We took a risk sending the election issue to the printer a couple of days before the nominations for candidates closed and one new candidate has joined the Christchurch Central electorate ballet, someone called Laurie Hayden who, in a field full of party representatives, describes themselves as independent. The Mana party also seems to have disappeared off the ballot.
Matiu Thoms is now contesting the Te Tai Tonga electorate for AdvanceNZ (which merged with the Public Party) while Raymond Tuhaka is standing for the New Conservatives.
In the pressure to get this issue finished, an error was made on page 11 and not picked up in time: there is a reference to David Farrier, it was in fact David Farrar who wrote the article published in Spinoff on September 14 (here is a shortcut to that page https://bit.ly/3hP2LQG) and apologies to both of those individuals for getting them mixed up and anyone inconvenienced. Even though our own fact checking could have been better in this instance, it’s worth a read if you want to see what happens when populism and a patchwork of unscientific ideas about how the world works converge and get a new party noticed. Do take care because there are lot of conspiracy theories out there. Disinformation is only getting worse, so use those votes wisely.
