Who will take Phil Goff's place as Auckland mayor and what will your council and local board look like? That's up to you. Photo / Michael Craig
Who will take Phil Goff's place as Auckland mayor and what will your council and local board look like? That's up to you. Photo / Michael Craig
Opinion
OPINION
In the last local body elections in 2019, most people in Aotearoa didn't vote – 57.8 per cent. In our biggest city, 64.74 per cent didn't vote.
In 2022, throughout the world, democracy is under even greater threat. A vote is a precious thing.
A reason given by somefor not voting is that they don't feel informed enough about the candidates or the issues. Others feel their vote doesn't make a difference.
It can be difficult to make time to seek information, but if we think it is useful to have people we can talk to about problems with or ideas for our community, then it follows that we would vote. The smaller the number of votes, the weaker our democracy.
Nominations for local board or community board members, councillors and mayors throughout the country close on August 12 and will be announced by August 17. Voting will take place by post from September 16 to October 8.
The last day we can enrol to vote is October 7. We need to be at least 18 years old by October 8, be a New Zealand citizen or permanent resident, and have lived in the country at some time for more than one year continuously.
The thousands of candidates across Aotearoa are faced with the challenge of getting themselves known and being portrayed fairly – or at all – via mass media and social media.
Ideally, we, the voters, would already be aware of some of the issues in our local areas and know our current representatives. If we don't, we can find out by visiting our council's website or phoning our council.
We actually have to be somewhat proactive to find out about the candidates. Luckily, we have time to do this before October.
Many candidates have Facebook pages and/or websites. We can phone and/or email them. We may be able to meet them in person. Some will be knocking on doors or turning up in public places, and most manage to get along to meetings hosted by residents' groups and suchlike.
When our voting papers arrive, we should read the brief bios for each candidate because, irrespective of any party affiliation candidates may have, it's important that, once elected, they have between them a broad and useful set of skills in order to deal with the matters that will come before them.
Audrey van Ryn. Photo / Supplied
Over the next couple of months, we can initiate or join in discussions, either in person or online, with friends, whānau, neighbours, colleagues, our community groups, people at the gym or even at the bus stop about the issues we care about and to find out what others know about the candidates.
Local or community boards represent our local areas. These people make decisions on behalf of local communities and advocate on their behalf to the governing body (mayor and councillors) on regional matters. They develop plans, in consultation with their communities, and allocate funding to local projects and groups. Most make use of social media and many have e-newsletters we can sign up for.
As citizens, we are entitled to attend local body meetings. We are able to speak at these meetings if we arrange to do so beforehand, about council initiatives or matters of concern to us.
In Tāmaki Makaurau, we have local boards, with five to nine members on each. All of us in Aotearoa are also represented by one or two councillors and a mayor. We don't have to vote for all these positions. We can, for example, just vote for the mayor, and for one or two local board members.
Becoming informed about the candidates should include not just their experience and the diversity of skills they offer but also their perspectives on a range of issues.
Our local body politicians should be people we can respect and who show respect for the members of their community, and are able to work well alongside other elected representatives, especially those with new and different perspectives.
We want our representatives to be reasonably well informed about their local area. We would like them to work hard, be accountable, respond to our phone calls and emails, and carry out what they undertake to do.
We would like these people to engage with us in an open and transparent way, listen in a receptive manner to all the voices in their community, including the reticent ones, value local knowledge, take on new information, and not be overly cautious about changing direction where this is warranted.
Our local body representatives are the people who play a part in shaping the places where we live, and we can have a say in not only who they are but the decisions that they make.
If you will be voting this year, well done. Please encourage others to do so. We can only make our democracy better by participating in it.
• Audrey van Ryn is the secretary of Civic Trust Auckland (est. 1968).
