Invercargill Mayoral Elections Heat Up With a Live Televised Debate

CUE Television will host a live, televised debate among candidates seeking the Invercargill Mayoralty on Wednesday 15 September.

The debate will be held at the SIT Centrestage Theatre and broadcast across the country in what is thought to be a first for both local body elections and television in New Zealand. It will be open to all registered mayoral candidates, facing questions sent in by the public in the weeks leading up to the event.

CUE TV Managing Director Tom Conroy says the race for the southern mayoralty is garnering a lot of interest around the country.

“There’s no doubt the Invercargill, Christchurch and Auckland contests for mayor are attracting the most attention because of the personalities involved and with the national broadcasting platforms at CUE’s disposal (Freeview 23 and SKY Digital 110) it was too good an opportunity to miss.

Long term incumbent Mayor Tim Shadbolt faces several challengers in these local body elections, so CUE felt it had a role to ensure as many voters as possible got to see the faces behind the names on the voting paper, to make an informed judgment. This is why the debate is timed just prior to the papers arriving at homes across the province when voting effectively begins.

It was also important to set a date now so tickets for the event can be distributed and to ensure there’s plenty of time to canvass issues from a cross-section of the community.

This is all about the public having the chance to ask the questions not the media”.

Mr Conroy was open to approaches from the Auckland and Christchurch mayoral hopefuls wanting to take on their opponents in a similar format.

“We’ve got access to a national audience so why not? It would just be a case of working through the logistics in the time available”.

The Great Invercargill Mayoral Debate, filmed in front of a live audience, can be seen on September 15th from 8pm.

ENDS

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