Invercargill City mayoral candidates on the spot

From saying whether they are a morning to evening person, or what they think should be done to ensure rates do not keep increasing, Invercargill mayoral candidates answer a round of questions during the local body election campaign.

Morning person or night owl?

Noel Peterson: Both, I get up at 4am in the morning, and it’s usually a bit after midnight before I get to bed.

Nobby Clark: Definitely a morning person.

Ria Bond: Night owl.

Tom Morton: I’m a morning person and if people are boring I fall asleep extra early.

Darren Ludlow: I’m naturally a night owl, but I did spend 15 years doing breakfast radio.

Stevey Chernishov: 3am.

Toni Biddle: Morning person.

Marcus Lush: No definitive answer there for me.

Jacqueline Walter: Morning.

Dairy or non-dairy milk?

Noel Peterson: Both.

Nobby Clark: Coconut milk, non-dairy.

Ria Bond: I love full fat milk.

Tom Morton: Dairy.

Darren Ludlow: Dairy.

Stevey Chernishov: Non-dairy.

Toni Biddle: Dairy milk.

Marcus Lush: I’m a big fan of oat milk.

Jacqueline Walter: Dairy.

Apple or Android?

Noel Peterson: Both, but I prefer the Android.

Nobby Clark: Android.

Ria Bond: Apple.

Tom Morton: Android.

Darren Ludlow: Apple.

Stevey Chernishov: Apple.

Toni Biddle: Apple.

Marcus Lush: Apple.

Jacqueline Walter: Android.

Goodbye Pork Pie or The World’s Fastest Indian?

Noel Peterson: I’m a big Pork Pie fan but also the Fastest Indian fan, so both again.

Nobby Clark: World’s Fastest Indian definitely.

Ria Bond: Goodbye Pork Pie.

Tom Morton: I really love the first Goodbye Pork Pie, but I love the Fastest Indian. It shows Invercargill in a great light.

Darren Ludlow: Goodbye Pork Pie, the original.

Stevey Chernishov: Goodbye Pork Pie.

Toni Biddle: I’m a speedway girl through and through so World’s Fastest Indian.

Marcus Lush: World’s Fastest Indian, definitely.

Jacqueline Walter: Goodbye Pork Pie.

Royalist or Republican?

Noel Peterson: I’m a royalist through and through.

Nobby Clark: Definitely royalist.

Ria Bond: Royalist.

Tom Morton: I tend to go Republican.

Darren Ludlow: I’m a royalist.

Stevey Chernishov: Neither.

Toni Biddle: Can you be a bit of both? Republican.

Marcus Lush: I guess it’s not for me to choose.

Jacqueline Walter: Politically, I’d like to see us continue with the Commonwealth.

Invercargill’s rate rise was larger than expected in 2022, what should be done to ensure it does not keep increasing?

Noel Peterson: I know that the self-appointed debt limit is actually at it’s maximum or close to breaching it, so we’ll have to cut back on some projects and that will trigger rates to become static or even lower if we’re lucky.

Nobby Clark: Well they initially wanted 7.78%, and we settled on 6.5%. I was the only counsellor that jibbed at that, and I thought it should have been 4% or even lower. What do we do to resolve that? I guess there are two things – we keep a lid on the project cost, because whilst you don’t fund projects with rates you do service the debt that goes with it. The second thing is we should have an annual system that allows us to cut our costs when we need to.

Ria Bond: I think one of the things that has been quite evident in our community is that ratepayers feel like we have not spent with priorities in mind. As we’re going through all that we want to do over the next 20 to 30 years we need to make sure those priorities of what we must have actually come first, and those nice pretty projects that we would like to have must come second. I think that the rate rise we’ve had in this year has been excessively high. We need to look at our operational expenditure and try and trim the fat from that. That’s something I want to go over with quite in depth.

Tom Morton: The rates rise is purely because of the net attitude of the past counsellors. Tim Shadbolt is right get rid of them all. If they built the houses like the Southland Housing Forum had said they would have had enough extra rates to cover everything.

Darren Ludlow: We can’t ensure that it’s not going to increase, everything’s going up at the moment, that’s just what’s happening globally with inflation. If we want it to stay at the predicted levels then we’re going to have to cut some of the projects, and that’s going to involve a lot of consultation. What do people want to put on the back burner? Obviously the museums not one of those, we’re pretty committed to streetscapes at the moment so that’s a challenge. There’ll be a rise, it’s about keeping that rise at a reasonable level.

