15 September 2022
Sir Tim Shadbolt mayoral candidate no-show, but the show goes on
Nine of Invercargill’s mayoral candidates were put under the spotlight in the city’s largest election debate to date on Wednesday night. The 10th candidate, Sir Tim Shadbolt, was a no-show choosing instead to send in a statement to be read out.
Southland Business Chamber put on the mayoral debate at the Ascot Park Hotel in Invercargill which drew a capacity crowd of 250.
Scotty Stevenson, best known for dissecting sporting happenings as a commentator, had the task of keeping the nine mayoral hopefuls on track as the MC.
Shadbolt, who has been Invercargill’s mayor since 1998 has been absent from various other council candidate forums in recent weeks.
He had already indicated he was not campaigning as “vigorously” as he has in the past after declaring his chances of re-election as mayor a “long-shot”.
To start the mayoral event on Wednesday night each candidate was offered two minutes to provide their pitch as to why they should be Invercargill’s mayor next term.
Stevenson read out Shadbolt’s statement which suggested he was still after votes for the mayoralty despite scaling back the campaigning.
“After much consideration, I have decided against attending tonight. I consider my participation would add direct focus to the delivery of my message rather than the content of my message,” the statement says.
“I have spent the past two years raising my serious concerns about the current climate of this council and the executive, to date, almost none of my concerns have been addressed.
“Council has created a process which has labelled me the cause of its issues. While I must take responsibility for some of the blame, I do not accept that I’m the sole cause.”
He labelled the current council dysfunctional, stated it was up to his mayoral “challengers” to take up the gauntlet and prove themselves to the public, and he told those in the audience, through the statement, if they don’t for him to vote for someone that will bring “radical change”.
Shadbolt’s name did not feature a lot for the remainder of the event as the nine candidates pushed their own cases.
The evening was largely respectful between the various candidates who did have differing opinions on plenty of topics.
Former deputy mayor Toni Biddle did push current councillors, including deputy mayor Nobby Clark, on the council’s project costs and whether the city can actually afford it all.
“The council that you are currently on Mr Clark, no disrespect, has adopted $115m worth of capital projects, plus the renewals, so how on earth is the ratepayer, who is facing a crisis of living, the highest inflation we’ve seen in decades, how is that possible?”
Clark said Biddle had raised an interesting question and he agreed the city can not afford it all and if he was mayor he would claw back about $50m worth of expenditure.
Ludlow suggested to Biddle the council had been able to tap into central government funding which had helped with those planned capital projects.
When Biddle quizzed Ludlow how much central government had contributed, he said about a third. Biddle said she did not believe that, in what was a slight moment of conflict during an otherwise tame evening.
Although when it came to the end of the night, and candidates were asked who they would for if they could not vote for themselves, Biddle and Ludlow did choose each other.
For a matter of interest, Marcus Lush chose Shadbolt, Clark picked Ria Bond, Noel Peterson said no one, Bond opted for Ludlow, Stevey Chernishov said he would like to edit the voting paper and add Ian Pottinger, Tom Morton chose Shadbolt, while Jacqueline Walter pointed out she lived just outside the town boundary so would be voting in the Southland District Council election.
View the Southland Business Chamber Great Debate livestream recording online here.
Source: Stuff.co.nz – September 14 2022