By Shanti Mathias

Copyright thespinoff

Come local elections, come janky web design, random family pictures and endless wells of fun facts about candidates (at least the ones who decide to make their own websites).

It’s easy to think that we live in a time where the personal website has died: no more is it possible to find out about someone by going to a funkily arranged blog, because everyone uses the bland interfaces of social media instead. But where the personal website lives on is in local elections, where candidates suddenly think that it might be a good idea to have their own domain name.

The Spinoff has been spending far too much time, as usual, on our computers, but the deluge of local elections candidates has at least been a reason to discover some excellent examples of candidate websites (and some social media posts).

Janette Osborne, Waitomo

When you initially look at BriarPatch.co.nz, it’s difficult to spot the connection to local elections at all: it’s just a website selling yarn and wool for spinners and knitters. But one tab is not like the others: “Janette Osborne for Mayor – Waitomo District”. A sitting rural councillor who also runs a farm with her husband Kim, Osborne has repurposed her business website for her campaign. Fair enough, those domain names don’t come cheap, or with good SEO. Her website includes four years of “accountability posts” documenting what she’s done in council, which is surely useful information for the potential voters (especially those who are also interested in naturally coloured wool for their craft projects).

Jules Radich, Dunedin

Radich, current mayor of Dunedin, has a website entirely written in the third person. Some of the details included, however, suggest that Radich himself authored the content. Tidbits include:

How “nippy” his Smart car is for parking in Dunedin’s hill suburbs
The time a ruru nested next to his house
Details about his underwater hockey league
The qualities he has inherited from each of his grandparents and their ethnicities (Scottish, Irish, Dalmation, Māori)
How to see different photos of low tides at the Taieri Mouth

Guy Coulson, Nelson

Coulson, an environmental scientist, is running in the Stoke-Tāhunanui Ward for Nelson City Council. His website has a succinct rundown of his policies and visions. More interesting, though, are some of the photos of trips he’s been on: various tramps, mountain biking, multiple visits to Antarctica to study ice cores and stand on the shores of rather fetching lakes. His bio includes the detail that “when I’m not working, I’d rather be climbing mountains”. A very relatable sentiment.

Jacqui Church, Waikato

Church is currently the mayor of Waikato District Council, and accordingly her website contains information about the council and community boards, and a list of the organisations she’s part of in the area, from the Franklin Positive Ageing Expo to the Tuakau Cleanup (winner of Keep New Zealand Beautiful 2017). All the links are rendered in a fetching handwritten font. Among her promotion of local causes is a somewhat incongruous link to New Zealand’s kidney donation portal; Church was a kidney donor in 2014 and is passionate about raising awareness of kidney disease.

John Chapman, Ruapehu

While the content of Chapman’s site is fairly run-of-the-mill, featuring a record of what he has done in council and his commitment to “building a team culture that prioritises collaboration over ego”, his former career as a photojournalist stands out in a monochrome picture of him delivering a piercing gaze to any digital visitors. The site also contains a historical photo of Chapman with some children and his camera in the Negev Desert. Covering international affairs inspires him as a district councillor, he says. “The fall of communism in Eastern Europe and the yearning for democracy, which led to that fall, was a clear demonstration that government, at any level, central or local, needs to take people with them in the management of their nation’s or community’s affairs.” Respect also to the succinct URL: jcfordc.com.

Hugh O’Neill, Dunedin

Captain Hugh (who did indeed go to sea aged 16) is standing for Dunedin City Council and the Otago Peninsula Community Board. He’s committed to everything being nautical: his slogan is “turn this ship around” and his blog is called a “captain’s log”, on which he’s posted copies of his election speeches as well as copy-and-pasted articles about social housing in Vienna and water fluoridation as well as a defence of art history penned when his daughter was in school. There’s more going on than a naval battle during a storm.

Vince Cocurullo, Whangārei

Cocurullo is the current mayor of Whangārei and, as well as appealing typography, his website has photos from various events he’s attended. It creates a vivid picture of the life of a medium-sized town mayor. He’s gone to children’s art classes, handed out “four well worth receiving civic honours”, posted “interesting facts” about rates rebates and attended “nailbiting basketball championships” hosted by the Filipino community as part of Multicultural Whangārei.

Alan Wang, Canterbury

Wang is running for Environment Canterbury. His website is notable for two reasons: first, he has an excellent job of keeping his branding consistent. He has little glowing highlights around his name (lovely bold serif font) and the same glow around photos of himself and his policies. The first letter of each word is capitalised, like a highly specific book title: Fresh Air Clean Water Make Our Soil Great Again. There’s also a great photo of Wang holding an umbrella and some information about how chopping down forests for steelmaking damaged the environment of the southern Chinese village where Wang was born.

Nigel Simpson, Napier

Simpson is currently a city councillor in Napier, and is standing for mayor for the second time. Unlike many candidates, who use their websites to post a variety of photos of themselves, his homepage contains a sole photo set against different backgrounds: with text as a campaign sign, with a photo of Napier in soft focus, and plain black. His “about” page contains a list of what he’s done as councillor and what appears to be a draft version of his campaign sign (“Strategic” is spelled “Startegic”, possibly a subtle allusion to the fact that Simpson has a plan for his first 100 days in office and is keen to get started).

Kay Luv, Auckland

Luv, an immigration adviser, is another efficiency queen, using the website for her immigration business for her election campaign for Auckland Council in the Waitakere Ward. Her page seems fairly run of the mill – she’s the first ever Laotian political candidate in New Zealand, there’s a condensed CV – until the end, which has two excellent sentences. “I fight hard on the tennis court — and even harder for you,” Luv writes; who doesn’t want to visualise their candidate wielding a tennis racket on their behalf? Then she has a link to her campaign Facebook page and invokes an endless loop of communication saying “please share this with your friends and family so they can share it with their friends and family”. The website also documents her unofficial attempt to break the world record for the largest number of people playing Connect 4 simultaneously and advertises her tennis coaching services. If everyone told their friends and family to tell their friends and family to play Connect 4, surely a record could be broken.

Matt Zwartz, Auckland

Zwartz is standing for Auckland Council in the Albert-Eden-Puketāpapa Ward and for local board in the Ōwairaka subdivision of Albert-Eden. His border collie, Ruby, features heavily on his website, with speech bubbles saying things like “we deserve better, dad” and “council’s priorities are a dog’s breakfast, dad”. He also includes a link to his self-published crime novel, “Small Mouth Demon”. The first word on the page about his work is “Wizard”. The last line on his homepage is: “If you agree, then Vote ZWARTZ on October 13. Or don’t – it’s up to you. But VOTE.” (Note: the last day of local elections voting is October 11.)

Bonus: good social media

Green Party candidates for Greater Wellington Regional Council, Yadana Saw and Henry Peach, put their budget to good use making a somewhat confusing (but still fun to watch) short film about buses being late in Wellington.
Dunedin City Council candidate Robert Hamlin started a Facebook page for his campaign with these opening words: “Well, here we are with my new candidate page that has no followers and a miserable authority score. Hopefully this will change!” The page now has five followers and six more posts.
Pip Kempthorne, standing for Waipa District Council, features his dog heavily in his posts.
Sam O’Brien, standing for Wellington City Council, does lots of spoofs of TikTok trends on his Instagram page. He’s also very good at being on-brand – there’s always some Labour red in his videos.