Stevey Chernishov: As well as the requirement to have exterior consultants, Invercargill needs interior consultants from this city. We even need to draw in the retired people, to learn how to price up projects and roll them out using local people who are passionate, committed and prepared to do things at an economical price to keep our whole cities loans down.

Toni Biddle: Look I don’t believe people can afford to have unexpected rate increases, and it’s very important that we walk a very fine line between future development and reducing our spend during this time. People just can’t afford it with the cost of living at this point in time, so we need to be very clear about what we want to achieve and keep our rates reduced over the next three to five years.

Marcus Lush: I pay three sets of rates, so I’m aware of what a significant amount it is. Obviously too with my plans, firstly the playground, secondly the museum and thirdly the trams. Well, with the playground and the tram they will not be funded by rates they will be funded by alternative sources which will be charities and groups like that. My only policy that costs is the museum, and money has been put aside for that. My other big project is the Welcome City, and that’s not a cost thing, that’s a community getting together and making this the most welcoming city in New Zealand.

Jacqueline Walter: So, we can cut wastage, we can live within our means, and we can aim to become debt free for the next generations as soon as possible.

What would the council do, with you as mayor, to help with Invercargill’s housing shortage?

Noel Peterson: In actual fact I’m already helping with the housing shortage, and there is groups and organisations and companies that are moving into the quick-fire housing space. In Japan they have these little tunnels that the homeless can sleep in and be safe, I want some banks of those maybe in Wachner Place maybe somewhere else, that people can go and be safer.

Nobby Clark: Two things. One thing we need to do is change the by-laws around how you can intensify small properties. So why can’t you take a decent sized section and put three townhouses on it? Or maybe go up two or three levels as well? We’re very restricted in that area. The other area, that Napier has got a bit of a lead on us, they’ve combined local government, government the private sector and iwi, and they’ve built about 1500 houses in about four years. We need to think about that model as well.

Ria Bond: As we want an increase in the population and skilled workers, we’ve got to make sure that we’ve got the houses there to house them. Part of that is making sure we have the infrastructure to handle that demand. One of the things I have seen in other areas of the world is the housing intensity building up not out. Those could be around some really cool areas like Rugby Park, so you could open up your door and basically watch the Southland Rugby Games. But we do have to look at models of what could actually work better here for us, and affordability as well.

Tom Morton: Do what Rotorua has done, get more flexibility with zoning laws, you can’t get more flexible with building consent, but you can be helpful to the people that are willing to invest. I believe there should be luxury apartments on Bluff Road overlooking the estuary. Build them a bit higher, you know because people are worried about the water. But the Dutch solve that problem really well, get some Dutch engineers here.

Darren Ludlow: What we can do is look at options to make submitting plans for developments a bit easier, and that’s where you’ve got plans that are the same for different property developments, they should be able to be fast-tracked because we know that everything’s in order. The more developers who use that style of application the easier it will be for them as well.

Stevey Chernishov: To sort the housing we’ve currently got the idea to do a prototype, build 400 small buildings. I’ve been learning about small buildings for about seven years now, they are easy to keep organised, easy to keep clean and very affordable to build. They could be added to existing dwellings and that way we could build in with existing infrastructure and keep the costs down. And the people who build things could own them, rather than going corporate and high rise, we want to go local and small. Warm, happy, cosy and adding to our existing houses.

Toni Biddle: I’d love to see council create some joint initiatives around housing in our community. There are a huge amount of people already in our community doing really good work in this area. Council needs to enable that to happen quicker and faster and ensure that we have good infrastructure for the developers when they are ready to move.

Marcus Lush: Well first of all we’ve got 217 council houses, and we’ve got a plan to replace several of those a year. So we need to build several more every year. We actually need to start doing that quicker, to actually build the new ones. But also there’s been all sorts of options with central government to help fund new community housing, and because of our dysfunction in the council we haven’t been aggressive or smart enough to get that funding going. So there’s all sorts of options there, that council could be involved with at no cost to get more housing, and we’ve got to utilise those. There’s all sorts of other things we can do. I think the real concern going forward is not so much the shortage of housing but the shortage of good people.

Jacqueline Walter: So, my friends, this seems to me to be a question that comes via media a lot. There may be a housing shortage throughout New Zealand, I’m not sure so much about Invercargill. Anecdotally, I have known of some difficult situations. What we need here is a mayor who sets the tone. I’m the mayor who represents all us majority, we’re the silent majority, and we’re able to look after our families well because that’s the sort of people we are.

*Invercargill mayor Sir Tim Shadbolt was unavailable and did not take part in the video question series.