermarket and big banks. I’ve worked inside Barclays Bank during the global financial crisis. Stuart’s background was mainly in the forest and a few other areas, so I think I come with a very broad-ranging background across a range of different sectors both public and private.
I’ve run my own business, which is something that Stuart hasn’t done, so I understand a lot about, you know, the 19,000 businesses in Hawke’s Bay that are trying to make ends meet. I have a small business that consults for big business, so try to help these big businesses out. What else could I do that you couldn’t do? I’m using my closing statement time.
Look, the reason that I’m Labour is because Labour has always stood for giving everybody the opportunity to reach their potential. It’s always stood for putting a safety net under people that fall and a ladder up into decent work for everybody. We’ve been extremely successful in this government getting people into work, 250,00 apprenticeships, 60,000 of those people would probably have been on a benefit or in jail and we haven’t got them through those apprenticeships. The answer is in our name and the answer to a lot of society’s problems is to get people into decent work, and that starts with kids that are ram-raiding and it goes right through to, you know, adults in jail or stuck on the benefit.
The answer is not to create alienisation, attack people and take money off them so they end up in gangs. Vote Labour and vote for me because I have the experience to make a difference in this electorate.
Labour Napier candidate Mark Hutchinson. Photo / Paul Taylor
Act wants to get rid of co-governance as an idea. What impact is that having in Napier at the moment?
Pawel Milewski:
Co-governance is divisive basically. What we’re standing for, we’re standing for basic human rights in that all people are equal and everybody should have equal rights and those rights should not be dependent on ancestry. I’m an immigrant, I understand that very well.
And it should be one person, one vote, everybody’s vote should count the same.
Labour never campaigned on co-governance. People don’t understand it, people don’t know what it is, people were never asked whether they support this agenda. They were never asked if this is something that they would like, and democracy requires that people have to approve it.
This is why Act is proposing a referendum so that we can define the principles of the Treaty and put them forward to New Zealand. We are standing for basic human equality.
Chris Hyde:
Right next up is Julienne Dickey.
In previous campaigns, the Greens have promised to bring passenger rail back to Hawke’s Bay. There’s been no promises of that this time and why not?
I have no idea. I’m quite sure it would support passenger services from right down to Palmerston North. I can’t imagine why it wouldn’t, but I don’t know why that’s not been mentioned. Probably because the party policy tends not to be very region specific.
I just want to say something about everybody being equal because clearly, everybody isn’t equal. We have enormous wealth, health, housing and education inequalities in this country. Everybody is not equal as much as we might think.
The greatest existential threat to this country is the climate crisis and it’s really hard to think about, but we have to get our heads around it and everyone should be concerned enough to do what it takes. While other parties tend to do around the edges, the Green Party is the only one that has a comprehensive, bold, yet completely achievable strategy to address the issue. Under National and Act we’ll even go backwards.
We’ll scale up initiatives to protect the environment and our precious native species, our taonga. We will also lift people out of poverty, which is a major cause of poor health, crime, drug use and lack of opportunity. The richest 1 per cent of New Zealanders now control about a quarter of our wealth, while 50 per cent of us, half of the population, share only 2 per cent between them. That’s something to get your head around, half the population has 2 per cent of the wealth in this country.
We will take action to address poverty and fix the problems that are set in our struggling public services.
Ko tēnei te wā kia whakatika. Now is the time to make it right. Now is the time to part vote Green.
Chris Hyde:
Right, Katie Nimon.
The Napier-Taupo, Napier-Wairoa and Napier-Clive highways under National’s transport plan, they could well be over 100km/h again, but won’t higher speeds mean more fatalities?
Katie Nimon:
Well, the part that you’re missing out of that policy announcement is that we’re also going to upgrade those roads. The reason that those roads have had their speed limits reduced is because they are unwilling to upgrade them to the higher safety limit. We are going to upgrade them and then we’re going to make sure that those speed limits don’t take our country and our productivity. That is really important for us to do that.
I just want to go back to one point. Public transport. People keep talking about National cutting the subsidies. Can I just tell you how much public transport is already subsidised? If only the fare ticket that people got when they got on the bus showed them how much they were already saving. The average fare in Hawke’s Bay is already subsidised by $8. We cannot afford to make it completely free.
