Mayoral Contenders come to Town

Crone and Goff address the West Auckland Business Club

This morning Vic Crone and Phil Goff were guests of the West Auckland Business Club for a breakfast meeting at the New Lynn Memorial RSA.

Vic spoke first and showed an exceptional grasp of issues and with a business background she was able to clearly articulate the key points and her ideas on a way forward. She says we need a much stronger vision and purpose for Auckland, looking forward 20 – 30 years. If you look back 30 years you see how much it has changed. The Unitary Plan will be the basis for ongoing change over the next 30 years but the council seems to have a horizon of less than a decade.

Phil Goff followed in an easy going and affable manner. He covered the big issues of housing and transport. While Auckland is experiencing fast growth with a very diverse population, we still need to preserve the great natural environment which is part of what we like about the city.

Crone has valuable experience and interesting ideas but it is hard to see her as anything except the underdog against Goff with his strong name recognition due to decades in Parliament. Having a career in Labour probably won’t hurt him in South Auckland either.

“We are a city of scale – a small global city” – Goff

“Diversity of thought creates magical outcomes” - Crone