The Dominion Post invited the three Upper Hutt mayoral candidates to submit circa 400 words on their credentials and policies.
Current longstanding mayor Wayne Guppy, befitting his pharmacy background, knocked out some straight‑forward rather dull comments then challenger Steve Taylor knocked himself out by commenting, “The reality is our rates need to increase.”
Steve may well be the first aspiring politician in entire human history to seek voters support by proposing to tax them more.
But the final challenger, Angela McLeod, really took the cake with her opening remarks. “It is time to take Upper Hutt to new heights. Action is needed to take our city 21st Century bound.” (I’m not making this up).
Hopefully someone will tell Angela she’s a bit bloody late with that ambition. We’re already a fifth of the way into the 21st Century.
Trust me, you don’t want to hear the rest of her comments but to give you an idea, “solutions” appears, twice in fact in one sentence.
Still, at least Angela never quite sank to the tripe‑talking pits as she avoided any demand for a bloody “conversation”.
To think hundreds of thousands of Hong Kong citizens are rioting because they want all of this. Such a folly is based on ignorance of democracy’s realities.
If the Chinese government was smart they’d fly the protesters’ leaders here to witness democracy in action. That would quickly see an abrupt change of mind.