“People are [stressed], and not just younger people who spend stupidly. It’s older people that have found themselves in hard times ... we’re talking about middle-class people, we’re talking about all sorts of people,” he said.
Struggles with the cost of living were not experienced by one particular class, group or age but spread across the community.
“There’s a very, very wealthy part of the Whanganui electorate, but there’s also underlying poverty that needs to be a focus to help people get into jobs,” Morris said.
At the forum, candidates will be asked a series of questions devised by the service’s board to gauge their knowledge of local cost of living issues and their planned solutions.
“Things like - do they understand unemployment, do they understand some of the tragic issues facing Whanganui?
“They will be quite searching questions that inquire into what our candidates really know about this community.”
Morris said the people of Whanganui deserved to be properly informed of candidates’ knowledge on these issues as they were felt so widely in the community.
“A lot of people just vote on party lines, and they need to know who’s behind the party and what the people are and ... how much concern they’ve got for the people of Whanganui.”
It was important for electors to know who the people putting themselves up for election truly were.
“They’re not just there to collect a salary. I’ve seen examples in the past of people that have been elected, and they’ve collected a salary and they’ve done bugger-all,” he said.
All candidates for the Whanganui and Te Tai Hauārau electorates have been invited.
So far, Morris has received confirmation incumbent MP and Labour candidate Steph Lewis, National candidate Carl Bates, Green Party candidate Marion Sanson and NZ First candidate William Arnold will attend.
The forum is open to the public and will be held in the lower lounge of the Christ Church Community Centre at 243 Wicksteed St at 7pm on Tuesday, September 26.
Finn Williams is a multimedia journalist for the Whanganui Chronicle. He joined the Chronicle in early 2022 and regularly covers stories about business, events and emergencies. He also enjoys writing opinion columns on whatever interests him.
