Candidate questionaire - call for questions

Do you think it is appropriate for the Chief Minister (or any other ACT MLA, for that matter) to be concerning themselves with wider political issues outside their role as a member of the ACT Govt?

Who do you think should carry the Australian Flag at Beijing ?

Would you legislate to insure that all Canberran’s have access to companion animals regardless of body corporate by-laws or lease agreements?

ps – Residential drug rehabilitation

Please rate the following in order of importance for future funding:

Mental health services
The birth centre
Waiting times in Casualty
Elective surgery

What is your position on the continued avaliability of Public Housing being linked to the earning power of the occupant ?

Sorry, buggered up the link, but it still works somehow. Sorry JB.

Do you beleive that the Cross Border Water Agreement between the ACT and NSW ensures the future integrity of Canberra water resources and also provides sufficient legislative reach in regards to the Canberra’s rights to further water allocations as our population develops?

johnboy said :

In the past we’ve had quite a lot of major party candidates responding.

But if they choose to sit out the game then that’s there loss.

No I mean an honest answer. I can answer these questions tricky dicky style quite easily. It wouldn’t tell you anything though.

@tom-tom: Margo Kingston and the CEC candiadate were fruitcakes before they arrived here.

And any candidate need not neccessarily respond to commenters, any more than they respond to the people in a newspaper “Letters to the Editor”.

Because one arsehole commenter will ruin their hard work?

And because political candidates this town are so awash with free publicity?

Good thing you’re not advising candidates.

if i were advising a candidate i wouldn’t let them answer this, not out of spite or anything but just in the past the comments that followed have been attacks that a candidate just doesn’t have time to respond to

In the past we’ve had quite a lot of major party candidates responding.

But if they choose to sit out the game then that’s there loss.

Some of these are really good questions. It’s a shame the two major Party’s won’t touch them with a ten foot pole. Not worth the backlash that would arise from giving an honest and good answer.

What do you see as the largest or single most pressing issue from your electorate (as in specific to your electoral boundary, not a larger regional issue), and how would you move to address this if elected?

What opinions do you have which are in disagreement with the majority of your party, how do you differ, and are they personal opinions or a refection of your electorate?

What is your personal view of taxpayer funded public\transitory\ephemeral art?

As the ACT has a finite income, most recently sustained through property and land sales. The tax and ratepayer has a right to expect that funding spent on public institutions will be appropriately utilised and accounted for, and that any project defunded to pay for another will have been done so for good reasons.
The gaol (or “the Alexander Maconochie Centre for the Criminally Disposed”) is one such major work which will continue to be a facility of not insignificant government operating cost and maintenance expense.
Should there be a major impact from this ‘credit crunch’ or an economic downtown\local recession, it would most likly arrive during your term in the Assembly.
Which ACT Government projects, initiatives, or expenditures would you scrutinise most closely, or even support the axing of, in order to prevent an ACT budget blowout?

Do you support the current system of policing Canberra as a part of the AFP or would you prefer to see a different Model implemented and what steps will you take to ensure tougher and more realistic sentencing is handed down from the judiciary in the ACT.

I have to declare an interest here seeing as I do this for a living but – how about: “Many industries are moving to Performance Based Contracts as a means of driving contractor performance. The essence of good PBC’s are that you only actually pay for what the contractor actually delivers (side note: a strange concept in public sector where they typically pay the full contract price regardless of what is actually delivered). Noting this concept, what is your position on:
A) placing every Minister in your Government (if elected to Government)on an individual PBC so a percentage of your salary (say 50%) is paid according to the number of policies fully implemented, as promised in your campaign; and
B) making all ACT Government contracts above $2m Performance Based?”

The above drives both Ministerial responsibility and effective use of taxpayer provided funds.

Will you vote to allow club style non profit poker card game tournaments to be played in Canberra?

What do you plan to do to arrest the decay of the older (City Walk/Petrie Plaza/Garema Place) part of Civic?

Skidbladnir said :

Sorry, put in the a href but left out the link. http://the-riotact.com/?p=6025

OH. MY. GOD!

That was the most hilarious thing I’ve read in a while. Especially when the poor fool got caught out using multiple usernames.

Sorry, put in the a href but left out the link. http://the-riotact.com/?p=6025

Jonathon Reynolds said :

What will you do to change the voting system in the ACT given that perfect democratic voting even with the current Hare-Clark system combined with Robson rotation is, not just in practice but in principle, impossible?

Candidates may (and should) make reference to the Arrow’s impossibility theorem then putting forward their alternative scheme.

You are a sick evil man Mr Reynolds. 🙂

What is your opinion on politicians who make spurious election promises in the full knowledge that they are going to renege on them when/if in power ?

Happy to have that wordsmithed.

The link to the wine story doesn’t work for me.

jakez said :

what will your party do to ensure no canberra citizen is ever again overcharged $5 for a pizza?

What are you talking about?

Inside joke.

The overcharging $5 pizza thread goes back into the Dawn Times, I think.
Someone had a rant about how they shouldn’t have had to pay $5 for their valuable time being wasted.

Not quite as bad as Grazings, or the guy who fired off a spray about not understanding that good wine normally costs more than $2/bottle, and $26 when ‘buying by the case’ was a per bottle rate.

But still worth reading as for something sarcastically named “How to win customers and influence people” both sides went straight for the shitfighter angle.

But, back on topic.

What will you do to change the voting system in the ACT given that perfect democratic voting even with the current Hare-Clark system combined with Robson rotation is, not just in practice but in principle, impossible?

Candidates may (and should) make reference to the Arrow’s impossibility theorem then putting forward their alternative scheme.

astrojax said :

what will your party do to ensure no canberra citizen is ever again overcharged $5 for a pizza?

