My principal place of residence is in the New Plymouth District Council area.
Bachelor of Arts, Political Science and Philosophy, Victoria University of Wellington.
Strategic Management Programme, Macquarie Graduate School of Management Sydney (MGSM).
Foundations of General Management, MGSM.
Diploma in Management, NZ Institute of Management.
Member, NZ Institute of Directors.
My primary job is to be a useful husband to my wife Melissa and father to our children Xavier, Savanna and Alyssa.
My personal objective is to help make New Plymouth such an awesome place that at least one of my three children chooses to stay here as an adult.
If re-elected my objectives are as follows: Delivery; investing in 3W, roading and parks infrastructure, expanding our tracks and trails, building our sports and wellbeing hub. Community; celebrating our culture, supporting volunteer organisations and building community connections. Partnerships; partnering with others to get things done. Sustainability; achieving environmental excellence. Prosperity; improving our standard of living.
PS I love this place.
Yes. The vast majority of rate increases will fund repairs and maintenance on our water, waste water, storm water, parks and roading networks. We can not allow our core community infrastructure to be further run down. Our district is growing by 1000 people a year and we need quality infrastructure.
No. They’ve been written by bureaucrats trying to go too far too fast. They’ll likely lead to the same scenario we have seen with our State Highways, zero accountability to our local community from an aloof remote bureaucracy. We can build a Taranaki water cooperative to serve our people sustainably.
Yes. We are planting out 38 hectares of urban area in natives, trialling lower emission vehicles and progressing the Taranaki 2050 roadmap but we need to keep going, working to support our businesses and particularly our energy and food sectors to ensure steady progress while retaining a high value economy.
Yes. Our businesses and entrepreneurs employ our workers and create the wealth that underpins our quality of life. We need investments in Venture Taranaki and Taranaki events to diversify our economy, focusing on energy, food, our Maori economy and tourism to ensure the next generation have access to quality jobs.
Yes – the Mayor is accountable for process quality. Accordingly I advocated for our entire community to have the opportunity to express their opinions on Maori wards before the decision was taken. But I believe Council made the right decision to establish the Maori ward and fully support it.
Make the Community Board local budgets permanent in the next LTP to allow local people to choose local projects and have access to council funds to make things happen quickly. Further upgrades to 3W assets, parks and playgrounds along with plans to develop the urban centres to improve public spaces.
No – with construction inflation close to 20% and rising it’s clear we won’t be able to deliver the hub without lifting our investment. New Plymouth has historically underinvested in sports and wellbeing infrastructure and particularly when it comes to sports our girls and women play. Time to step up.
Community wellbeing. New Zealanders are stressed out and concerned about their future after a turbulent three years. Council must focus on lifting the standard of living by creating a stable and reliable platform on which our people, businesses, workers and organisations can rely, while building community connection and cohesion.
