David Seymour says the ACT Party wants to put up candidates in this year’s local body elections because “it’s time for a clean-out”.

Whatever his motivation is, I think his plan to get ACT involved in local councils is a good thing.

Some people think political parties shouldn’t be involved in local councils, but what would you prefer?

If someone’s wearing a party badge, at least you know what they stand for. Anyone else, and it can be a guessing game. And I agree with Seymour when he says it would be way better to know where people stand when you vote for them for your local council.  

I’d go further than what he says. He reckons that people end up voting for people they have no idea about, but I actually think that people don’t bother voting in the first place because they’ve got no idea about the candidates.  

Or more to the point, they’ve got no real idea what the candidates stand for.  

Yes, every candidate trots out the usual lines, but you never really know them. Which is why you seem to see so many ex-media people in local government.  

They have a profile and people end up voting for them just because they recognise their name, which is a terrible thing to base your vote on.  

Which is why I think it would be great if, not just ACT, but more political parties were upfront, selected candidates, gave them a party t-shirt, and said “this is our person. Vote for them”.  

The reason I say “upfront" is because we all know that one of the local government groupings in Christchurch is the Labour Party in plain clothing. This is People’s Choice.  

There are other groupings too, but everyone knows that People’s Choice is Labour.       

If you have a look at their website, it looks pretty similar to Labour’s website. But the most obvious thing is right at the bottom of the People’s Choice homepage, where it says: “Authorised by Reuben Davidson”. Who, of course, is Labour’s Christchurch East MP.   

So David Seymour says his reason for wanting to get ACT involved in local body politics is that he doesn’t think councils have read the room and haven’t taken it on board that people are sick of councils blowing money left, right, and centre.  

On the money side of it, Seymour says ACT won’t be financing the campaigns of their local body candidates. They’ll have to do their own fundraising to pay for their campaigns.  

Which I think is good. As he puts it: “You’re not going to see helicopter candidates funded from outside your town. If you can’t fundraise money for your campaign, maybe people are trying to tell you something.”  

So, for me, it’s a win-win and I’d like to see more political parties doing the same. 

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