Indepence-why does it matter? Yesterday at a Channel 9 Mayoral debate Dave Cull clarified what he understood about the ticket Greater Dunedin. He told us that it has as its aim to get good people onto Council, but once elected they are no longer a ticket, and become independent, not voting according to instruction Apparently the idea is that what they have in common is that someone thinks they would be good. Dave is endorsing candidates on the radio. There are 2 issues here. It seems a tad naive to believe that candidates whose very existence on Council would be as a result of endorsement would not vote according to the wishes of the very one who got you into Council and can influence your political future. And secondly the idea of party politics is that voters can look at the party manifesto and choose based on what the party says it will do. When the ticket says it is not influencing its members, and in any case has no manifesto, we have no idea what to expect if we vote for someone endorsed by a ticket. On a good day this causes confusion over what to expect. On a bad day it is a divisive factor on Council. We are not set up to have an in crowd and then the others locally. We are set up to have independent candidates who each are chosen on their own merits and principles by voters who expect them to serve Dunedin to the best of their ability in the way they told us they would before they were elected. Choosing an independent gives the voter a better chance of knowing what they are choosing, and having a Council that can all come together on an equal footing to do the best for Dunedin.
Posted on: Wed, 25 Sep 2013 20:00:23 +0000
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