Eight candidates will contest the Waitaki electorate in next month’s General Election.
Five parties have put forward candidates while three independents also feature this year.
Incumbent MP Miles Anderson is standing again for National and will come up against Labour candidate Damien O’Connor, New Zealand First’s Michael Laws, Act New Zealand candidate Sean Beamish and Helen Tait, of the Opportunity Party.
Three independents were announced in a list of candidates released by the Electoral Commission on Friday — former independent candidate Daniel Shand, Waihemo Pharmacy owner Adrian Graamans and environmentalist Bronwyn Judge.
Mr Graamans is encouraging people to “vote clever”.
This is his third time running for parliament, having previously stood in 2014 and 2017, and he has owned Waihemo Pharmacy for nearly two decades.
“In a funny way, a pharmacist represents everything you want in your politician,” he said.
“We’re trustworthy, caring, [we] listen, helpful, all those things.”
He hoped to challenge the other MPs in Wellington.
“My whole role, in how I see it, is to challenge whatever their views are because they’re all just as bad as each other.
“I’m clever enough, articulate enough and interested enough to debate any side and that’s what all of these range of parties need.”
He was passionate about the health sector and wanted to see it improve.
“They’re public servants — it’s in the name — they work for the public.
“They need people in the regions who know what the hell they’re doing and the group in Wellington saying ‘how can I help you? How can we get this job done? What can we do that you can’t do?’.”
Ms Judge is a self-described environmentalist.
She said she was inspired to stand after being let down by the five major party candidates’ stances on climate change.
“I have listened and hoped that somebody would have a strong environmental policy, but they don’t.”
Her four main issues included the long term effects of gold mining and coastal fisheries, as well as the protection of conservation land, and the fast track approvals process.
She said her priority was the environment — people could get housing, jobs and put food on the table “but if there’s a one in a 100 year flood and they’re washed out to sea, there’s really no point is there?”.
“We need to address climate change first.”
The heart of her message was “there is no planet B”.
Ms Judge helps at Penguin Rescue in Moeraki and was recently part of local beach-clean protests organised by Greenpeace against the coalition government’s Conservation Amendment Bill.
“Conservation principles encourage you to preserve the intrinsic value of conservation land, not exploit it.”
Mr Shand is no stranger to elections, having run unsuccessfully in the 2020 and 2023 general elections and he has twice vied to be Mayor of Queenstown Lakes District Council.
He was running again this year to give Waitaki voters “more accurate representation”.
“I’m just a normal guy who kind of got sick of being talked down to continuously.”
Mr Shand hoped his campaign would encourage people to “start to look at the party system”.
“The system is not really working, not for me anyway, not for people who are not politicians or elected representatives.”
He was a supporter of “direct democracy” and said at the moment it was like having a “pretend democracy”.
Direct involvement would transfer the power from the parties to the voters.
“We’re just voting for a big group of ideas. You might like one or two of them, but you’re going to get them all.”
Mr Shand intended to launch his own party later this month to stand in future elections.
nic.duff@oamarumail.co.nz