Super City Candidates Gather For Unitec Forum

All Seven Auckland Super City Mayoral Candidates Gather For Unitec Forum For The Future

The seven candidates who have thrown their name into the hat to become the first mayor of the Auckland Super City have confirmed they will participate in what will be lively debate at Unitec Institute of Technology this coming Tuesday 3 August.

The candidates – North Shore City Mayor, Andrew Williams; anti-smacking protestor, Colin Craig; comedian Ewen Gilmour; Auckland City Mayor, John Banks; Manukau City Mayor, Len Brown; water campaigner and actor Penny Bright; and actor and theatre director Simon Prast – will participate in the third and final session of The Unitec Forum For the Future- “Super City – Win or Lose?”

The three-evening series around the impending Super City has attracted some of the country’s top local government experts as panelists who have taken the opportunity to inform the studio and online audience about the pros and cons of Auckland’s new local government structure.

The focus of each forum is tackled in a series of three animated 90-minute live studio debates bringing together the community, business leaders, academics and students in front of a live audience.

The first two sessions held over the past two weeks have created a vigorous debate amongst the guest panelists and the live audience.

Rod Oram, business journalist, commentator and adjunct professor at Unitec’s Department of Management and Marketing, is facilitating the series of discussions.

“This is probably the first time all the mayoral candidates have come together to discuss their intentions for the Auckland Super City so it should make for some very interesting discussions,” says Oram.

“We are hoping the seven mayoral candidates can leave the point scoring and politicking at home and come to the forum and address some of the central issues that have come out of the first two sessions.”

The first forum looked at WHY there was need to change regional governance structures, while the second forum held earlier this week looked at WHAT could be done to make the new system work.

This coming Tuesday’s discussion will focus around HOW the new Super City system can best perform for Auckland and New Zealand.

The event is streamed live on Twitter and the online audience can tweet questions to the panelists before or live during the event, it is also being filmed by Unitec Performing and Screen Arts students and video clips of the first two sessions are available to view on YouTube.

“The Unitec Forum for the Future- Super City Win or Lose? aims to stimulate thinking and debate on how we what the new Super City structure is and how we can make it work for the community of Auckland and New Zealand as a whole,” says Oram.

To view video clips from Session 1 (already up) and Session 2 (these will be up during this week); comments from live streaming on Twitter or to tweet your questions for the 3 August session go to www.forumforthefuture.unitec.ac.nz

ENDS