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 first three candidates in the Whangārei electorate, with the rest of the candidates from the electorate appearing tomorrow and on Wednesday.
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 3 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?
A guaranteed weekly minimum income of $325 and increased spending on social housing to bring down the waiting list would benefit Northlanders, the Green Party candidate for Whangārei says.
Moea Armstrong said she was witnessing poverty on a weekly basis in her work as the manager of Citizens Advice Bureau in Whangārei, which was why she felt initiatives to reduce inequality were important.
"That's why the Greens' Poverty Action Plan is ideal, it raises a guaranteed minimum income of $325 a week and that's regardless of your partner's income.
"It goes with you from the age of 18. It applies to students, regardless of their parents' income, so I think it would be the great equaliser."
To hear the Hits host Charmaine Soljak's interview click here
Armstrong said her party's Housing Action Plan had real, practical answers to the shortage of houses.
"The plan is to increase spending on social housing to bring down the waiting list to zero within five years, to increase funding to iwi and other community, social housing providers who are already doing a great job, [like] Ricky Houghton in Kaitaia.
"Those people know the business and are doing a fabulous job. They just need to get resourced. And there's other parts of our plan which is the rent to buy schemes and other housing initiatives," she said.
The poverty and housing action plans were the key, she said, to also tackle methamphetamine scourge as people had a sense of hopelessness around opportunities for job creation.
She supports the expansion of the apprenticeship schemes to give people the security of food and housing.
The Green Party plans to increase spending on social housing to bring down the waiting list to zero within five years in Northland.
Photo / NZME
Armstrong is in favour of moving Ports of Auckland to Northland but said the three biggest ports in New Zealand, including Northport, needed to be rationalised because of our small economy.
The retention rather than amalgamation of local councils was ideal for appropriate decision-making, she said.
On genetically modified organisms (GMOs), Armstrong said GE Free Northland deserved a medal for persuading the councils to have a GMO-free region.
"Post-Covid, the world is going to want food, they will want it clean, organic and GM-free. It's a no-brainer."
Her father has had the biggest influence in her life.
"He was a very strategic and analytical and political thinker and he made all of us think along those lines. He always asked questions. That was always what he drilled into us, and I have done ever since."
