It was a full house at the Waikuku Beach Hall recently for the third in a series of Waimakariri mayoral candidates' question-and-answer sessions.
The nine contenders faced a largely middle-aged or older audience, in keeping with Statistics New Zealand's data regarding voter turnout in local body elections.
They were armed to a greater or lesser degree with answers to questions from the public that had been sent in 10 days earlier.
Good organisation and careful timekeeping meant the event largely ran smoothly, albeit with several sometimes amusing, sometimes heated, interjections from the floor.
The questions ranged from outlining each individual candidate's vision, priorities and leadership capabilities to hot topics such as rates and expenditure, environment and climate change, social housing, and the tension between the pressure for urban growth and the rural nature of the district.
Overall, candidate opinions on the current rating model and how that money is spent; the number of external expert contractors currently used by the council; social housing, such as it is, in the district; and the balance between subdivisions and productive farmland were diverse, occasionally somewhat misleading, and at times insightful.
However, it was the cluster of questions that targeted the environment and climate change that got the audience going.
Candidate responses to the questions ran the gamut from passionate to conservative, and scientifically informed to social media-fed views, with a single climate change naysayer just for good measure.
The audience responded accordingly, also on the spectrum from peer-reviewed published data to Wikipedia-searched opinion.
Overall, five existing councillors are standing for mayor, plus four others.
