24 September 2008

Time to tell me what your favourite questions are for the candidates

| johnboy
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[First filed: September 24, 2008 @ 12:04]

It’s an exciting time.

Tomorrow Elections ACT declares the nominations for the upcoming ACT election.

Armed with the full candidate list we’ll be finalising our candidate questionaire and sending them out to all candidates.

So which questions (asked by someone other than yourself) would you like to see in the final 10?

Tomorrow we’ll also be reviewing individual candidates websites, so time to get them finished folks.

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p1 said :

If elected would they make public the secret alien overloads that secretly rule the ACT?

overloads??

I thought it was lizards.

Gungahlin Al9:38 am 25 Sep 08

Should MLAs (and those who aspire to be MLAs) obey all laws? Or do you feel it is acceptable to break certain laws?

If elected would they make public the secret alien overloads that secretly rule the ACT?

tylersmayhem9:29 am 25 Sep 08

@Loose Brown: cheers for that – I didn’t realise they had those motors on bicycles in Canberra. Cheers for the update 😉

@deezagood: the candidates could very easily direct the letter (junk) droppers to refrain from dumping election crap in letter boxes that clearly state “No Junk Mail”. The fact that many apparently think it doesn’t count an unsolicited mail sums up a lot to me.

I can answer your question very easily: unsolicited (unaddressed to a specific adressee) = unsolicited, which = junk!

Poor letter box droppers? Give me a break!

How can we get nurses, teachers, road workers and other moderate income earners in essential services to work here when so many young workers cannot afford to buy a home here and rents are going through the roof?

Will you legalise Poker Tournaments?

Will you fund the multi billion dollar light rail network by a)raising taxes b)making parking more expensive?

1 How will you improve Canberra’s transport network?

2 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.

3 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

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

5 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.

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

7 In 15 words or less, why should anyone vote for you?

8 How do you plan to address the chronic GP shortage across Canberra?

9 Do you support a curfew at Canberra Airport if night flights are spread over Tuggeranong {Canberra}?

10 How will you improve health services in our hospitals (not from the previous Qs)

‘@wonsworld: Finally someone who shares in my view about the junk mail! I am actually collecting them and making sure I do NOT vote for any of them that have disregarded the sign on my mailbox’

I think that is unfair on the candidates – its not as if they personally deliver all of their own leaflets. I did some volunteer letterbox dropping over the Macarthur Gas Power Plant and I have to admit that I wasn’t sure whether the pamphlet was ‘junk mail’ in the typical sense of the word – I personally tend to think of ‘junkmail’ as those millions of brochures from the retail industry (and the issue was highly relevant to local residents). A dilemma for poor letterbox droppers everywhere; is it ‘junk’, is it not junk …

Nice one Miz. I second those questions. Also – ‘what do you plan to do to increase the number of GPs in Canberra’ and ‘What are your plans to build a more sustainable Canberra’ (energy, water, insulation etc..)

Q: If you get voted in, will you stop the tuggeranong power station and the dummy water recycling plant?

@Tyler under ACT legislation it is legal to ride a bicycle with an ‘auxillary motor’ that delivers power up to 200w on footpaths, cycle paths, etc without registration.

tylersmayhem4:19 pm 24 Sep 08

@wonsworld: Finally someone who shares in my view about the junk mail! I am actually collecting them and making sure I do NOT vote for any of them that have disregarded the sign on my mailbox.

@Loose Brown: What bicycles have any power, let alone 200w?

Would you accept campaign funding from lobby groups? What would you do in return for such funding?

Do you have a view on the current 200w power limit for unregistered bicycles?

What are your plans for reducing Canberra’s carbon footprint?

I think Jb is getting at that candidate questions were already asked.

Personally, I vote for the following from the original thread:

How will you improve Canberra’s transport network?

Would you/how would you seek to improve the territory/Federal relationship? Be as broad or narrow as desired.

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

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?

Will you restore the ACT coat of arms to the welcome to Canberra signs? If not, why, and would you instead change the signage to remove the ridiculous blank white space where the coat of arms should be?

How do you view the status quo of the ACT-Queanbeyan relationship, and would you be open to formalising any part of it beyond current arrangements?

What experience do you have in economic and budgetary management?

How do you plan to address the chronic GP shortage across Canberra?

How do other people view your management style?

What particular industries do you see as vital to the continued growth and success of the ACT economy and how are you planning on diversifying the Government’s investment and ensuring dividends are maxmimised in these key areas of your economic plan?

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?

In 15 words or less, why should anyone vote for you?

With one extra:
Do you see Canberra as being a state of adequate law enforcement and judicial sentencing, and if not, what steps would you take to bring this about?

Will you consider the removal of IntACT and re-deployment of the support staff into each of the Departments?

Can TAMS also be dissolved, as it appears to be the same function as IntACT?

oh, please?

punkarella said :

QUESTION TO ALL:

Which one of you is not going to tax me more..?
seriously easy and simple question but the weazzle words police would have to be on patrol for this one!

I love you.

QUESTION TO ALL:

Which one of you is not going to tax me more..?
seriously easy and simple question but the weazzle words police would have to be on patrol for this one!

In the absence of Federal funding, do you think the ACT shoudl still proceeed with light rail?

My experience is that some candidates think that election material isn’t junk mail.

Personally I think it’s not worth pissing people off.

Given that a candidate (or party workers or other representative) cant read a simple NO JUNK MAIL that is plastered across the top of a letterbox, my question is why should we believe a single word they say when they are elected?

Who am I votin for in this election? The only mongrel who doesnt cram my box full of promises/proposals/lies/rubbish/paper spam that they are putting forward this time round.

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?

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

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.

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?

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

Will you legalise Poker-playing in the ACT?

tylersmayhem3:12 pm 24 Sep 08

Thanks for that Caf – you constructed a post that I couldn’t have been bothered doing – but that’s precisely the post I would have submitted, but not quite so eloquently. 😉 Cheers

I suspect the idea here was to highlight questions from the earlier “call for questions” thread. As an observation, the answers to questions that aren’t a simple “yes/no” answer are usually far more interesting and enlightening. Eg:

What are the candidates views on the optimal size of the Legislative Assembly?

or, for your water tank example,

How does the candidate feel that the cost/benefit of fully subsidised water tanks to every household stacks up against the other options on the table for improving the ACT’s potable water supply?

tylersmayhem2:06 pm 24 Sep 08

Further to peterh’s great suggestion – would they consider installing water tanks in all homes in the ACT – gratis?

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