Local body elections: Fewer than half of Aucklanders know who is running
Aucklanders are less likely than others to vote, and fewer than half say they know who their local councillor is according to Stuff’s Your Place survey.
More than one-in-six Aucklanders said they were unlikely to vote, compared with one-in-10 nationally.
I fear that Aucklander’s are so angry about the gridlocked monstrosity their over priced city has become, that they are weaponising their apathy to not bother voting in this years local body elections.
We’ve all been promised change, but all we get are longer queues, more gridlock, over priced living and more fucking gridlock.
That’s not the fault of the Council, they’ve been screwed as a Super City to be little more than puppet representatives for the pretence of democracy, central Government are responsible for immigration levels, not local Government and we are not being funded for the exponential growth and stress to our infrastructure.
This sense of hopelessness is turning feral as we spend longer and longer in bloody gridlock.
Result? A record low turn out.
I contacted the Electoral Office to try and get some sense of pre-enrolment and the numbers don’t look good.
So far we have 85.2% of eligible voters enrolled in Auckland, this time last election we had 87.6% and last election was one of our lowest turn outs with a mere 37.9%.
I fear we could get as low as 30% this time.
Until Aucklander’s can feel actual change occur at a speed and pace they can benefit from, I fear this apathy will only spread.
Wait until the apathy boils over into anger and the PLA moves its tanks in…
And for the record, Far Goff is a card-carrying member of the Wage Slave Party who oversaw years of record migration, and signed the Free Slave agreement with the racist Han dictatorshit… 😉
Pray for apathy, Bomber… unless you feel that you have nothing to lose by fighting, because that’s where this treasonous insanity is headed…
True. What is the point of voting for local ward candidates when they have ZERO control on the Council Controlled Organisations, which of course of the council.
I have no idea how Key and Hide got away with it but in a heartbeat in 2010 they ended local democracy in Auckland!
Have you seen the ideas and actions of the two main candidates for Mayor and who their backers are (both right wing neoliberals)?
That is why people are voting less, not because they are too lazy or not interested. It is because there is nobody standing out as the best candidate to vote for.
It’s so desperate that on social media people are actually advising people ‘to hold their noses’ and vote Phil back in, just to stop Tamihere destroying the city with his ideas.
If we had someone normal, who just wanted to open the books and transparency of Auckland COO’s and council and get them functional again and reduce the approx 50% of rates that just goes to their salaries and supporting their fiefdom, like Tamihere, but without the part privatisation of watercare, and doing a white elephant on the harbour bridge… meanwhile we have the his counter part, Phil’s dream of a white elephant of the Atlantis underwater sports stadium during climate change …
People should vote for the left leaning councillors!
Perhaps do that while boycotting the Mayoral race to send a message, it is not apathy but the poor caliber of candidates who do nothing for the ratepayers, that is stopping people voting in local body elections …
Seriously if you look up the Mayoral candidates, many of them look more like mugshots off crime watch or Harry Potter characters, and promoting various causes like anti abortion, anti 1080, anti 5G, landmark, pro migrant, anti Maori, communist, pro development, etc! Ie, they are more promoting their cause rather than being an all around serious candidate.
Good on people for putting their names forward and all for democracy… and I like that anyone can put their hat in for Mayor, but it’s seriously slim pickings in terms of voting for an all round candidate who also supports the environment (pretty much absent apart from woke types), the most well rounded sounding ones are the right wingers!
For those looking for alternatives…
Tadhg Tim STOPFORD as a protest vote, who seems to represent the Hemp society but bizarrely seems the most normal in what his vision is, and investigating local bonds sounds a better way to raise money than PPP’s or privatising assets like water care. He sadly seems obsessed with Hemp, though but at least seems to have a day job as a teacher.
Susanna Kruger born in Namibia but lived in NZ for a long time, who seems to want to unshackle from consumerism and embrace human capital rather than money, so at least has some ideas, aka life-long leased land for an entrepreneur academy for the un-/under-employed, a skills-based micro-business incubator supporting self-employment, an inquisitorial McKenzie Friend court without judges and lawyers, and a do-it-yourself eco-friendly housing scheme.
Craig LORD, seems like a nice guy who is down to earth!! Big plus there. (. However is slightly obsessed with motor sports though and in my view, Auckland already has enough noise and pollution, but at least he is hopefully against the laughable AT lowering of speed in Auckland when congestion and getting somewhere in a timely fashion without a truck blowing up in your path and grid locking traffic for 5 hours a day is more of an issue)…
There was much more choice of Mayoral candidates a few years ago… but better to vote than not, is my view.
If Jannaha HENRY, had some policy of what she stands for, she might have been more of a contender but how can you vote for someone who appears to have zero policy and you could get anything if they actually made it into politics? Millennial thinking perhaps???
sigh
Apathy – bugger off with the vote shaming BS.
Myself and many other see the supercity as a anti-democratic project cooked up by the loony libertarians who infest the NZ political landscape.
If you keep playing the game with these muppets – and in this case voting in an anti-democratic process – they win.
This is no longer a legitimate form of local government – we lost it and the only hope we have to get it back is to withdraw our support from structure which has been set up to be sold.
And sold it will be, piecemeal with faux left, or in a fire sale with the loony libertarians.
DON”T VOTE it only makes them think their legitimate – when they are not.
Personally think the ‘no vote’ is not an argument, because you can always protest vote, and that sends the message they are on the wrong track rather than they were the best person to win if they win by default.
That is why Phil seems to openly be mocking the ratepayers with his “me and my unaccountable COO buddies can do no wrong” attitude.
So you think we have a working democracy with the vote in local body politics collapsing like it is?
I say we don’t, and if it drops below 30% – the council is not only illegitimate they know they don’t have a mandate.
The problem is – they think they are Gods gift and will do all sorts of fubar stuff.
Auckland city is a fiefdom and a dictatorship and democracy been removed from the assets like water and ports and transport because they don’t have elected officials in charge!
Auckland Council and the COO’s are praying for people not to vote because then they are returned and nobody challenges Goff who backs them.
Many pulling the strings in local body elections, would like nothing more than to ban the elections – which is why under the Natz and Rogernomics they have constructed the web of COO’s so that they are not democratic and it doesn’t matter who the Mayor and councillors are, they are not running the show and are there to take the heat only!
Imagine their horror if the people then have a communist or Hemp advocate as their so called boss. Protest voting will scare them a lot more than not voting and they get their way with zero opposition or disruption.
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