28-05-2025
The how-to-run-for-council course aiming to get more diversity into local politics
In the lead-up to the local elections, a new programme aims to diversify the pool of potential candidates and educate them on how to run more effective campaigns. Shanti Mathias reports.
Local government has a representation problem: the candidates who run tend to be older, Pākehā homeowners who don't necessarily reflect the communities they are responsible for. It's something that Jenny Sahng, one of the co-founders of Climate Club Aotearoa, and Patrick Rooney, from the advocacy group The Future is Rail, have seen a lot. 'If you're outside the main centres, it's mostly the same demographics getting elected,' says Sahng.
Rooney and Sahng were involved with the Vote Climate initiative at the last local elections in 2022, helping people find candidates with climate policies in their area using scorecards. But there was a problem. 'In some places, there were just one or two candidates standing, and lots of them were talking about things that local government doesn't do,' Rooney says. 'So rather than saying who to vote for, we thought we could put our energy into developing candidates.'
Glow stands for Governance for Local Wellbeing ('the name didn't take heaps of workshopping… we like that image of a beacon in the darkness,' says Rooney.) It's a 12-week incubator course, mostly consisting of online workshops with chances for networking and receiving support from other candidates. It started at the beginning of May, and will continue until the local elections in October. Candidates are expected to commit two to four hours a week to attend the workshops; the programme is free but there's an option to pay for people who can afford it.
Anyone can sign up, whether they've actually committed to run or are considering it and want to learn more. They have sessions on developing policy, running a campaign and empowering women to participate in local elections. The aim is to make it easier for someone interested in politics and representing their community to go from 'having an idea' to 'actually enrolling as a candidate'.
'We've had a good range of candidates sign up – not just in Auckland and Wellington, but from Timaru, Tasman, Dunedin, Hawke's Bay,' Sahng says. 'The thing is that in local government literally anyone under the age of 50 is in the minority.' The programme is supported by people like former Auckland councillor Pippa Coom and former Wellington Regional councillor Roger Blakeley, as well as Sahng, Rooney and some of the other members of the Climate Club team.
'As a woman of colour and a queer person with a visible disability, I had a lot of concerns about running,' says Anjana Iyer, a Glow participant based in New Lynn, Auckland. She appreciated a recent session with current elected members talking about their experiences. 'I've got a much better grasp of the realities of making change in local government,' she says. 'A lot of the online content feels very utopian, which feels limiting in some ways, but I have a better understanding of what changes and policies you can do.'
While not affiliated with any party, Glow asks candidates to commit to supporting a set of principles, including climate action, public transport, sustainable and accessible housing, supporting Māori wards and community-owned renewable energy. 'We're not running a platform, the solution to different local issues is different in different communities,' says Rooney. The lean is definitely progressive, but candidates can run their campaigns, and develop particular policies, as they see fit.
Operating on a limited budget, part of the programme is to help candidates have better knowledge of how local government works, and run effective campaigns.
One example is the 'blurbs' – a photo and brief biographical statement of candidates with some of their policies in a booklet that is distributed with the postal voting pack. Some candidates don't send photos; others write blurbs that are hard to follow or irrelevant to what local government is responsible for. 'The blurbs are free real estate going to thousands of voters,' Rooney points out. Candidates in Glow can get advice on writing punchy blurbs to make the most of their opportunity to communicate.
'There's a lack of knowledge about what local government does,' Rooney says. With a low barrier to entry, some local government candidates make bold promises to change curriculums or the healthcare system, both of which are very much in the realm of central government. Others might not be clear that a regional council, rather than a city council, is largely responsible for public transport, or the role that councils play in water management. Part of the programme is education: what levers can local government pull? What are the processes of councils and community boards that people can engage in?
Even though local government operates on a smaller scale, with smaller budgets, than much of what central government does, Sahng says it's still a good place to make changes. 'There's so many practical things that people see and engage with that [local government] is responsible for – cycleways, community projects, electricity projects… It really sets the scene for building the kind of community and society we want to live in.'
Could programmes like Glow make a difference to the abysmal voting rates in local government? 'It's a bit of a chicken and egg [scenario] – if there's no one who represents your interests to vote for, why would you vote? Having more candidates should, in theory, increase voter turnout,' Rooney says. There are lots of other factors that impact low turnout, including the postal voting system disadvantaging people who move more often.
Sahng and Rooney don't have any definitive plans to continue Glow past the local elections this year. 'We don't have any success metrics,' Sahng says. After all, the programme has never been tried before. But the hope is that candidates will form organic connections, support networks of other people interested in changing their cities for the better; little seeds planted all over the country. Ideally, some of the participants will get elected. 'We're thinking long term,' Sahng says. 'If you want to run in 2028, standing in 2025 is the best preparation you can get.'
