At this week’s Kāpiti Chamber of Commerce candidates meeting the speakers invited were just from National and Labour. Other candidates attended and KCNews has invited their comments.
This from ACT Party candidate Wayne Grattan:
Having thought about the debate organised by the Chamber of Commerce I have a few observations to make:
1. It was disappointing that other candidates couldn’t participate the debate was the poorer for it.
2. It was the same old tired positions and arguments trotted out by National and Labour Candidates.
3. It was the same old position raised in the questions by the chamber and others generally what’s in it for me and actually the same ones as the last election labour (Kris) promised to spend more of residents money on police and health. National (Nathan) went on about the motorway and cycleway. There was no real talk about a strategy for the country or how we might want New Zealand to look in 20 years’ time.
And to be fair, Kāpiti is in good shape overall which is to be expected when you pump the amount of money in that has been spent on infrastructure. In addition the population is continuing to grow at a manageable pace so no real stress points – unlike Auckland housing.
Never the less ACT believes that strategically we could do better and have two key areas that Government could address.
Scrap and replace the RMA it no longer achieves the environmental objectives and protection that it was set up to achieve and it is a major handbrake on development of our towns and cities as well as being a major contributor to the housing “crisis.”
An expansion of the partnership schools to ensure that the 10% of kids who leave school with no qualification get one and can read and write good for all the social stats as well as employment opportunities and having built a large business here I know how badly off this 10% are.
