Hide on Crone

Rodney Hide writes:

There’s no doubt Goff is a good and experienced politician.

He has proved that by traversing the extremes of New Zealand’s political spectrum from one side to the other and back again.

He knows politics. He was first elected to Parliament when Crone was 7 years old.

But politics is all Goff knows. Crone has lived in the world the rest of us live in. She has had to pay rates and taxes and had to budget. Taxpayers haven’t paid her wages. She has had to earn them. She has lived in our world and excelled in it. She is a mother, a top businesswoman and athlete.

It takes more skill and work to run a business than be a politician. It means providing jobs and generating wealth rather than just talking about them.

I like Goff and I have never met Crone. And that’s her challenge. She’s got to meet and reach out to a lot of people through her campaign.

That she has quit her job speaks of her commitment. It would be rude to note that Goff is keeping his parliamentary pay and resources to help with his campaign and as back-up job in case he loses.

Thanks to Crone we have a race. It’s going to be up to us. I can think of three good reasons for supporting her.

One, she’s a citizen first, and a politician second; two, her election won’t force a costly byelection and three, she can fix the council computer system.

All good reasons.