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Robyn Edie
MC’s Liam Calder, front left, and Lydia Blomfield in charge at the Invercargill Youth Council’s electoral candidates forum at Invercargill Repertory on Wednesday night.
Invercargill mayoral and council aspirants have delivered their pitch to Invercargill’s youth; the problem is there were actually very few youths in attendance to hear it.
The Invercargill Youth Council, led by enthusiastic and polished MCs Liam Calder and Lydia Blomfield, hosted an election forum on Wednesday night at Invercargill’s Repertory Theatre.
Twenty-six mayoral and council candidates took to the stage, each providing a one-minute pitch to the crowd of about 30 who showed up.
A majority of those 30 people in the crowd would not fall into the “youth” bracket.
Following the one-minute pitches, council aspirants were asked various questions. There was a theme around how to better engage with youth.
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Nobby Clark, who is running for the mayor’s job, wasn’t convinced about the current Youth Council setup. He did not believe it created a wider enough scope, in terms of engaging with youth.
He was keen for public meetings to be introduced where only those aged 15 to 30 years old could attend.
“Ask them what they actually want,” Clark said.
“When I talk to people they say two things: There’s no vibrancy in the city, there’s some issues around alcohol. The other issue they say is, ‘you do too much in the sports arena and don’t consider e-sports’. That’s another area we need to look to because the youth are into gaming.”
Council candidate Lisa Tou-McNaughton said when she was previously on the Southland Boys’ High School board the most important people were the student reps.
“They knew what was going on.”
She believed the Youth Council should have two representatives on the council. She would also like the Youth Council to be a lot more diverse and include more Maori, Pasifika, and disability representation.
Another mayoral candidate, Ria Bond, also backed the call to have youth representatives around the council table.
“We need to make sure we’ve got youth sitting at that table……I’ve seen too many times, youth want to do things but no one wants to listen to them. So they have to be around that council table, that’s why they are young leaders in the first place.”
Currently, the Youth Council holds its own meetings and then reports to the full council on a monthly basis.
Fellow mayoral candidate Marcus Lush encouraged youth to get more involved in local body politics by actually standing for a seat at the council table.
“Look at the council now, most of them are over 60, half of them are over 70. We need young people on council. Young people need to get engaged and need to embrace democracy and get involved in the process.
“To stand back and say we need a Youth Council is patronising. You guys need to get organised, get a profile, run, and you need to get a seat at that table. Then you’d have a say in how this city is run.”
Council candidate David Pottinger said next year the discussion of potentially lowing the voting age to 16 will again be discussed, and that could be an important moment for youth.
“The question from me goes out to the youth, how is that going to change what you are about?
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