Local Body Election Candidates and their response to the Get Auckland Moving Campaign 2 October 2013~ Auckland (UPDATED) Auckland’s Triennial Local Body Elections are under way! The postal vote takes place from now until 12 October. Please consider the candidates’ views on getting Auckland moving before deciding who to vote for. Find your mayor, ward, and local board candidates below in alphabetical order within constituency. For convenience we have colour-coded the candidates, green if they support ‘Get Auckland Moving’ and red if they do not, no colour if we are not sure. The ones listed are the ones who cared enough to respond to our request for comment. 136 candidates have responded. Fast links to the candidates: Mayor Ward Councillors Albany Manukau Orākei Albert-Eden-Roskill Manurewa-Papakura Waitakere Franklin Maungakiekie-Tāmaki (no responses) Waitematā and Gulf Howick (no responses) North Shore Whau Local Boards Albert-Eden Maungakiekie-Tāmaki Rodney Hibiscus and Bays (Hibiscus (Maungawhau Local Board (Tāmaki (Warkworth Coast Subdivision) Subdivision) Subdivision) (no responses) Subdivision) Albert-Eden Rodney (Owairaka Howick (Botany Subdivision) Orākei (Wellsford Subdivision) Subdivision) Howick (Howick Ōtara-Papatoetoe (Ōtara Devonport-Takapuna Upper Harbour Subdivision) Subdivision) Ōtara-Papatoetoe Local Franklin (Pukekohe Howick (Pakuranga Board (Papatoetoe Waiheke Subdivision) Subdivision) Subdivision)(no responses) Franklin (Wairoa Waitākere Papakura Subdivision) Kaipātiki Ranges Great Barrier Māngere-Ōtāhuhu Puketāpapa Waitematā Rodney (Dairy Flat Henderson-Massey Manurewa Whau Subdivision) Hibiscus and Bays Maungakiekie-Tāmaki Local Rodney (Kumeu (East Coast Bays Board (Maungakiekie Subdivision) Subdivision) Subdivision) (no responses) Constituency Name, Response Affiliation Back Mayor Berry, I oppose the Get Auckland Moving Campaign. No amount of Stephen, money spent on altering public behaviours will make one Affordable iota of difference. Individuals do not want to give up their Auckland cars and many of those who use public transport do so out of necessity rather than choice. The solution to traffic congestion is to provide infrastructure that commuters actually want - roads, roads and roads! The funding for this shouldn't have to come from higher rates, regional fuel taxes, congestion charges or other forms of taxation. The funding can come from asset sales - Council does own $30 billion worth of assets after all. Alternatively, a law change by central government could allow all the funding to come from the private sector. Why not allow private companies to take all the risk, pay all the expenses and then charge drivers to use their finished product? TOP Mayor Butler, Jesse This is a real solid cause. It’s clear that car poolers have been too long neglected. Helping in reducing traffic congestion through social organisation should be rewarded, and obviously it hasn’t. There has been little incentives provided during the past 3 years to promote this form of public transport. Any measure to reduce traffic jams should be encouraged and supported, not at election time, but when the candidates had been elected in 2010. With congestion as it is, and the missed opportunities to create a social car pooling hub and club, the promise to pay due attention to car poolers and car pooling in the next 3 years is a bit hollow isn’t it? As Auckland’s new Mayor, car poolers will not only be rewarded and acknowledged by the new Auckland Council to be an integral sector in the public transportation industry, I cannot see why in the 21st century, Auckland cannot have a fully integrated system of diversity and community enhancement that includes their services. TOP Mayor Cheel, Tricia As Mayor, or indeed member for the Albany Ward, I would Independent be working to make Auckland the greenest and healthiest city - and therefore the happiest city - by adopting Integrated Organic Management Systems across the broadest range of Council activities. 'Proposals to find low-cost mechanisms to make it easier and more rewarding for people in Auckland to catch a ride in cars, buses and trains, more of the time', as you have presented in your Get Auckland Moving Campaign, would be an integral component of any transport strategy following IOMS criteria. TOP Mayor Duffy, Paul, I’ve cycled and run more kilometres in my lifetime than I’ve Financial driven so of course I support your campaign! Discipline at I’m a very strong supporter of commuting and public TOP Constituency Name, Response Affiliation Back Auckland transport. Not only do they help with reducing congestion Council and pollution, but they keep us healthy riding our bikes and walking to and from the stations! Mayor Hussey, I would support anything that helps to ease the congestion Emmett, in Auckland & if your campaign has the capacity to do that Independent then I would wholeheartedly