Rob Telfer is running for Gisborne District Council to give rural, and business people a voice.
Watch the full Local Focus interview for Rob Telfer's views on the region's biggest issues, and our less important quickfire questions.
Rob Telfer is the president of the Poverty Bay A&P Association, and a director on the Gisborne Holdings Ltd board. He believes he can bring community organisational experience tothe council table and is running in the Tairāwhiti general ward.
Telfer would like to change the way that the government is looking at land use in Tairāwhiti.
"There are only three areas that need to be classified: productive food-producing land, productive forestry land, and reverting land to its original state," he said.
He has a negative view of the current culture in the Gisborne District Council.
"Looking at the culture in council, if we could make it, 'how can we help you' rather than 'how can we put up barriers to hinder you' I think this town could really go forward quickly."
Regarding Three Waters, Telfer remembers being horrified at the state of council sewerage infrastructure.
"Every time it rained, we would open taps and pour raw sewerage into our rivers. Twenty years later, we're still doing the same thing."
