Nickie Muir: Strong platform built on scones

Who's your Daddy? Where's your hood? Or rather; who is your local councillor and which one is your ward? There was a time not so long ago when I really couldn't tell you. Voting in local elections seemed about as much use as learning to make crochet toilet-roll holders. Especially if you have small kids and two jobs.

I'd look at the list of prospective community leaders and choose someone who didn't appear entirely degenerate and who seemed to have been born sometime after World War II and tick the box.

I'd always taken voting for general elections extremely seriously, (okay, there was the time I voted for McGillicuddy Serious Party. In my defence, it was in support of their policy of compulsory homosexuality and lowering unemployment through slavery), however I showed a disregard for local-body politics until I had a kid.

I had no idea who councillors were and knew absolutely nothing about what they stood for. I never asked incumbents how long they'd held the seat or what they had achieved. To be honest, I barely knew which one was my ward. About as much interest as I took in things such as debt or strategic assets, which was to get out of one and try to get me some of the other.

My relationship with Northland was like that of a new love interest whom I might ditch at any moment. It occurred to me when I sent my girl to primary school that my Northland fling had turned into something serious and I'd better start taking an interest in the joint bank account and what we were all using it for in terms of building a community of which our kids would be proud.

It was as if I'd been channelling my Nana Jo's approach to voting. A dyed-in-the-wool National supporter her entire life until a "nice young man" in a red tie, knocked on her door and sat with her for an hour, drinking tea. She announced she would henceforth be voting Labour. When there was a general cry of surprise (and in some quarters abject dismay;) she said he'd liked her scones and that was that. As good a reason as any to give someone your vote, I guess.

If I were a local politician I'd be door-knocking every little old lady and taking tea and scones, because in Whangarei the single biggest voting block is in the over-70 bracket - more than 10,000 voters of 60,000. I would also guess that this group are the ones with the education, time and political enfranchisement to have a high voter turnout. They could effectively be the vocal minority with the biggest push.

Only half of eligible voters turned out to elect a new council in Whangarei last time - a 3 per cent drop from the election before that - given that the political situation at the time was enough to make anyone lose the will to live, let alone interest, it's perhaps not surprising.

I'm hoping - with the the resuscitation of some of Whangarei's political undead - that they won't use 25-year-old photos of themselves for the campaign, so we can at least know who we're voting for, if not what fresh new things they promise to do.