Kia ora and welcome to the debut episode of Meet the Mayor. With your local elections only weeks away, Public Policy Club is excited to introduce you to your leading mayoral candidates; finding out more about their policies and what they can do for you as a voter.
Today, we chatted with mayoral candidate Viv Beck!
Viv has had a diverse range of experiences across the public, private, and non-profit sectors, including her most recent position as Chief Executive of Heart of the City. In our interview, we discuss her vision for Auckland, including what her mayoralty would mean for students, her plans for Auckland’s transport system, and her goals for COVID-19 economic recovery. Listen below for the full story!
Here is a brief summary of our talk.
Our talk with Viv Beck focussed on what she considers to be the 4 main issues Auckland currently faces. These being transport including congestion and emissions, crime including making student spaces safer, housing including the rise in regulations and finally the accountability of council or lack thereof. Her experience with businesses and not-for-profit’s were key to her answers regarding the importance of covid recovery for our city. She said the reason she was running was because of the disconnection our city has in terms on lacking infrastructure and economic woes.
Viv is concerned with the decisions being made in the council currently. She thinks consenting from council for infrastructure and housing is taking too long. She is a big fan of apartment living and wants to see that all housing areas are appropriately planned for transport and schools, etc.
Being students, we of course asked her what she would do for students. Specifically for students she said she wanted a budget of $50 million to support free public transport for students; a counter approach to Efeso Collins free public transport for all.
She talked also on the importance of leadership for Auckland. She said that people need to feel like Auckland is moving forward even if events like Covid challenge the community. One of her mains reasons she says for getting into the mayoral race was the sense of disconnection between the people and the council. Being a mayor of outspoken leadership is the Viv Beck solution to this issue.
