My fellow citizens of Manukau, greetings.

Today I attended, with many other thousands, the multi- cultural festival to celebrate Buddha’s birthday, held at the Buddhist temple in Chapel Rd. It was a superb day , very professionally organised, and the hospitality of President Peter Young , and all those of the Temple was outstanding.

It was by the diversity of those present, a real multi –cultural celebration. As I moved around the Temple grounds, sampling some excellent Chinese food, I struck up a conversation with a lady visiting the Temple for the first time. I commented on the diversity of the crowd and what a brilliant experience the day had been. She replied by simply saying ,”this is why I love living in South Auckland.”

IT reminded me of why I love our city too. I am a glass half full rather than a glass half empty person. I love the fact that people from so many different backgrounds and cultures make up our city. We can choose to be either threatened by the differences between us, or learn and take benefit from those differences, the positive spirit and energy new migrants bring, and share and encourage their hope for great things for them and their families in their new life in our city and country.

Noel Burnside, my old sparring partner Councillor from Papatoetoe, is calling it a day on council at the end of this term. I wish to acknowledge what an outstanding advocate and effective leader he has been for his community of Papatoetoe, and our city. Noel’s sense of fair play, common sense and his high standards of civic duty will be sorely missed at the Council table. Noel has played an excellent innings on Council, even if he threw in couple of short pitched political bouncers at me!

I therefore do not want to see Noel’s green recycling bins , retired with him. The news that our Council is seeking to move to 240 litre wheelie bins for recycling, is unwelcome . Waste minimisation is a major issue for all councils. We are lucky to own our own landfill, but that landfill has a finite period of operation. It is essential we plan long term for waste reduction and the key for us is that it starts from each of our homes. Our green bins have been very successful, and the community take up continues to be excellent, 5 years on from commencement. The key to recycling successfully has been to keep paper separate from plastic and glass. This proposal is in my view a backward step, and I want the Council to think again on this subject.

I would like to see us cut our waste stream by 50% by starting a green waste recycling scheme. The work for this proposal was started 5 years ago in our city and I want to see it extended into action. There is also technology that is being used in New Zealand and internationally, that treats sewage either by combustion or organically. Investigating and assessing the value and merits of these technologies, must be a part of our waste minimisation work over the next 3 years. The increasing acknowledgement of the effect of global warming from greenhouse gases, some traceable to land filling, make this work critical to our city’s future.

We are now a little over 6 months form the next election, which is an appropriate time to reflect on the fact that only 40% of our people voted at the last election. That stands in stark contrast to the 70 to 80 % who vote in the Parliamentary elections. There are some who believe people don’t vote because they are happy with their lot. My view, after doorknocking around 30,000 of the doors across this city so far, is that people do not see what local government does for them.

There is also a disconnect between our community and council, where people feel some distance from decision making and a lack of ownership of their Council. This has been highlighted in the last 3 years through Councils own perception surveys. There is crucial work ahead to focus on building stronger communication links back to our community’s, building trust for our councils actions and a greater participation by our people in our city’s decision making and actions. I see leading this process of building stronger democracy in our city ,listening, and taking our Council back to our communities as being one of my key tasks if elected in October. I will tackle this process through my weekly Mayoral meetings, newsletters and Mayors website. I might even really shake it up by downloading to U tube!

Kind Regards,

Len Brown, Candidate for Mayor, Manukau City.

© Scoop Media