support it TOP Mayor Kruger, I support the Get Auckland Moving Campaign, in fact, as an Susanna, entrepreneur; I control my time and location so while Independent walking and bussing I have meetings with myself. As your Mayor, I will turn Auckland into the small entrepreneur capital of the world and making walking, bussing and virtual offices a reality for all. TOP Mayor Mermunt, We congratulate the initiative of "Get Auckland Moving" in Annalucia, connecting people to needed transport. Communist The Communist League campaign explains that the League transport problems are one of the many symptoms of capitalism's global crisis and a deepening slowdown in worldwide production and trade. The capitalist rulers, and their parties in city and national government, try to make us bear the burden of their crisis in order to restore their declining rates of profit. They want to reverse the gains working people have won in past struggles. We believe working people need to take political power into our own hands so we can put an end to capitalist rule and reorganise society for the benefit of the vast majority. The Communist League candidates are campaigning in this election to put forward demands around which we can organise to strengthen and unify the working class as we fight today. We call for a massive government-funded public works programme in order to create tens of thousands of jobs and reduce the competition fostered by unemployment. Such a programme would build the houses, schools, hospitals, public transport, and other amenities and infrastructure that working people need. TOP Mayor Minto, John, Our policy is for Free public transport to give Aucklanders an Mana extra hour at home with the family every day – more details on www.mintoformayor.org.nz TOP Mayor Palino, John Carpooling is definitely one of the prongs of my vision to alleviate traffic congestion. Carpooling couples well with my position of using the infrastructure that we already have in our system but towards 100% utilisation. We have carpool lanes but they're not used fully. We can help to address this by building more park and rides and hubs where people can meet to carpool. When the previous Council supported the carpool lanes they forgot to ensure enough parking, and the same goes with the current train and bus stops. I'm confident that if we make transport easier to use, then we TOP Constituency Name, Response Affiliation Back can begin to encourage more motorist to take public transport, rather than force them to do so in the face of a lack of facilities like parking and hubs. Let's make it easier for people to use public transport, including motorists, and we can get more of them off the roads and into buses and trains, as well as carpools of 2-3 per car. This is how we can make full use of our transport system before blowing our budget on highly expensive projects. I'm interested in seeing what various carpooling programmes could be proposed, reviewed and implemented in the Auckland region. Mayor Thomas, Rob As the Council Candidate for the Waitemata and Gulf Ward I support the Get Auckland Moving Campaign. If elected I will support proposals to find low-cost mechanisms to make it easier and more rewarding for; people to safely walk or cycle; connect with frequent, reliable, affordable bus and train service; and ride in cars. TOP Ward Councillors Albany Ward Cheel, Tricia As Mayor, or indeed member for the Albany Ward, I would Independent be working to make Auckland the greenest and healthiest city - and therefore the happiest city - by adopting Integrated Organic Management Systems across the broadest range of Council activities. 'Proposals to find low-cost mechanisms to make it easier and more rewarding for people in Auckland to catch a ride in cars, buses and trains, more of the time', as you have presented in your Get Auckland Moving Campaign, would be an integral component of any transport strategy following IOMS criteria. TOP Albany Ward Moorhead, As a candidate for Albany ward, I agree with the Get Kevin, Auckland Moving Campaign, it is vital that we fix Auckland's Independent transport problems before they go from bad to worse. Car pooling to reduce the amount of vehicles on the roads during peak times is a great idea to help lessen the traffic until more major steps can be taken to address the problem. Adding to the struggles are the under used T3 lanes which are often seen with nobody in them, purely because it’s uncommon for three people to car pool. I am all for the T2 idea, it is great to encourage car-pooling and seems to be working quite nicely, but the T3 lanes are not. Therefore I would want to see that all current T3 lanes be turned into T2 lanes so they can better benefit the community. With the T3 lanes changed to T2 and the continued encouragement for residents to embrace car-pooling we could each do our bit to lessen Auckland traffic.