Kevin Dwyer
Age: 58.
Family/marital status: Single.
Occupation: Self-employed horticulturist.
Council experience: None, first time standing.
Running for: Mayor.
Port Chalmers horticultural contractor Kevin Dwyer says he lives in one of the most beautiful parts of Dunedin, but that it has the potential to be one of the most under-represented.
He is standing for mayor, to put the port town back on the political agenda, and to highlight "the average man's" concern about the state of city democracy.
The council had pushed through too many projects - big and small - without a mandate from ratepayers, and it was about time someone offered a real alternative, he said.
Why are you standing?
It would have been easier to write letters or go to meetings, but if you sit back and don't say anything things just get done.
You have to put your opinion about.
I don't think the calibre of the candidates is that great, in general, and I don't think [Mayor] Peter Chin is very good at all.
There are probably much better candidates in town, but they don't have the guts to put their hands up and as a result the people who get in might be good-intentioned but they seem to make a mess of things.
I'm also dissatisfied with the way the council treats the average person in the town.
We had a bit of a run-in with the council last year, over the closure of the Sawyers Bay landfill, and I felt they treated the guy who was running it very badly.
I felt they behaved like Gestapo.
We wanted to have it opened for recycling - it was ideal for me to get rid of my waste.
Now, I have to go all the way to Green Island.
It was supposed to be closed down with the Waikouaiti one, but I see that's open until 2020 or something-or-rather.
I just wonder how that works, but I see that [Waikouaiti Coast Ward] Councillor [Andrew] Noone got the community centre as well and he voted for the stadium, so you have to wonder.
So, foremost, you are standing for mayor as someone from Port Chalmers, to highlight Port Chalmers issues?
Yes, and a lot of people here say they will vote for me.
It's to show that Port Chalmers needs representation.
Making it part of the Central Ward means it could lose its voice altogether if the local councillor [Paul Hudson] can't get in against the city candidates.
It means the closest coastal ward is Waikouaiti and that's quite a long way.
It's like having Dunedin represented by someone who lives in Milton or something ...
So why not stand as a councillor; after all, it would increase the chances of Port Chalmers having someone get into the Central Ward?
I could've done, but doing it this way gives you more profile and more people will hear what you have to say, or see the issues that are important to your own community.
I want to let people know about how the council threatened to close the local pool down, and the school has no pool so the students would have to be bused into town.
I was saying the other night all the tourists come into town and get off the boats and go right through to Dunedin, and we have to put up with all the traffic, without getting the rewards for it.
Does it feel like anyone has been listening to Port concerns, and the concerns of the people you'll represent?
No.
It might be a lot of small things, but they make you wonder whether the council cares, and what else are they sneaking through elsewhere? I want to lift the profile of Port Chalmers a wee bit.
If you are sitting beside the mayor at a mayoral forum or whatever, then people know who you are and they listen to what you say.
I also want to talk about the debt the council got itself into over the stadium, which I was involved in looking at through the Dunedin Householders and Ratepayers' Association as well.
They never really seemed to listen to what the Ratepayers' Association said.
I think the majority of people wanted to keep Carisbrook, only the minority seemed to want the stadium.
I think the stadium has put us all in more financial difficulty than people realise.
I've worked on building projects, I was on the Huntly power project, and they always cost as much as twice what they are supposed to.
I'm worried that if Peter Chin gets back in they will come back and ask ratepayers for more money.
What's your vision for Dunedin, then?
I think you'd have to have more assertive leadership and attract the people in the city to work together and not be so divisive and divided.
Obviously, you have to attract some sort of capital into the city, and I'm not sure how you'd do that, but that's what I would try and get the council staff to do.
Look at it this way: the tour buses don't come through to Dunedin because in Christchurch they tell tourists there is nothing here.
I'm sure the council isn't getting about and doing the job they are paid for.
They are probably sitting about in the Octagon drinking coffee.
It's about focus - what they are there for and what their job is.
They have got to be motivated; there seems to be a lack of motivation.
Have you got any evidence of this lack of motivation?
You only have to look at Queenstown.
The airport is chocker.
When I used to go to Queenstown as a boy there were only three hotels, there was rowboat hire and a skating rink, and that was it.
They decided to grow and they did.
We've gone backwards, lost thousands of jobs over the last 30 years, and it has a lot to do with the people who are running the city.
Whenever someone comes in to start a business here they get undermined or whatever because they are not part of the establishment.
That's got to change.
How are you going to measure your success?
You'd have to measure it by the amount of jobs that were created.
You can't have a good quality of life or pay rates without good jobs.
And how much the council listens to advice, and whether I've been a good mayor.
What makes a good mayor?
He doesn't have to be intelligent, but he has to lead.
Look at Christchurch and Auckland.
The Government contributed a large sum to their stadiums, but here they gave $50 million and took $12.5 million off Otago Polytechnic, but there was not much noise made about that by the mayor.
When they increased the police they gave us two, and there was not much noise made about that by the mayor, either.
The squeaky wheel gets the grease.
Are you a squeaky wheel?
Could be.
Mayors have often been very involved in their communities. Describe your community involvement.
Formally, only really the Dunedin Householders and Ratepayers' Association.
I've been involved with it for a couple of years, but I'm not sure where it is at now.
A friend of mine asked me to go along at the time of the stadium going through.
I've also been involved in a union, when I was at the [Burnside] freezing works.
What are your politics?
More leftist.
I think treat the people in South Dunedin the same as those in Maori Hill and Port Chalmers.
I went to St Bede's, and that sort of elitism was rife there, it used to get up my nose.
Dunedin's mayor should be for everyone.
What sort of campaign are you going to run and how will you pay for it?
I'll campaign on these things: a sense of direction, a sense of fairness and exit strategy - how to get out of the financial mess we are in - and listen to advice, because it is important to distinguish the difference between advice and criticism.
I'll just draw on a bit of my own capital.
I suppose it is a big commitment but I think it's worth it.
A friend of mine said gardeners know everything.
When you're out on a job people talk to you, and you get a pretty good idea of what is going on, so I think it is worth it.
Who are your natural supporters?
The average ratepayer.
My rates were $900 in the mid-2000s and now they are $1300 and that means I have to find more money on top of electricity and insurance.
Many people are the same.
There are a lot of empty shops now, and the people who own them are starting to get worried that they are paying rates and mortgages and can't get anyone in there and the banks will flick them on.
It's quite tough out there.
Some of these people in the council seem to be cocooned from that.
If they are on $500 a week or whatever they don't seem to know what the average person has to put up with.
Does that mean you are the closest thing to the average person on the campaign?
Oh, I think Dave Cull is as well.
I'm not sure about where Lee Vandervis is coming from.
He seems to be a bit more right-wing, and I'm not sure about the others.
I don't know if I'm average, but I do want a fair go for the average ratepayer.