100 Raglanders get up early to meet the candidates
Penny Gaynor gave a polished speech which resonated well with the Raglan audience
About 100 Raglanders got up early on a frosty Tuesday morning (22 July) for the ‘Meet the Candidates’ breakfast meeting hosted by the Raglan Chamber of Commerce at the Orca Restaurant. Chamber Chair Dave Currie said that the purpose of the meeting was to meet the politicians who are intending to represent Raglanders in the next general election. The candidates who fronted up were Robert Moore (Green Party), Penny Gaynor (Labour Party), Barbara Kuriger (National Party and Angeline Greensill (Internet/Mana Party).
Sponsor of the breakfast Dave Hanna was first up with an interesting talk on how Dave and Julie’s real estate business had evolved over the years to match business conditions. The business had recently moved from a shared commission system to an individual commission approach. He said that after a rough patch the business had now settled down. Dave went on to cover how their business had moved to cloud computing with services provided by Google.
Raglan was the first speech in his campaign for birthday boy Robert Moore
The speeches from the five candidates followed. While the content was largely predictable, the delivery of the speeches did give the audience a sign of the personal values of the candidates. The Chamber had asked the candidates to speak on topics relevant to the Raglan local area and business community, with a strong emphasis on tourism, business growth and sustainable development. The candidates seemed to give little attention to this request and most stuck to their party’s line. Barbara Kuringer held up a census demographic map and pointed out what most in the audience already knew. i.e. That the top end of the electorate is worse off financially than than the bottom end. Angeline Greensill said that money from a Raglan Harbour treaty settlement would help the local economy.
The takeaways provided by the candidates probably gave the best indication of what they really believe and their approach:
Angeline Greensill charmed the audience with a songAngeline Greensill (Internet/Mana) finished her speech with a song with a message of make sure you vote and that you vote for Internet/Mana.
Barbara Kuriger (National) in the middle of plastic free July gave away cheap plastic pens and glossy full colour brochures.
Robert Moore (Green) said this was his first campaign speech and let everybody know it was his birthday. He took a selfie which is probably already on his Facebook.
Penny Gaynor (Labour) covered Labour’s $200 million regional fund and told people to check out the Labour website after 10am.
Barbara Kuringer points out what most in the audience already knew. That the top end of the electorate is worse off financially than than the bottom end
I thought that the talks by Robert Moore and Penny Gaynor seemed to resonate well with the Raglan business audience. Barbara Kuriger said that if elected she will have a home in Te Awamutu. The formal talks were followed by questions from the floor which covered everything from abortions to foreign ownership. The candidates did their best to answer these questions within the limits of their party policies.
3 thoughts on “100 Raglanders get up early to meet the candidates”
Still no selfie on Green candidate, Robert Moore’s facebook page, but why trivialise or ignore what he did say? If trivia is wanted, why not report that he got more applause than any other candidate, rather than “Robert Moore and Penny Gaynor seemed to resonate well with the Raglan business audience”?
Much of Robert’s speech was about the Green’s plan for $1 billion of new government funding over 3 years for research and development, kick-starting a transformational shift in how our economy creates wealth. So not true that “candidates seemed to give little attention to” the Chamber of Commerce question – “What are your party’s policies in regard to economic development and viability to our small west coast town?” Robert answered it, proposing just the sort of help Raglan needs to get more jobs like those at Aeronavics and eCoast Marine Consulting.
Increasingly a problem at elections is low voter turnout. Many don’t vote because they think all parties are the same. An important issue for Raglan is oil on the beaches, yet no mention that the first question was about that and that Angeline and Robert were the only ones to give clear statements opposing deep sea drilling. Put ‘deepwater horizon oil spill’ into Google news and see how much it’s still in the news 4 years on. Labour’s $300m insurance would go nowhere in dealing with that.
I’m disappointed that Robert Moore hasn’t put the selfie up. My intention was to indicate that as a candidate he was onto it and using modern social media effectively. Rather than go on what people say, I’ve always gone by what they do and that was why I made my ‘takeaways’ comments.
The good thing about the blog format is that readers can add their own perspectives as you have done in this case John.
Even National is talking about the importance of the party vote. It seems time to recognise that we’re going to get Barbara Kuriger as our MP (National would have to be down to less than 10 MPs to lose Taranaki King Country) and that the other candidates are really only campaigning for the party vote. Therefore it makes no difference whether they’re PM material or unable to use selfies. What does matter is the policies of their parties. Maybe Raglan23 can have a page with links to the policy pages of all the parties?
Still no selfie on Green candidate, Robert Moore’s facebook page, but why trivialise or ignore what he did say? If trivia is wanted, why not report that he got more applause than any other candidate, rather than “Robert Moore and Penny Gaynor seemed to resonate well with the Raglan business audience”?
Much of Robert’s speech was about the Green’s plan for $1 billion of new government funding over 3 years for research and development, kick-starting a transformational shift in how our economy creates wealth. So not true that “candidates seemed to give little attention to” the Chamber of Commerce question – “What are your party’s policies in regard to economic development and viability to our small west coast town?” Robert answered it, proposing just the sort of help Raglan needs to get more jobs like those at Aeronavics and eCoast Marine Consulting.
Increasingly a problem at elections is low voter turnout. Many don’t vote because they think all parties are the same. An important issue for Raglan is oil on the beaches, yet no mention that the first question was about that and that Angeline and Robert were the only ones to give clear statements opposing deep sea drilling. Put ‘deepwater horizon oil spill’ into Google news and see how much it’s still in the news 4 years on. Labour’s $300m insurance would go nowhere in dealing with that.
I’m disappointed that Robert Moore hasn’t put the selfie up. My intention was to indicate that as a candidate he was onto it and using modern social media effectively. Rather than go on what people say, I’ve always gone by what they do and that was why I made my ‘takeaways’ comments.
The good thing about the blog format is that readers can add their own perspectives as you have done in this case John.
Even National is talking about the importance of the party vote. It seems time to recognise that we’re going to get Barbara Kuriger as our MP (National would have to be down to less than 10 MPs to lose Taranaki King Country) and that the other candidates are really only campaigning for the party vote. Therefore it makes no difference whether they’re PM material or unable to use selfies. What does matter is the policies of their parties. Maybe Raglan23 can have a page with links to the policy pages of all the parties?