Meet the candidates online

Clare Curran blogs at Red Alert:

The Labour Party Leadership roadshow continues around New Zealand this week. There are 12 hustings meetings being held from Whangarei to Dunedin. Today we see the announcement of a “virtual hustings” meeting which is yet another new initiative in our quest to bring greater membership participation in the party.

Under the rules for its current Leadership Election, the Labour Party is required to hold a “virtual hustings meeting”. This is an opportunity for eligible voters to put questions to the candidates online, created by the New Zealand Labour Party working with the Scoop Independent News website. It starts today.

Today the Party is putting out a call to eligible voters to submit questions to the three candidates. To submit a question to be put to the Candidates please send an email to LabourGenSec@scoop.co.nz . The cut-off date for sending your question is midnight on Wednesday 10th of September.

Then from 10-13 September selected questions (from eligible voters) will be answered in a series of blog posts here on the Red Alert. Everyone will then be welcome to join in the discussion (currently moderation policy will apply). The discussion will continue into the weekend on 14 September and online voting closes at midday on Sunday 15 September.

The online promotion is being organised by Scoop.co.nz and promoted over the Scoop Media Cartel group of websites.

Not really that much of an online meeting. More just a non-live Q+A. What would be fun would be a live video-conference where people can tweet, e-mail, text questions in and have them answer them on the spot. But still a good opportunity for Labour members to ask questions, and of course anyone can join in the discussion on Red Alert.