Local-body elections... God help us!!!

[Fub@r]

Just got my electoral pack for the local body elections in Waitakere today. After reading through what some of these candidates have to say all I can say is it explains a lot as to why our Council's are so screwed up. Examples:

1) Linda Cooper has put herself up for Mayor, Councillor for Massey and Member for Lincoln. Talk about hedging your bets

2) Then this one takes the cake its Rebecca Broad's speech to run for mayor:

Workers and the under-employed are living and working through poverty and debt. I'm tired of seeing people having to struggle to survive in west auckland. We should fight for the Council to be used to expand social services. We should reduce bureaucratic spending and take back the wealth that workers put in to the economy. I fight for working people on basic issues. Let's create new community serving facilities such as free child care centers and abolish user pays schemes. I support equality for all sections of the community. I support the formation ofdemocratic and militant unions.I would use the mayoralty to advance this agenda on the streets and in the workplaces. If elected I will live on the average wage and put the rest of the excessive Mayor's salary into campaigns for the workers, migrants, women and youth. If we settle for nothing now we'll settle for nothing later.

Knowing my luck a "cracker" like Rebecca will win it

[Swoop]

If elected I will live on the average wage and put the rest of the excessive Mayor's salary into campaigns for the workers, migrants, women and youth.

I laughed at this yesterday as well!!
A noble gesture, but put the rest back in the council coffers.

There are a lot of professional meeting-goers in that lot. No wonder the debt is skyrocketing.

All voting done and posted back.

[ManDownUnder]

LOL.. nifty!

How about voting for someone that's achieved what you want them teach/lead. Someone born of poverty and struggling to get out of it is not the person to lead us into a prosperous future. Someone willing to make ugly decisions and be unpopular when needed however... Sounds like she's got a lot of experience with the benefit, those words sound like one with too much experience.

I don't want someone on the average wage. I want someone excellent who commands an excellent wage, election after election. Aiming for average is STUPID

[fireball]

im just still fighting the urge to go deface the signs they put up, urrgh bloody eye sores they are!

[Ewan Oozarmy]

im just still fighting the urge to go deface the signs they put up, urrgh bloody eye sores they are!

And those faces - is there one you'd actually trust? They all look crooked to me...

[Swoop]

They all look crooked to me...

You can always tell when a politician is lying... their lips move.

[Fub@r]

You can always tell when a politician is lying... their lips move.

Did you see the picture of Mark Engel on page 20? Sounds like a nice guy but someone should've pointed out that his picture looks like a mugshot off Police 10/7

[klingon]

I went to a mayoral candidates' forum in Auckland City last night. There is a candidate named Mr Scruff. I kid you not. And he suited his name. I can't wait to get my voting papers!!

[Swoop]

Did you see the picture of Mark Engel on page 20? Sounds like a nice guy but someone should've pointed out that his picture looks like a mugshot off Police 10/7

Did you see page 43?
Mr BOGAN???

I knew there were bogans in West Auckland, but.......

[fireball]

Did you see page 43?
Mr BOGAN???

I knew there were bogans in West Auckland, but.......

he must have escaped hamilton

[xwhatsit]

I got my voting papers -- haven't opened them yet.

I may just abstain, lest I make a terrible choice (all too easy to do) and then I'll have to feel guilty for the rest of his/her term

You guys complain about the general elections, but god help us with the locals; how do these people even dream in their wildest fantasies they'd be a proper mayor? Many of them look like Uncle Margaret over the back fence with the seven cats and shitting chickens.

In Australia they come and send in the jackbooted SS if you don't vote; it's not compulsory here, is it?

[Steam]

It looks fairly easy to get elected, I see in Wellington there are four candidates and three seats for one of the wards.

I want political spectrum graphs beside each candidate, so I don't have to read, just choose the candidates that have a graph reading the same as mine.

[Fub@r]

Did you see page 43?
Mr BOGAN???

I knew there were bogans in West Auckland, but.......

Noted that one........rather unfortunate or would it be fortunate as at least the name gets your attention.

I see there was debate raging over these local body elections as some have the ballot papers in alphabetical order as for example if your surname was between A-E you were like 5 times more likely to be elected as people give up and just pick the first names on the list

[Delphinus]

I guess any publicity is good publicity.

http://www.stuff.co.nz/dailynews/4213433a6554.html

Mayoral contender Steve Pivac's free breakfast draw is still on but he's stopped handing out cards with promises of cooking up a feed and doing a morning's work for the winner.

Thats my old man running in the South Taranaki Electorate. Handing out business cards with his website address and a number.
Going to draw a number from a hat and if someone has that number will cook them breakfast of bacon/eggs and do a mornings handymans work.

PS - He's a biker too

[Krayy]

I'm in Western Bays and am considering voting for Steve Crow. If he can do for the SkyCity cheerleaders what he's done for "Boob's on Bikes", He'll be a winner in my book