Derek Fox – Team Wairoa Mayoral Candidate

9 September, 2013

You’ve probably noticed at election time that prospective candidates make a lot of promises – usually saying things you would like to hear.

They’ll tell you about all the things they will change or introduce when they are elected.

Unfortunately once they’ve got your vote and are in they find out that they have only one vote at the table just like everybody else and they need to persuade a majority of the council to go with them or else their promises of change are meaningless.

Team Wairoa understands that; we are a team and if you elect us we will try to persuade our fellow councillors to come with us, but if they don’t then we will have the numbers to effect change.

I have also noticed candidates promising to do ‘whatever you want them to’.

But what happens when they get requests from two or more groups in the district, which are completely opposed to each other? You can’t fulfil both or all those ‘wants’.

Again Team Wairoa has a plan to deal with that. We have a set of five principles against which we will test all requests. Our decision-making will be fair and transparent, we won’t be backing favourates against other interests in the district; our approach will apply to everyone without fear or favour and will be open for all to see.

Our principles are simple and easy to understand:
• Do we really need this?
• Is it affordable?
• Who will benefit?
• Who will not benefit?
• Is it fair and equitable?

We believe this is a professional approach to running the district’s affairs.

So when you next hear or see someone telling you about the changes they will make when they are elected, ask then how they intend doing that with one vote.

And ask them how they intend dealing with competing interests, because there always are for the limited dollars available; and remember those limited dollars by and large come from us the ratepayers.

We in Team Wairoa have thought long and hard about the complexities of governing Wairoa. There are no easy answers. To work our way through the many difficulties that lie ahead we need a team effort.

We would like to work with our fellow councillors, you can see we have a principled and collaborative approach planned, but we also have the means of providing strong collective leadership to make the decisions and progress we need if that fails.

Kia ora.

ENDS

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