LOVE FOR LEXUS?
New Plymouth district councillor Murray Chong gave his strongest hint to date he wants to be in parliament after the general election.
Addressing a ‘meet the candidates’ luncheon yesterday, hosted by the Taranaki branch of the National Council of Women, Chong said he had applied to be the New Zealand First candidate for the New Plymouth electorate.
Until now Chong had sidestepped any commitment to stand.
Chong said he was ‘‘a closet greenie’’, collected rainwater, had solar panels and sponsored environmental activists, Sea Shepherd, but had nailed his colours to NZ First.
‘‘No candidate has been selected by the party but I have applied and I feel I have a good chance to be the party’s choice in New Plymouth,’’ he told an audience of around 50 women.
Chong took his place at the meeting alongside candidates Corie Haddock (Labour), Anneka Carlson (ACT), Stuart Bramhall (Greens), and Basil Lawrence (Independent).
Sitting National MP Jonathan Young, and Te Tai Hauauru Maori Party candidate Howie Tamati, were unable to attend.
The two hour meeting saw each candidate have 15 minutes to sum up their party’s policies, followed by a short question and answer section.
The majority asked the audience to give their party vote to their respective party.
Green Party candidate Stuart Bramhall kicked off to talk of fighting against climate change, ending poverty and cleaning up the waterways.
‘‘There is a freshwater crisis and every New Zealander should be able to drink water from a tap without getting sick,’’ she said.
Next up, ACT’s Anneka Carlson said New Plymouth needed someone to represent the younger generation.
‘‘I’m reliable and honest and able to share the political message,’’ she said.
Many felt let down by the current government and the housing situation was ‘‘disgrace’’ due to too much government involvement, she said.
Chong followed, telling the group the party was not slow off the mark for not yet having selected a candidate for New Plymouth.
‘‘There are no billboards yet but we will hit the ground running,’’ he said.
He proudly announced he was born and bred in Taranaki.
‘‘I’ve lived here all my life and only ever been away for four weeks.
‘‘The most important for you is to consider voting for someone like me.’’
A lot of the party’s policies were ‘huge’, he said.
Labour’s Corie Haddock was another home-grown product who, unlike Chong, had left the region to further his experience before returning.
First up he was corrected on the host group’s title, calling it the ‘New Zealand’, and not the National Council for Women.
But Haddock won over the audience when he said his grandmother had told him ‘‘behind every man was a better woman’’.
He said: ‘‘I want a New Zealand we once had, and a government that values people for the contribution they make to society.’’
Finally independent candidate, and retired audio technician Basil Lawrence entered the fray.
After thanking the women’s group for the nice lunch, he was pulled up for mispronouncing his hometown ‘‘Waitara,’’ and then wrongly labelled the group as ‘‘pensioners’’.
That comment brought an emphatic ‘‘No’’ from the audience.
‘‘We’re superannuitants’’, someone piped up.
‘‘Well I’m a pensioner and your concerns are my concerns,’’ Lawrence replied.
‘‘I’m standing as an independent because I’d like to give the voter another policy option to vote for,’’ he said.
The musician and amateur radio enthusiast was critical of the government for ‘‘running down health, running down police and running down mental health’’.
‘‘There’s too many immigrants, we need to produce goods not bring more people in.’’ He was in favour of splitting large single Lotto wins between up to five people ‘‘to spread the money’’.
He would bring freight back to rail, tax those on $100,000 salaries at 45 per cent, and make bike helmets optional.
All five candidates said they opposed the decision to mine iron sand off the Taranaki coastline.