How will billboards give us bang for our buck? Photo/file
I have never met Josh Wharehanga, the Gisborne councillor and solo dad who has brought up his kids with little or nothing other than a dream - but I like him already, and want to induct him into the exclusive brethren of the Chief Imagination Officer's Club.
The Chief Imagination Officers Club has simple criteria for membership, you have to believe in the currency of success is mana not money.
Josh tells it like it is - as he did one day when he walked past a young boy on a bike, who was looking up at the big brightly coloured election billboard in Kaiti, with Josh's picture on it. When the youngster looked up at the big-as billboard and then looked back at Josh he innocently asked, "Is that you, bro?"
Josh proudly replied, "It is - and one day it could be you."
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The young fulla biked away with stars in his eyes, believing anything was possible.
When our politicians put up their billboards and place themselves at the mercy of the voting public -as they are doing all over town this week - I am sure they all have the belief they too can make a difference. And, like Josh Wharehanga, they genuinely want to make the world a better place - starting with their own back yard.
For us, the voting public, we get to decide on who to vote for from those billboards and their promises of a better world.
That is how it goes every four years and in eight weeks the winner of the 2017 billboard competition will be crowned.
So how do we ensure the billboards bring us the most bang for our buck or the best seats in the House? The House being the whare of Parliament, where the name of the game is to be at the table of decision-making?
The taniwha in the whare or the elephant in the House is who can you jump into bed with to be at that table, and for those who do not get a chance to choose their bedfellows, they have to lie in it lonely for the next 48 months.
This is where the theatre of politics and the art of compromise gets played out from one side of the political party manifesto to the other, and we have front-row seats.
It is like a game of thrones, with a cast of kingmakers promenading in front of the billboard audience bidding for the lead role. Each one is desperately trying to hold on to their mana like a school gala tug of war where parents know their kids are watching - and even if they have to pull a hammy or pop a few neck veins they are going to go all out.
Welcome to the wonderful world of democracy, whereas many countries do not get a choice let alone a chance to vote.
The kicker for me and those I korero with is who is going to be seated at the table on September 25 post-election - and will my vote help get them to the table?
No Kiwi likes to back a loser and the long shots of some of our billboards are a bookmaker's dream. Principles are one thing but the reality is another and I don't see any changes from the past three elections for Maori and their seats at the table.
This is the only silver lining I can see in our long dark cloud of desperate people with little or nothing to hold on to. A cloud that seems to be getting darker by the day for the poorer communities of Kaiti in Gisborne, Koutu in Rotorua and the Gate Pa Merivale rohe of Tauranga Moana.
The telling statistics are in our prison population where the bus of desperation from not enough kai, kindness and positive korero finally stops.
Too many dads are on this bus and as they pass the billboards on the way to - or back to - prison, do they have any dreams like the boy on his bike in Kaiti? Not many, if any.
Surely the secret is to catch them from falling while they still have stars and hope in their eyes?
When we can stop the tsunami of Maori ending up in prison and leaving behind a carnage of broken families and broken-hearted tamariki then and only then will we see the lifting of the dark clouds.
The travesty of disproportionate indigenous incarceration is not just restricted to Aotearoa New Zealand - it is a global phenomenon. Aboriginals in Australia are pouring into prisons at a staggering increase of 10 per cent a year and North American Indians are sadly tracking the same way.
The cycle and the solution is simple - no hope, no help: no change.
The rest is just a game of political promises and brightly coloured billboards.
tommykapai@gmail.com
Tommy Kapai is a best-selling author and life member of the Chief Imaginations Officers Club.