Kate Hawkesby: How much damage can so-called 'extremists' cause in Local Body Elections?

Early Edition with Ryan Bridge · Sep 1, 2022 · 1m

Local body elections are upon us and there's concern at the number of so-called fringe candidates looking to get elected.

Now the club for councils, Local Government New Zealand, is so worried about this, it's launched a campaign to get voters more engaged with the process.

Which sounds a bit like they're saying ‘Hey, make sure you pick one of our approved people.’

And what is a fringe candidate anyway? Who is an extremist?

Go back 25 years or so, and people were calling the ACT Party extreme right wingers; last election they got 10 seats, and these days they talk more sense than a lot of…