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Jason Walls: Newstalk ZB Political Editor on Act taking on local body elections · Early Edition with Ryan Bridge

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: Now it is seventeen minutes after five. ACT has announced
• 0:04
  Speaker 1: that we'll have candidates in this year's local elections. David
• 0:07
  Speaker 1: Seymour says, with the way rates are going up and everything,
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  Speaker 1: it's time to try something new. So News Talks, he'll
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  Speaker 1: be politically editor. Jason Walls is with me now, Good
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  Speaker 1: morning to.
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  Speaker 2: You, Jason, Good morning Andrew.
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  Speaker 1: What do they want to do in local government?
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  Speaker 2: Well, essentially, they want candidates. They have looked across the
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  Speaker 2: board and said they don't like the way that rates
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  Speaker 2: have been increasing in a lot of the main centers
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  Speaker 2: across the country and they want to do something about it.
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  Speaker 2: So David Seymour is essentially doing an expression of interest
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  Speaker 2: to say, hey, if you're keen on becoming a counselor
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  Speaker 2: for and you have the sort of same values as
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  Speaker 2: the ACT party, get on board and get in contact
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  Speaker 2: with us. And that's what ACTOR is looking to do.
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  Speaker 2: They're looking to bring their sort of war on wasteful
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  Speaker 2: spending from the beehive around council tables across the country.
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  Speaker 1: Well, here's the thing. Should there be some separation between
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  Speaker 1: local and national government? I mean, ask Wayne Brown. He
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  Speaker 1: believes the two are quite quite separate when you've got
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  Speaker 1: a party competing in both, does it need to be
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  Speaker 1: some sort of Chinese war or one Well, I mean.
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  Speaker 2: Depends how you look at it. The Labor Party have
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  Speaker 2: had local candidates for years and same with the Greens.
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  Speaker 2: National traditionally hasn't done it. But I think for a
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  Speaker 2: lot of the people, you know, people know what Acts
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  Speaker 2: stand for, they know what Labor stand for, but they
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  Speaker 2: don't really know what a local councilor stands for. Sometimes,
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  Speaker 2: so having that demarcation and saying well, I know the
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  Speaker 2: Act party is doing this in government, so therefore they
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  Speaker 2: will do it in the local council will be helpful
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  Speaker 2: for a lot of people. But then again, there is
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  Speaker 2: a reason why they're separate, because government is different to local.
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  Speaker 1: Council absolutely, And many of these people you say that Greens,
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  Speaker 1: you know, they're affiliated with Greens and not actually the
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  Speaker 1: Greens actually standing for instance, or Labor at any of
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  Speaker 1: that in that situation. So you know, this is a
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  Speaker 1: little bit could be seen as an overstep. For instance,
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  Speaker 1: you know, the C and I always used to have
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  Speaker 1: national affiliation, but it was not national.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah, But I mean when it comes to the Labor
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  Speaker 2: and the Greens. It was a little bit more explicit
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  Speaker 2: than it was ever with those sort of a national
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  Speaker 2: party aligned local government movements.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah, okay, and do you think that local government needs
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  Speaker 1: a shakeup? Oh?
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  Speaker 2: I don't think anybody who's listening would disagree with that.
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  Speaker 2: I mean, I'm down here in Wellington. My rate increases
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  Speaker 2: like four hundred five hundred percent. Obviously I'm being facetious,
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  Speaker 2: but it's still a large amount. I mean up in Auckland,
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  Speaker 2: we look at well I think it was six point
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  Speaker 2: eight percent for you guys with a bit of envy.
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  Speaker 2: And I think anybody looking at some of the things
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  Speaker 2: you drive down the road and you see some of
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  Speaker 2: the projects that the councils are or in fact I'm
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  Speaker 2: not working on, and they'll be thinking, well, actually, somebody
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  Speaker 2: does need to step in there and do something about
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  Speaker 2: some of the spending. So I don't think they're necessarily
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  Speaker 2: not going to be successful. However, they've said that they're
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  Speaker 2: not running for any of the mayoralty seats, so that
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  Speaker 2: sort of is you know. I spoke to David Sillmol
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  Speaker 2: yesterday about this and he said, this is very much
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  Speaker 2: a preliminary to see how it goes. So maybe next
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  Speaker 2: election they can get a few more few.
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  Speaker 1: Well, if you're interested, go to the website and follow
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  Speaker 1: the development's Jason Wolves. I thank you so much. For
• 3:06
  Speaker 1: more from Early Edition with Ryan Bridge.
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