(this last one might be most telling)

What are you talking about?

if you are elected, what would you want to point to as your legacy when it is all over?

why are you someone to whom we should entrust the governance of our community?

what will your party do to ensure no canberra citizen is ever again overcharged $5 for a pizza?

(this last one might be most telling)

Do you support the proposal to make the ACTION bus network a free service?

When will you build high rise car parks in the city so that I, the lazy Canberran can drive to work and find a park easily? After all, it is my god given right (note, not privilege) to drive to work every day!!!!

1. What is your solution to the following issues currently faced in canberra?

Car parking in the Canberra region
Hospital Emergency department wait times
economic pressures on employers / employees
rising cost of living
housing affordability
lack of qualified support workers for families

2. If elected, what do you believe your party’s greatest focus area will be, in the first 12-months?

3. What is the primary issue faced by canberrans, and in your own opinion, how would you rectify it?

what steps will you / your party take to ensure the ACT is maximally self-suffient for energy, including no / low carbon renewable energy sources in and around the territory?

how will you / your party work to improve motorist’s skills and compliance with all road traffic laws in the ACT? And as part of the response, what role do you see yourself taking to promote cycling as a genuinely alternative transport solution for a maximum number of residents?

Ooh good one captainwhorebags.

“Do you think the planning role of the NCA should be restricted to the Parliamentary Triangle and National Institutions?”

Would you/how would you seek to improve the territory/Federal relationship? Be as broad or narrow as desired – meetings & consultations, all the way up to constitutional reform on the status of the territories.

If elected will you reverse the Stanhope Government’s rate hikes?

A bit broad and open ended but I’d like to see what they say. If anyone can improve on it please do so.

1) What will you do to address the pathetic car parking situation in Civic where all government carparks (for which I buy my monthly prepaid ticket) are completely full before 9am every day.

2) Will you remove Friday night & Saturday paid parking in Civic to encourage a more ‘vibrant’ city centre?

For each of the following geographic areas of Canberra in YOUR electorate* specify for each area, your top (ONE ONLY) priority that you will undertake if elected:

— Belconnen
— City / Central Canberra
— Gungahlin
— Hall
— Jerrabomberra
— Majura
— Molonglo
— North Canberra
— Rural Canberra
— South Canberra
— Tharwa
— Tuggeranong
— Weston Creek
— Woden Valley

* this is also a test to see if you know which areas are covered by your electorate.

Make them put down a collateral for each of their election promises?

Question for the candidates:

“Would you, when in Government, mandate rain dancing as a role of the Department of Environment & Heritage. Afterall, it is you who we the people expect to solve everything”

How will you improve Canberra’s transport network?
And how do we know your previous answer isn’t just pre-election promises and will not come to fruition?

QUESTIONS FOR CANDIDATES HERE PLEASE

Not wishlists and self-promotion.

Skidbladnir said :

Do we know which candidates will actually be responding to these questions, or should we just write them blind?
(Yes, I know that all candidates get the same questions)

But some questions will get very different answers from different candidates dependant on phrasing.
IE: Mike Crowther and the ACT Cuddleprison. Richard Mulcahy and party unity. Andrew Barr on schools.

No.

Questions need to be applicable to all candidates.

Aurelius said :

It doesn’t matter what they say now, they’ll say something different post October.
Has anyone got a list of what they promised last time around, with a scoresheet of what they achieved?

Yes, the Gungahlin Community Council undertakes a rigourous questionnaire process at each election on Gungahlin related issues. The documentation from 2004 is available at: http://www.gcc.asn.au/oldgcc/gamva/index.htm

The Gungahlin Community Council is in the process of preparing a new online community survey of local issues for the October election. The GCC Candidate/Party questionnaire and emphasis at the 8 October “GCC Meet the Candidates Event” will reflect the results of this survey.

The Meet the candidates event will be filmed and the available for viewing on the web. Responses from the GCC Candidate/Party questionnaire will be published in the October 2008 edition of GunSmoke: http://gcc.asn.au/content/view/275/270/

–
Jonathon Reynolds
Vice President

Gungahlin Community Council Inc
PO Box 260 Gungahlin, ACT 2912
m 0418 812 281
e vicepresident@gcc.asn.au

Do we know which candidates will actually be responding to these questions, or should we just write them blind?
(Yes, I know that all candidates get the same questions)

But some questions will get very different answers from different candidates dependant on phrasing.
IE: Mike Crowther and the ACT Cuddleprison. Richard Mulcahy and party unity. Andrew Barr on schools.

LG said :

3 – sure, they towed the party line

Which makes one wonder … towed it where? Frankly, I’d be quite glad to see the party line removed to some distant horizon. Somewhere where I don’t have to listen to it, anyway 😉

L

It doesn’t matter what they say now, they’ll say something different post October.
Has anyone got a list of what they promised last time around, with a scoresheet of what they achieved?

Not a question but I’d like for RiotACT members to be able to rate (by poll) the responses on a bullsh!t scale on how honest the candidates werein their responses.

Eg.

5 – my god! they actually read the questions and prepared a considered response

3 – sure, they towed the party line but it looks as if they actually wrote the response themselves

1 – I don’t think they read either the questions or the answers, which were obviously prepared by a party hack / head office

One for the Christian voters:

“What is your stance on abortion, gay marriage, RU486, and embryonic research?”

A question – if you, and/or the party you represent, are not elected, who would you prefer to see in the Assembly? Which major party? Which minor party or independent? WHo would you least like to see elected?

(For non-major party candidates) In the event of neither major oarty having a majority, who would you support on important legislation and matters of confidence?

The objects, if answered honestly, would be to flush out what candidates stand for and, perhaps, to suggest which if any of them of them are running as proxies for others.

Ok I’ll go first then.

“What will be your number 1 spending priority, and what are you willing to de-fund in order to pay for it?”