Early Edition with Kate Hawkesby

Someone messaged me yesterday and said I feel sorry for you Aucklanders with your mayoral candidates being so lame – you have the choice of two frontrunners – neither of whom sound up to much. And it’s true. It’s a pretty average line up. I think I’ve rationalized it in terms of viewing it as voting for a direction not a person. I care about my city, like many of us, and it breaks my heart what’s happened to Auckland over the past few years. It’s a shambles. Violence, crime, ram raids, burglaries, homelessness, vandalism, it’s not the vibrant city it once felt like. It doesn’t feel safe, the suburbs feel under constant threat from rampant feral bored teenagers, the CBD is a mess, the roads are clogged, the public transport doesn’t move as efficiently as it should, once a city of sails, it’s turned into a city of fails.   So given that, I would’ve thought more and more Aucklanders would be more exercised to get out vote at local body elections. I’d have thought we’d be paying more attention to the race and kno