Fairness For Wesley

The below is from our Fairness For Wesley campaign - a leaflet we have been sharing around Wesley for the last fortnight.

We are speaking up for fairness, for the whole Mt Roskill community, and especially here in Wesley.

Fairness means that people in our community have equal opportunities, support when it is needed, and a fair go.

Unfortunately, over a long period of time we have not been treated fairly. Did you know that for every $1 that Council spends in other communities on facilities and services for people, only 74 cents gets spent in Puketapapa/Mt Roskill? That isn’t right and we are here to fight for a fair deal.

Roskill Community Voice is your local team standing for the Puketapapa Local Board, working with City Vision candidates for Ward Councillor positions, at the Council elections. We are running a ‘Fairness for Wesley’ campaign to ensure that local people get a fair go.

Below you will find our policies to win Fairness for Wesley. We are the only team presenting a complete set of policies about local issues to the people of Wesley this election.

Our campaign to win Fairness for Wesley means a Local Board and Ward Councillors who will work with the community to achieve:

• Better library services - We need to instill a love of reading and learning in our young people, but Wesley has some of the poorest access to library services in Auckland. We will fight to bring better library services to Wesley. 
• Education and jobs for our people - We believe that Council can play a more active role in helping our young people into education, training and work. We will work actively to try and attract a tertiary education provider into our community, and develop pathways for young people to move through into apprenticeships, training, and good paying jobs. 
• A Living Wage - It is a matter of justice that people get paid enough to live on. With good incomes we can ensure that our families can afford good food, healthy housing, and adequate healthcare. We are the only team in Mt Roskill that is fully committed to the Living Wage. 
• Upgrading our Parks - We will take action to advance the upgrade of Walmsley/Underwood Park to better meet community needs. Members of the Roskill Community Voice team are also leading work to upgrade the Mt Roskill War Memorial. 
• Fair treatment for Housing - New Zealand tenants and neighbours Housing New Zealand is looking to make major changes to its housing stock and may look to intensify Wesley. We need to ensure that the voice of the local community is heard and that we retain public housing in our community for local people. 
• Rail to Roskill - We are the team who is leading the charge to bring Rail to Roskill. A train line from Avondale to Dominion Rd, with a station at Stoddard Rd would bring huge convenience and opportunity for our local community. 
• Traffic safety - It is time to take action on traffic safety issues in Wesley. We will back the local community and push for changes to improve safety on Sandringham Rd, O’Donnell St, and other areas of concern.

RCV Policy on Town Centres and Economic Development

We need a focused local policy on economic development issues that provides jobs, supports local enterprises, and revitalises our run-down town centres.

Specific policy includes:

• Bringing a greater focus on to the development of an integrated high quality town centre at Stoddard Rd, including development of a Precinct Plan. 
• The development of retail strategy for local and town centres to support the development of a clear retail identity for each area, and a strategic approach to growth. 
• Working with the Mt Roskill Business & Community Groups Association on initiatives to encourage local people to ‘buy local’. 
• A strong focus on improvements to Roskill Main Street, including establishment of a trial dollar for dollar subsidy scheme to improve the appearance of shops. 
• Development of a local economic development plan that builds on Roskill’s strengths and focusses on local high-wage jobs. 
• Support for the Living Wage, which will put more money into the pockets of local people to spend in our community. 
• Fostering local young people into training and apprenticeships, and advocating for a tertiary education provider to provide services in Roskill

A full index of our policy can be found here, updated regularly as we release policy throughout the election campaign.

Media release: Time to vote says young candidate

"With critical decisions about Auckland’s future to be made over the next few years, it is essential that Aucklanders of all ages, cultures, and backgrounds come out to vote in the Auckland Council elections", says Shail Kaushal, Roskill Community Voice candidate for the Puketapapa Local Board, one day ahead of voting papers being mailed out on Friday 20 September.

"We live in a democracy which is a great privilege - but it is also a responsibility. We only get the best decisions and the best representatives when the whole community participates. In Auckland we are at a critical juncture with major decisions about transport, growth, and the shape of our communities being made. People need to be involved".

"As one of New Zealand’s youngest candidates for election I make a special plea to our young people to participate. This is the city that we will inherit. The decisions being made now will affect the lives we build in the future. Let’s speak up to get the Auckland we deserve!"

"I am also pleased today to release Roskill Community Voice's Youth policy ahead of the election. We are committed to providing our young people with opportunity so that their full potential can be realised. Our policy includes measures such as advocating for a tertiary education provider in Roskill, support for Council cadetships, and investigating subsidised sports club memberships for young people". The full policy is here.

