OPINION: There’s something thrilling and slightly chaotic about being a reporter during local body elections. One minute, I’m decoding the manifesto of a mayoral hopeful who calls climate change “a diversion tactic for dummies”, the next, I’m watching a candidate flatten a car with a bulldozer.
I thought I’d seen it all covering the 2019 and 2022 Hauraki and Thames-Coromandel elections, but for the past few months, ‘that’s a first’ is the first thing I say as I start to write the latest story.
It’s been a first to have a man running for Mayor using Artificial Intelligence to talk to me; it’s been a first to have another ask if we’d contacted Crime Stoppers about him; it’s been a first to have anonymous emails rush into my inbox, one urging: ‘Just dig, do your job. Don’t f**k this up’.
There are two sides to an election like this.
On one hand, it’s reassuring that in our towns, we have people who care enough to stand.
Some are seasoned councillors who know the job well, while others are first-timers with big ambitions and a Facebook page. Whatever their stance, they’ve stepped up.
But with all the intensity, at what point does a local election stop being the serious democratic process it’s meant to be, and start feeling more like a circus?
In the instance of Levi Burton, mayoral and Waihi ward hopeful in the Hauraki district, he refused phone interviews and neglected to show up to any of the in-person Meet the Candidate events.
The Profile questioned his use of AI to communicate to the public and the media, because it raises real concerns around accountability and transparency. Is a position really the candidate’s own, or AI’s polished suggestion? Don’t voters deserve to know the difference?
He was also trespassed from a property owned by the current Mayor, Toby Adams, after allegedly being caught on security cameras.
In a post on Facebook showing off his trespass notice issued early September, Burton called the incumbent “a drama queen”.
Roman Jackson, who is running a silent campaign for the top job in both Hauraki and Matamata-Piako, shared with me a fascinating – and brutal – insight into his army experience. But after his profile piece ran, he contacted me to say that Auckland detectives had paid him a visit, saying they had received two enquiries about him.
One was an anonymous submission through Crime Stoppers – an independent charity that guarantees “no identifying information will be passed on to the authorities” – apparently claiming to be a concerned person from The Valley Profile, he said.
“I can assure you it wasn’t The Profile team,” I told Jackson, skeptically adding: “but nonetheless concerning that Police would reveal a Crimestoppers tip”.
He replied: “No drama. If not elected I will breed a farm of mice and rats to create a plague and drop para-rats on all council buildings with a drone. People will start calling me Ratamir Putin.”
Thames-Coromandel mayoral, council, and community board candidate Steve Hart also stood in 2022, when he was questioned about a possible link to Voices for Freedom.
After his mayoral article ran in the paper this year, I was told he was a Sovereign Citizen, and The Profile was asked if we were under personal or legal threat given this wasn’t disclosed in the story.
We followed up with Hart, who denied the accusation.
Then, after sharing the contents of a Letter to the Editor to Hart referencing his campaign, and offering him a Right of Reply – which allows him to defend himself against criticism – Hart told us that if we ran the letter, The Profile’s respect and credibility would go into the gutter.
He went on to tell my editor that the paper was already guilty of “lazy, unintelligent journalism”.
But public roles come with public scrutiny, and anyone putting their name on a ballot should know how the press works.
My final mayoral interview was with James Subritzky, another candidate with views that have ruffled some feathers online and who admitted he should be locked in the garage during council meetings so he wouldn’t slap fellow elected members on the back of the head.
At one point, he told me to stop using the word ‘actually’, calling it a “two-dollar word”.
“It’s a swear word. It’s a full stop,” he told me.
I actually had been using the word actually far too much in our conversation, and I actually do appreciate the blunt honesty. It reminds me of former Thames-Coromandel mayor Sandra Goudie – someone I’d once prepared myself for pointed responses from.
But Goudie, who was mayor from 2016 to 2022, had both local and central government experience. She took the job seriously. She answered every call from the media and respected the role of journalism in holding elected members to account.
This became clear when I wrote the article ‘Mayor waits for [Covid-19] jab’ in October, 2021. The story blew up nationally. It was part of the portfolio which had me named New Zealand’s Runner-Up Best Community Journalist at the Voyager Media Awards the following year.
So, when Sandra Goudie’s name lit up my phone screen while I stood on my editor’s driveway, I braced myself. Surely I was about to cop the fallout for revealing her unvaccinated status.
Instead, I recall: ‘Good story. I was waiting for someone to ask me the question’.
And that, really, is what any candidate needs – to be serious about the job. About the roading, the water, the infrastructure – the unglamorous but essential business of running a district.
It also means accepting the fact that the local reporter might ask you annoying or difficult questions from time to time. It’s not personal, it’s democracy.
So while local elections often struggle to grab people’s attention, resulting in low voter turn-out, this year I’ve noticed the ‘drama’ and diverse personalities have brought more eyes to the race, and hopefully will lead to greater voter participation.
Still, it’s worth remembering: it isn’t a circus. It’s not about who is the loudest – it’s about who will represent you best around the council table.
When the noise dies down, the real job kicks in.
BY KELLEY TANTAU
