CANDIDATES were unable to answer questions from the floor, owing to the number of both them - and the crowd at Ruapehu's Meeting of the Candidates on Friday.
RUAPEHU District Council’s Meet the Candidates Event drew about 150 people to the Taumarunui RSA upstairs meeting room on Monday night, while an estimated 40 additional locals watched via livestream. However, owing to the number of candidates, questions from the floor were prevented. A record offering of 24 candidates had put names forward to contest positions on the Taumarunui-Ōhura Community Board; Ōwhango-National Park Community Board; Ruapehu General Ward; Ruapehu Māori Ward; Horizons Regional Council (Ruapehu Constituency) and mayoralty. SPEAKERS LIMITED With so many candidates to deal with, Taumarunui Rotary Club organisers limited speaking to three minutes for board, council and Horizons candidates, while mayoral candidates had five. A few written questions were answered at the end of the evening. The most repeated issues were: a need for improved unity on the council; more consultation and transparency as it dealt with constituents; more housing to be provided in Ruapehu; greater employment opportunities and improved roading for locals and wiser stewardship of council resources to make money available go further. AGAINST THREE WATERS Many of the candidates spoke against Three Waters Reform; several also pointing out that much of the water infrastructure in Ruapehu was run down, existing resources to remedy this were in short supply and rejecting Three Waters entirely left the open question of how to fix things. Mayoral candidates Fiona Kahukura Hadely Chase, Weston Kirton, Adie Doyle and Elijah Pue were given the most time to speak. Adie was the only candidate at the meeting who favoured increasing incomes in Ruapehu as being more important than increasing housing there. “Housing is cyclical and house prices are coming down now. As house prices come down and interest rates go up, more houses come on the market (as people sell off their investment properties).
LOW WAGE CRISIS “In 12 months time people are still going to be saying we have a housing crisis, when there will actually a whole lot more houses on the market for sale. “New Zealand actually has a low wage crisis – that’s the real problem. If you can get wages up and get people working there will be houses available to them.” Fiona, who is also running for the Māori Ward, said in addressing Three Waters, that she saw problems with what was proposed but also pointed out that Taumarunui’s water supply still needed substantial improvement, though it had been vastly improved over what the town had previously. However, the money for the work which yet had to be done would have to come from somewhere. Elijah committed himself to listening to his constituents as mayor in order to determine the top priorities for Taumarunui and the villages, “and places we call home, here in Ruapehu”. Elijah called for the construction of safe, affordable and warm homes to alleviate the housing crisis in Ruapehu. “But we can’t do it on our own – there’s a housing crisis throughout Aotearoa,” Elijah said, adding social housing stock had to be added to nationally. UNFAIR RATES Weston acknowledged all the candidates who had the courage to front up, because it was not easy putting one’s name forward to enter the public arena. A couple in Manunui saw their rates go from $2500 to $5000 after building a one-bed sleepout, which appeared to be unfair and needed be to looked at. “When people are crying out for rentals, especially with the new pet food factory about to commence, I would like to see more active support from the council for people who want to build, subdivide and extend. I want to look at what we need to change to make Ruapehu the cheapest place to build.