"Here in Puketapapa/Mt Roskill I have loved every minute of the campaign. Our Roskill Community Voice campaign has focussed on meeting people one to one to talk about the importance of our community having a strong voice. We will be working hard until election day to encourage people to exercise their democratic voice", says Mr Kaushal.

RCV Policy on Young People

Shail Kaushal, one of Auckland's youngest candidates for election has launched Roskill Community

Shail Kaushal

Voice's policy on young people today. We believe strongly in the need to positively support our young people. Roskill's young people are smart, creative, and community minded. We just need to create the right environment and supports to see them flourish. 

Our full policy follows and can be viewed along with other policy released to date here.

RCV Policy: Young People   
Our young people need to be seen as a strength in our community, not a problem to be ‘solved’. We need to provide support and resourcing to ensure that local young people have the opportunities they need to grow, develop, and contribute back to the community. 

Our 2013 policy on young people includes:

• The ongoing development and support of a comprehensive Youth Action Plan that provides a framework for supporting youth leadership and aspirations.  
• Working to deliver an empowered Puketapapa youth caucus, including joint meetings with the Local Board so that ideas and aspirations are shared.  
•  A strong focus on linking our local young people to training, skill development, and apprenticeships. We must provide the means for our youth to move into productive, high wage jobs.   
•  We will take advocate for a credible tertiary education provider to establish a presence in Roskill.   
• Support a Living Wage so that local young people and their families can live in dignity and plan for the future
• Actively support an expansion of the Council cadetship scheme that provides young people with opportunities to develop skills and careers in the Council organisation.
•  Investigate the barriers to local young people participating in organised sport, and investigate a subsidised sports club membership scheme.

Youth photographic exhibition at Art Station

From the City Vision website:

Art Station held the opening of the youth arts project on 31 August. The photographic exhibition tells the story of the life in Wesley/Roskill through the lens of young people in the area.   The photographs provide an insight into what it means to be a member of the Wesley and Mt Roskill community.   The groups aim was to capture their own community as seen through their own eyes.

Mark William is a photographic artist and is pictured with next to his work, with Cr Glenda Fryer and Puketepapapa Local Board candidate for Roskill Community Voice Michael Wood.  ... The exhibition runs from 1 -11 September at Art Station, 1 Ponsonby Road.

From the City Vision website:

C&R’s plan to forcibly remove Monte Cecilia School has now exploded as a major campaign issue. This scathing Herald editorial accurately reflects the view of most Aucklanders – we’re happy to invest in the new gallery, but it is utterly unacceptable for the much loved school to be forcibly evicted at a cost of tens of millions of dollars of public money, when it just doesn’t need to happen.

On Saturday the dividing lines became very clear. The new gallery was opened with a ritzy function. The very important people of Auckland attended; many bussed to the venue in tinted MPV’s, no doubt paid for with more public money.

Just across from the gallery, the Monte Cecilia School Community gathered for a family fun day, and to mount a peaceful protest. The numbers swelled despite the bad weather, and the sense of total anger and grief at the potential loss of the school was visceral. Len Brown met with school leaders and expressed his concern about the cost to ratepayers, the impact on the school, and whether there is an on-site compromise option.

The school community just cannot understand why John Banks, David Hay, and C&R are so hell-bent on uprooting the school at an enormous cost, when it is so unnecessary. The community has put forward proposals to move the school buildings to a small 1 hectare block of the park, out of the way of the gallery. This proposal would allow the park, the gallery, and the school to comfortably co-exist, and would cost about one tenth of C&R’s current plans.

At every step of the way however, any attempts to engage in a genuine discussion about alternative options have been shut down by Hay and C&R. Their arrogance was on full display on Saturday as first, Banks and Hay attempted to smile and wave to the protestors as if the whole issue was a joke, and then secondly as a stream of C&R candidates came to talk to the crowd as proceedings were winding down. Christine Fletcher, and Roskill Community Board member Nigel Turnbull attempted to soft-pedal the issue, promising more consultation after the election, and stating that they didn’t want to “politicise” the issue.

What they hadn’t counted on was the commitment of the Friends of Monte to the cause, and their unwillingness to be shrugged off. Politics is about how we make decisions in our community, and this is a political issue. The abuse of process, the sidelining of a whole community, and the enormous and as yet un-tallied cost of the project are all intensely political issues.

In Mt Roskill and across Auckland, voters have a chance to make their own political judgment. Back C&R who have forced this project through at $40 million and counting, or back City Vision for Council and Roskill Community Voice for Local Board, who have pledged to stand with the community against this madness.

---