Ms Hutt is the CEO of social enterprise electricity company For Our Good, and a member of the governance board for GoEco, who are dedicated to sustainability and protecting the natural environment She says she has had enough of poor representation from the current council, and decided to take a stand.
"Whether it was inaction about climate change or embarrassing our city through individual shenanigans
"I spent months asking all the best people I knew if they were going to stand for council, and if I could support them - all of them said no, for various reasons," Ms Hutt said.
"At the same time, I was part of this amazing, Hamilton-based group, Women in Politics which was trying to get more women into politics and I thought "how can I go around encouraging other people to do this if I don't do it myself?"
Ms Hutt said it is a crucial time for millennials born in the late 1990s and 2000s, to take part in their democratic right.
"Millennials are in a position which no generation has been in before. We are inheriting a world which is burning, and we navigate our lives with an underlying frustration that past generations did not look after it for us and don't always take us seriously. Yet, in the face of that, we don't give up. We're resilient and resourceful, and eager to collaborate to solve these issues."
She said that a submission on Hamilton's 10-year plan made by Seed Waikato, who work with young professionals in Hamilton, was rejected by Hamilton City Council.
Seed Waikato's submission focused on points around housing, community infrastructure, community grants, and sustainability
"Unfortunately, many of their points were ignored — and council actually did the opposite of some recommendations, for example discontinuing the Eco Design advisory service — which was a crucial resource for homeowners needing to improving the efficiency and quality of their home.
"This gives us two options; either council can take us seriously and include us, or we can stand up ourselves and vote for people concerned with the important issues. To quote the Rt Hon James Bolger, the chancellor of the University of Waikato, who spoke at my graduation last week — "the world desperately needs new thinking and new leaders, so why not you?"
Ms Hutt is also hoping that by announcing her candidacy, she will inspire others to come forward and also stand for local government.
"You can't run on a platform of inclusion and diversity and think that one person is going to fix that. One of the biggest barriers I've seen is that even when people do know what city council is and what it does, they don't know how to get elected."
"I strongly believe that we should be encouraging people to run who aren't career politicians — but it's hard when you don't have the income that they do to pay for a campaign or the experience in running one. It's natural that it's intimidating — so I'll be making a lot of resources for people to show them, this is how you can run a campaign, this is how you can be strategic about advertising, and making them available for free so that absolutely anyone can do this."
One of the key issues Ms Hutt will tackle if elected is climate change.
"We need to put climate change at the forefront of every decision we're making — otherwise, we'll be undoing all the work of previous councils, and the investment that our residents and ratepayers have put into our city."
The local body elections are on October 12. Nominations open on July 19.
