Viewpoint – Are you council candidate material?

I was chatting to a friend recently about an infrastructure issue that we had been dealing with in council, having to weigh up costs and benefits in both monetary and non-monetary terms, and they said: “that sounds awfully boring”. That made me realise that I must be a local government tragic, as I had found the discussion around the council table really fascinating and not at all boring.

In October this year, you get to choose who should be your mayor and your local councillors, the people who will make the decisions about the sometimes boring things that affect our everyday lives. I hope that you as electors will have some worthy candidates to choose from, people to represent you and also act in the best interests of the whole of the Kaipara district, not just those you happen to know.

If you think you might have the right stuff to be a candidate yourself, here are some attributes which I think a great candidate would have. I don’t rate myself highly on all of them. The only legal requirements are that you must be a New Zealand citizen, be over 18 years old and enrolled on the Electoral Roll. Apart from those requirements I think history shows that virtually anyone can be a mayor or councillor. You may behave like a petulant child or be a somnolent octogenarian, but that does not render you ineligible to stand.

In my view, the following attributes (in no particular order) would be useful:

• Your heart should be in the community. That does not mean you have to have lived a long time in the area, but your commitment should be visible.
• You should be able to demonstrate governance skills, be they through corporate or community-based organisations.
• It would really be helpful to have an understanding of how to get things done in a team environment.
• You should have an understanding of what you want to achieve by being on the council and why you want to achieve it.
• An understanding of how laws are made and the legislation that local government must follow would be useful.
• The better your literacy and numeracy skills, the more useful you are likely to be.  Staff put a lot of effort into providing background information so that Elected Members are able to make informed decisions. This is preferable to determining an issue based on anecdote.
• From this, it is important to not accept things at face value; ask good questions.
• Staying awake at meetings is certainly desirable but obviously not essential.
• Being able to express a point of view coherently would be useful, as would the ability to learn from others and to understand their point of view.
• You need to be able to make hard decisions and live with them.

There is some more information available on the Council’s website too: https://www.kaipara.govt.nz/elections