CityBeat - Te Waha Nui Online

Welcome to the future

welcome-to-the-future

by Eloise Gibson

It’s not every day you get an invitation to the future.1Auckland.com invitation

This made the launch of new political party 1Auckland.com hard to resist.

The new party’s bid for Auckland City Council began on Sunday of last week in a basement room on Hobson Street.

Branded “a party for the future of Auckland”, 1Auckland.com is notable for the involvement of mayoral candidate and adult entertainment entrepreneur Steve Crow.

His speech to launch 1Auckland.com is a simple plug for his Mayoral campaign.

Just how involved Crow is is unclear - he is on the party’s executive, but says he is standing for Mayor as an independent.

This may be in keeping with the party’s claim to be “a party of independents.”

But is a party of independents really a party? And is an independent who launches a party to contest the election in which he is standing an independent?

Crow says he will remain a member of 1Auckland.com if he is elected Mayor, but will not be aligned to any party in his Mayoral capacity.

Vice Chairman Dick Ayres has told us that 1auckland.com rejects traditional left-right alliances. Picking up this theme, Crow explains during his speech that any tilt in his bearing is due to a crook knee.

“If you see me leaning to the left, that’s not my political leaning” he assures us.

He ends with “vote Steve Crow and 1Auckland.com this October.”

Fellow speaker and 1Auckland.com candidate Julie Chambers is leaving right-leaning Citizens and Ratepayers after nine years. She says CnR have stopped listening and don’t represent the interests of voters.

In 1Auckland.com, she says elected candidates will be free to vote as their conscience directs.

Perhaps 1Auckland.com is the party for people who don’t want to be in a party.

Party policies include “reigning in the bureaucrats” and “one Council for Auckland”.

More detailed policy is thin on the ground.

An audience member who points out the lack of policy is given short shrift.

“If we tell you now, you won’t listen to us closer to the election,” says Crow.

Whether voters will listen remains to be seen, but as Crow points out, 1Auckland.com has one advantage:

“We’ll always be first in the phone book.”

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