Simon Collins concludes his one-man poll of 300 Aucklanders on the eve of the new Super City's official birth
Most citizens of the new Super City were unaware of where they fitted in the new structure and their local candidates until their voting papers arrived this week, a sampling of 300 voters has found.
Only 15 per cent of the people interviewed over the past month, at 36 locations from Matakana to Waiuku, knew which local board they would come under in the new structure. Only 22 per cent could name any candidate for either their local board or their ward of the new Auckland Council.
Many were angry that they were not better informed. Asked which local board area she lived in, Three Kings spiritual director and life coach Jeannie Blaker, 60, said: "I have looked at the billboards around to try and work out which one we're in, but we've got three boards around here and I can't work out which one we're in."
Albany retailer Mandy Downie, 44, said: "I've got no idea, I feel highly incompetent when it comes to elections. I'm fairly opinionated, but we are relying on the media."
This survey found that no one knew even one word of their local board's name in seven of the 21 new boards: Hibiscus and Bays, Upper Harbour, Whau (Avondale/New Lynn), Albert-Eden, Puketapapa (Mt Roskill), Waitemata (Grey Lynn to Parnell) and Mangere-Otahuhu.
Although three of the 16 people interviewed from the Maungakiekie-Tamaki board area knew the name of their board, none of them could name a single candidate.
The only two board areas where more than half of those interviewed could name at least one candidate were Waiheke Island, where three out of the four people interviewed knew several candidates personally, and Howick, whose residents successfully appealed to Parliament to ditch the proposed name for their area, Te Irirangi.
Two-thirds of the whole sample know of at least one mayoral candidate. But when it comes to council and local board candidates, the election looks like a lottery.
"How do you vote, because there are no policies that are clear?" asked a semi-retired professor who divides his time between Browns Bay and North Carolina. "I'm really upset at what's happened in the Auckland area in the last 30 years. They got rid of the smaller boroughs, split into four cities, and now you're having another go at it. I just feel sick. I mean, it's horrendous because they're going to elect all these people and they don't know what the hell they're going to do."
Glenfield art restorer Sarah Tao, who arrived from China 11 years ago, said: "I don't know how people pick names, I think they just close their eyes and point."
Even when shown the list of 23 mayoral candidates, many voters were at a loss.
"I don't know any of them," said Avondale employment consultant Leka Ola, 37. "I like a name, so I'll pick straws - McDonald."
"I'm going to take a wild guess - none of these names mean anything to me," echoed Manurewa stores worker Michelle Flavell, 20.
Youth work student Aniva Finai, 22, asked: "Is there any Samoan in here? We don't know these people."
Pukekohe machinist Anita Moore, 26, asked: "Which one is Labour? I don't know, my partner normally gives me the low-down."
Toni Stapleton, 44, a Matakana student of naturopathic medicine, is not voting because she can't relate to a city of 1.4 million people.
Taupaki sharemilker Paul Tyacke, 45, who drives trucks and owns a 5ha block at Wellsford as well as running the dairy farm, said: "I don't vote, I just carry on working. My vote doesn't make any difference - taxes are still going to rise, rates are still going to rise, I'm just going to have to work harder."
But some younger voters suggest democracy could work better, even on a super-city scale, with modern technology.
"Can we go to the internet and find one site and find out about all these people?" asked Ana and Diego, who moved here from Switzerland 2 years ago.
Takapuna telecoms specialist Layne Sparks, 21, had the same thought. "What they should have is a website where they list what they want to do and what they've done," he said.
"If you don't know anything about it, like me, you could go there to know what they're planning to do."
The series
Saturday: Hard times in paradise
Monday: Mayoral contenders
Today: Election confusion
