Future of Northland rail under spotlight at Whangarei candidates meeting

The future of rail in Northland is under debate at the latest election campaign meeting in Whangarei tonight.

The future of rail in Northland and Auckland, trade agreements, housing and water will be under the spotlight at a meet the candidates event in Whangarei tonight.

Organised by Grow Northland Rail the event, at Forum North from 6.30pm, will have three separate debates, organiser Albie Barr said.

The first debate will be a meet the Whangarei electorate candidates, with Ash Holwell, Greens; Shane Jones, NZ First; Chris Leitch, Democrats for Social Credit; Shane Reti, National and Tony Savage, Labour, set to speak. This section would include questions to the candidates.

The second debate will have the main political parties - National, Labour, NZ First and Greens - debate the key issues in the election and includes Dr Reti, Labour's David Parker, NZ First leader Winston Peters and Julie Anne Genter from the Greens.

Mr Barr said this debate would look at some of the key election issues - water, trade agreements and housing - and where each party stood on them.

The third debate will focus entirely on rail and, again includes the main political parties National, Labour, NZ First and Greens. Mr Leitch would also take part in this debate because he had been a constant advocate for rail, Mr Barr said.

Mr Barr said Grow Northland Rail wanted to know where each party stood on the issue of rail, particularly the Auckland to Northland line, a rail link to Northport at Marsden Pt and the rail network through Auckland.

He said a representative for KiwiRail was expected to be at the meeting, which would be screened live by Newshub.

"This will be a ding donger. Oral question time live, questions and point of orders from [the candidates] and the panel and myself will be getting in there mixing it up with the heavyweight political parties," Mr Barr said.

The debate will be in the Capitaine Bougainville Theatre, with an expected spill over of people able to watch it live on a big screen in the neighbouring Exhibition Hall.