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Up to my eyeballs

It's 7am and I'm running very late this morning.

Usually I have the daily dose of Aardark up by no later than 6am, often it's closer to 3 or 4am but right now I have a lot on my plate because we have local body elections looming.

Right now I'm scheduling a number of interviews with candidates standing for council and/or mayor in the South Waikato and I want to get all of these recorded, edited and uploaded to the internet before the voting papers arrive early next month. Given that the South Waikato has quite a few new faces standing, as well as a fairly high number of the current crowd, this is a lot of work.

And no, I'm not getting paid a single red cent for any of this. However, I expect that the KSM or Knighthood I get "for services to democracy" in the New Year's honour list will be more than adequate compensation (Cue Tui's ad).

The reality is that local body elections have, in the past, had a very low level of voter participation. Most people simply either tossing the voting forms in the bin as soon as they arrive or putting them on the "things to do" shelf and never getting around to it.

This time I'm hoping things will be different, a lot different.

In this part of the world the local council has plans to hike rates by 65 percent over five short years and to borrow over $120 million. The interest rate on that borrowing alone turns into $8m a year at current rates. What happens if those interest rates go up is something nobody dares to even contemplate.

So my role in this democracy is to encourage others to do their bit and to provide them with the information they need to make a sensible and informed decision as to who they should elect into these crucial positions of governance.

For far too long, those who botherd to vote often did so from a position of ignorance.

"Oh, I recognise that face, I'll vote for him/her" was probably the prevailing thought process.

Well that's no longer good enough. Councilors and a mayor must be chosen on their willingness to represent their community and uphold the principles of democracy.

Of course they all claim that they'll "do their best for the community" and be espousing other mindless rhetoric but this time it's going to be different. I shall be interviewing them and challenging the candidates on their promises and claims.

If they say "I will work to encourage investment and the creation of new jobs" I will be asking "exactly how do you intend to do that?" and we'll see if they're all talk and no trousers.

The interviews will be published online for all voters to see and, just as importantly, they'll remain online so that in a couple of years' time we can revisit what these people said versus what they've actually done. I've made it clear to candidates that they will be called on those promises and judged by the community by comparing their promises to the facts.

It's very interesting to see the response to my invitation for interview.

Virtually all of the new faces have welcomed the opportunity to promote themselves and inform the community as to the reasons they deserve a vote. By contrast, only one of the existing councilors has agreed to be interviewed.

I think this says it all really. The current crop (with one exception) likely feel that they can't take the risk of having their track record of the past three years raised in an interview so they'll adopt the strategy they've been using throughout their term "raise the drawbridge, shutter the windows and pretend there's nothing wrong".

Around these parts, this election will be fought on the platforms of openness, honesty and transparency. Suffice to say that not one of the existing councilors running for re-election has mentioned those crucial factors in their efforts to be re-elected.

We've had three years of absolutley awful performance from the incumbents and they're basically saying "vote for us if you want more of the same".

That's a pretty flawed marketing campaign if you ask me -- but it's not my decision to make.

Believe it or not, my interviews are designed to be totally objective and performed without bias, prejudice of favour. My goal is not to tell others how to vote but to simply give them as much information as I can so that they can make their own decisions.

Candidates will have a couple of minutes to sell themselves, during which they can say whatever they want without challenge, interruption or judgement by me. Then there will be a number of questions that will be the same for all candidates. Voters can compare the answers and choose their favourites. Finally, I'll be asking some "hard" questions that are tailored to the information each has given previously. I'll be digging a little deeper and trying to give those candidates the opportunity to demonstrate that they're more than superficial in their promises. It is this sort of information, rather than the single paragraph of "spin" that accompanies each voter's face on the election booklet, that will enable sound, sensible decisions to be made by voters.

To be honest I'm surprised that what I'm doing isn't commonplace across the land at an important moment like this.

Clearly, the encumbents would rather that voters were not well informed because the only thing they've got going for themselves is voter ignorance.

So again I apologise for being somewhat distracted over the next week or two but it's all for the greater good.

Carpe Diem folks!

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