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 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?
The powers of the Reserve Bank should be used to print money to help uplift the living standard of Northlanders rather than putting finances into the hands of rich investors.
Social Credit Party leader and its candidate for Whangārei, Chris Leitch, said neglect was the single biggest issue in his electorate and throughout Northland after years of National representation.
"It is seen as a safe National seat so the National Party when they were in government hasn't considered that it was important to put any real effort into developing Whangārei.
"So the way to deal with that is to actually put in an MP who is not a National Party MP, who can get in there and fight for what needs to be done in Whangārei."
To hear the Hits host Charmaine Soljak's interview click here
He said the capacity of the Reserve Bank, which was currently printing $100 billion, and putting that money into things like housing, hospitals, schools, improving the level of benefits, roads and rail systems would help.
Leitch is all for shifting the Ports of Auckland to Northland because of the natural advantage that Marsden Pt has as far as shipping was concerned.
Centralisation of local government authorities was not something that ever benefited people, he said, reacting to the question of whether or not Northland councils should be amalgamated.
"There's no reason why those four bodies couldn't work together closely on various things that they do but they should stay independent and they should stay as accessible to the electors that they are supposed to represent as possible," Leitch said.
He is "absolutely opposed to" releasing Genetically Modified Organisms (GMOs) into the environment as New Zealand has an opportunity to be a world leader in clean, green technology, and in food production.
"There's a wealthy population across the world who are looking for non-GMO food and New Zealand is uniquely placed being so far away from the rest of the world to be able to earn a great deal of overseas income from producing that type of food."
He said we needed to go back and look at what the causes of drug abuse were and why people wanted to escape from the life that they had, whether it be financial burdens or feeling of hopelessness with no future.
"And again we have a real opportunity to rebuild in this Covid-19 crisis with using the power of the Reserve Bank to produce the money that we need to improve people incomes, standard of living, and to develop New Zealand's future."
Chris Leitch believes the power of the Reserve Bank should be used to print money to use it to improve people's lives.
Photo / NZME
His father has had the biggest influence in his life because he instilled in Leitch a desire to look outside the box and see opportunities and possibilities that most people might not be able to see.
"He instilled in me a desire to have an enquiring mind and ask why not? Why is this not possible? Why can't we do that? Why aren't we doing something else? Those are the things that I found extremely valuable in my life."