We need to give people options and that is where National Party comes in. We want to make sure that people have more money in their back pocket to make the decisions for themselves. We do not believe in centralisation. We believe in a limited government and local delivery of services and it is important for us to empower Kiwis to support themselves. That is exactly how our cyclone response in Hawke’s Bay was best placed to operate. Communities that were empowered to support themselves and they weren’t.
A National government is focused on reducing the cost of living for every Kiwi so that we can afford more of the amazing services that we need. A party vote for National and a candidate vote for Katie Nimon is the only way to get Napier back on track.
Chris Hyde:
Next up, John Clive Smith. John, a question for you. If you made it into Parliament, what would you do when you got there?
Talk sense. What is being said in Parliament now is nonsense.
I haven’t had to change my tack from three years ago, which is exposing the germ theory.
You find that hard to believe, I can tell by the noise, but it is a fact. That book there, Virus Mania, first published in 2007 and now republished by a New Zealand author. Find out more, buy Hawke’s Bay Today on Saturday and read my advertisement because 3.5 years on since this was imposed upon us there’s an awful lot of learning to be done by our peers. And that’s why you need someone and who’s checked at least half of these lies by researching.
When Norman Kirk died in 1974, I very quickly started to revise and change my allegiance. Yes, I was brought up in a Labour household, but he was someone my dad revered. [Inaudible]
You learn from history. If you don’t learn the lessons from history then [inaudible]
Right, Laurie Turnbull. If New Zealand First is the kingmaker that decides this election, what policies will Winston and the party negotiate that will actually benefit Napier.
Laurie Turnbull:
That’s a bit above my pay grade mate, you’ll have to ask Winston.
That’s all I can say, it’s not me it’s Winston Peters. Whenever he gets back in government, and he will be, it’s up to Winston to decide. While I’m saying that, New Zealand as we know it is hanging by a thread. We are failing everywhere all at once. We need to know and we need experience. We need common sense back in government. We all as New Zealanders deserve better.
We want to defeat our freedom and bring back democracy. We want to tackle the cost of living. We want to create an opportunity for all of us with health, employment, education and a decent infrastructure. We need to get tough on crime. We need to improve the lives of our seniors because our seniors, we deserve it.
In this election, you have two votes. Please give New Zealand First your party vote, the other one, your candidate vote is up to you to decide. Once we get back in government, we will let you know. So vote New Zealand First party vote and you will see this country get back on track.
Martin Langford, you are last for the night. Martin, you’ve experience with dentistry. There are policies that could improve Napier’s terrible teeth — which ones will work?
Martin Langford:
Obviously, there’s lots of things that are going to improve your health, but the easiest is education and that’s what I think about doing within schools now and starting with the young kids. It’s reasonably simple. The two bad things that are going to destroy your teeth are fizzy drinks and sugar and that, it’s common sense.
A young child should not be on Coca-Cola or Mountain Dew. They are our two worst enemies. A child doesn’t need sugar. You’ve got to try and convince kids to eat fruit and veg. Watch fruit, because how many parents have said ‘they’re great, they’re eating all this citrus fruit and it’s so healthy for them’, and they eat and their teeth rot from the citrus fruit and citric acid. You’ve got to think acid and sugar, these problems and that’s the crux of it.
Topical fluoride is fantastic. Topical fluoride adult toothpaste for kids is what works. Not so much in the water, research does not stack up with that at the moment, but I’ve seen some patients in their 90s who’ve still got their own teeth and are in fantastic health because they are using electric toothbrushes and using fluoride toothpaste and spitting but not rinsing afterwards.
So why do I want to be a part of government? I want to be part of the DemocracyNZ team down in Wellington to be a strong voice and advocate for Napier whilst being a conscience in Parliament. I want the greater area to be where my children want to live and raise their children. It’s not about left or right any more. It’s about going forward as a country by those Kiwi values that bring us together. So please, come the election, vote for DemocracyNZ, vote for Martin Langford, and vote for positive change.
Chris Hyde:
Alright. Well, thank you everyone for coming tonight and I hope you have a better idea of how to take care of your teeth. And I hope we all have some idea of who to vote for as well.
