Letter to Manukau
10 July 2007

Leadership

The campaign has well and truly kicked off with the first debate held for Mayoral candidates. Dick Quax and I recently attended the Howick Resident and Ratepayers AGM. I thoroughly enjoyed the occasion and the standard of questioning was excellent.

We spoke about and debated all the issues of the day but my strongest submission to the members was that this election is about leadership. Our city needs strong leadership in three crucial areas of our city life, rates and financial management, crime and safety and transport. In these matters I am going to lead and together we will move Manukau forward.

In order to deliver strong clear sighted leadership, certain personal characteristics are required. We have been led by three Mayors in our city’s history. I did not know Hugh Lambie but it is clear he was a man of strong convictions and principle. There is no doubt that both Sir Lloyd Elsmore and Sir Barry Curtis were and are driven by strongly held views based on personal philosophy and life experience.

“It’s the parents”

I was raised in a Christian household in a very loving environment. In my early years, being an only son amongst four sisters in an Irish catholic family wasn’t all bad either! From my parents I learnt the virtue of sharing, the importance of social justice and particularly from my mother, compassion for those in a less fortunate situation than oneself. Mum’s experience of the depression years gave me a high regard for financial prudence.

These values have been honed through the study of philosophy, politics and law at Auckland University and over 23 years as a lawyer I have had the privilege of caring for and advising people through some very good times and also the bad times. These principles and values have been fine tuned through the great test of all, parenthood!

So where are we going?

From these life experiences I have developed strong convictions that relate to the job I wish to do as the leader of our city. I believe in progressive taxation. Those who earn more pay more because it is fair and I believe that we who have done well need to share with those who are struggling.

I do not believe in user charges. I see them as a double tax, and for many families in our community they are a barrier to accessing our pools, libraries, waste services and recreation centres and defeat the whole purpose of providing those services and amenities in the first place. I know that free access to these services for our youth, families and the elderly delivers huge public benefit. This is the reason that these services should be retained and paid for under one rating payment.

Hold, hold, hold!

I believe in holding onto public assets. I saw what the wholesale privatization of rail, power and financial services did to many families in our communities in the 80s and 90s. Jobs were lost by the thousands and some are only just still recovering. Those who purchased these key strategic assets have made fortunes. Our region and country is the poorer for this sell off. We will hold our airport shares, water infrastructure and land long term for the benefit of our descendants.

I deeply value our democratic freedom and the need to work to preserve and enhance that freedom. Participation in our community, sharing, helping, building strength and cohesion is not only the key to safer homes and streets but is at the heart of how we enhance our freedom. John F. Kennedy’s exhortation to his fellow citizens to ask not what their country could do for them but what they could do for their country is a battle cry for democracy and freedom as strong as any at Gallipoli or the Somme. I see it as being as important to our city’s life and to our nation’s future.

Manukau to the future!

I believe public service to be one of the greatest and noblest of all vocations. I have chosen it over the law. If it takes a village to raise a child then I am assuredly a child of Manukau. My convictions have been shaped, molded and fired by my life here. The principles instilled in me throughout my life will form the base of my leadership of this city. There will be no flip flops, no convenient changes.

ends

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