Following on from a large-scale interview podcast project ahead of last year’s DCC, Mayoralty and Otago Regional Council elections, the Otago Institute for the Arts and Sciences (OI) and Dunedin’s community access radio station OAR FM have joined forces again to give the public access to the thoughts and opinions of the 14 by-election candidates.
The ‘‘By-election OI Special’’ project is being led by the team of OI president Dr Barbara Anderson with OAR FM community liaison Jeff Harford and operations director Domi Angelo-Laloli, who have created a new interview broadcast and podcast, featuring all 14 candidates.
‘‘I have to say, this series may be somewhat controversial — there have been some interesting opinions shared,’’ Dr Anderson said.
‘‘Our aim with the podcast is to give voters as much useful information as possible, in the most accessible way.’’
Dr Anderson said the 15-minute candidate interviews all followed the same format — five ‘‘quick fire’’ warm-up questions, followed by seven long-form questions, and then 12 short-answer questions.
The topics of the long-form questions included how the DCC could support tertiary education institutions in Dunedin, solutions for the hydrogeology and community challenges facing South Dunedin, how to approach the challenge of homelessness, the role of Mana Whenua in local governance, how to pay for infrastructure projects equitably and without cutting public services, the success or failure of council support for arts and culture and the importance of council processes and procedures.
‘‘Through these long-form questions, we wanted to give the candidates the opportunity to expand on their values.’’
Dr Anderson said the candidates were all answering on the spot and had no prior access to the questions, and the interviews would not be edited, apart from to remove swear words or disrespectful/defamatory comments.
‘‘We have gone to extreme lengths to ensure the process has been as fair as possible to all of the candidates.’’
The team had been working hard to get the interviews ready for broadcast and being made available as a podcast before Easter, so the public could listen to them at their leisure before voting in the by-election started on April 10.
‘‘It’s up to the voters now to decide how many, or which, of the interviews they listen to.’’
The ‘‘By-election OI Special’’ interview podcast was loaded up online yesterday and is available via Spotify, iHeart, YouTube, Apple Podcasts, and the OAR FM and OI websites — oar.org.nz and otago-institute.org.
Compilation episodes of the interviews will be played on air at OAR FM (105.4 FM) three times in the week leading up to April 10.
OAR FM station manager Lesley Paris said there was an appetite among listeners to learn more about candidates than was printed in the candidate handbook produced by the DCC.
‘‘The Otago Institute’s podcast series ahead of last year’s Local Body Elections was really popular, both with listenership numbers and with feedback we received from people who valued what they heard.
‘‘We’re grateful to Dr Barb for creating a resource for voters that offers a different perspective on some of the key election issues.’’
