ABOUT ME
Hi, I'm Richard
WHERE I COME FROM
I have lived in Dunedin since 2010 with my wife and our daughter who is currently studying at Otago Polytechnic.
I grew up in the Waikato, my parents being sharemilkers on a dairy farm there before moving to a kiwifruit orchard in Tauranga. I worked on both farm and orchard before traveling to Western Australia to work on the wheatbelt. After that I traveled widely spending much time in Australia, Queenstown, North America, Europe and Russia. I have worked on skifields, in bars, on vineyards (in France & Australia) as well as in factories, farms and orchards.
I met my wife Rikki in Europe and then we returned to her hometown of Melbourne where we have owned a retail business for three decades. This business is currently mostly online although we do maintain a small retail store on call. I currently work in this small business.
Like many businesses over the last few years things have been much quieter than we would have liked. We are hoping that the Governments of Australia and New Zealand continue to back away from the insane policies of the last few years so as we can rebuild our business.
What else?
I have a degree in Information Science as well as a Post Graduate diploma in climate science (Geography). I also have recently completed several short courses and papers on Cycling infrastructure, Circular Cities and Urban infrastructure most of these being courses at Amsterdam University. I have also 'dabbled' in History, Classics and Law and even epidemiology. I hold the opinion that the last few years have been one of fraud, not disease. Something that I shared with the Prime Minister one day at St Clair in March this year just before she announced an end to her discrimination as policy in New Zealand.
I am also perfectly at home in places like Warsaw, Moscow, Vancouver and Tokyo as well as Dunedin and Melbourne. And although I've never been to Shanghai I believe that it's only a short plane ride away from Osaka or Tokyo. According to one critic this is very worldly. I agree it is. My view is that we should not have all our eggs in one basket. Somebody might break them. Dunedin should therefore be seeking alliances other than just in one place.
MISSION STATEMENT
Equality Meets Opportunity
There seems to be a lot of dystopian plans about these days. From cameras on every street lamp so that you can be fined (and tracked) more efficiently, to central bank digital coins to control your spending to Three Waters ideology dreamed up in Boston to boosters dreamed up at some Drug runner's board meeting. I'm very unimpressed.
I will fight for your independence from such plans. I will work to integrate Dunedin with the wider Pacific rather than just with Shanghai, I will fight against the destruction of heritage & will attempt to make Dunedin a city of trams & cycles again. I will focus on South Dunedin as a CBD alternative & attempt to put a halt to land banking & abandonment of buildings in Dunedin. I will support attempts at beachfront resilience & women's & girls rights to their own spaces at such places as the Moana Pool.
I will continue to use a cycle as my main form of transport. You should join me. And I will rescind the token, but dystopian, declaration of a climate emergency.
Action rather than words.