Anti-poverty campaigner Brooke Stanley-Pao will be running as an independent in October's general election, taking on one of Labour’s safest seats, Māngere.
Labour has held the Māngere seat since 1969 but the current MP, William Sio, has recently said he will retire at the election in October.
National and the Māori Party have both leapt into the breach, with National putting up local Rosemary Bourke and the Māori Party surprising with its choice of popular South Auckland activist Dave Letele but Labour is yet to name its candidate.
Stanley-Pao (37) says she wants to use her youth and the power of social media to accomplish her campaign.
The Auckland Action Against Poverty coordinator says people have said to her over the years that she should consider standing and she had thought it was possible when she was younger “but then finding more about the political sphere, the parliamentary politics really put me off, and I decided that I just wanted to spend my time in grassroots politics.
Māngere gets another candidate.
Authentic campaigning
“But it keeps coming up and I feel okay to step into this part of my journey right now.”
Stanley-Pao plans to spend the majority of her campaign on social media, informing voters about the importance of their vote “breaking down that space that makes it a lot easier for people to understand actually what it is and I'm also really keen to have my family be involved.
“I think it's really important to do it differently. I think a lot of the ways in which we campaign and do politics, I find really cheesy. And so I don't want to do that. I want to make sure that I'm as genuine as I can be that I'm authentic, that I'm honest."
Her main goal is to solve issues within the community with the people of the community.
Free to live a good life
“And I want us to be able to make choices and decisions that are going to be good for us and our families. And the thing that holds us back from doing those things is actually not to do with us but actually to deal with the system. And so I think that's what I really want for our communities for all of us is to just to be free to live a good life.
Stanley-Pao is the daughter of former All Black Joe Stanley, and a sister to another former All Black turned surgeon Jeremy Stanley. She took over as AAPC coordinator from Green MP Ricardo Menendez March when he entered Parliament. She grew up in Glen Innes and spent time in Japan where her dad was coaching rugby. She attended Tāmaki Intermediate and Epsom Girls Grammar.
National’s local choice
Meanwhile, the National candidate for the seat, Rosemary Bourke works as a warehouse administrator for a South Auckland manufacturer and has worked in operations roles for several years.
She says the top issue in Māngere is the cost of living.
“The median rent in Auckland is almost $5,000 higher per year under Labour and people paying mortgages don’t know where they’re going to find hundreds of dollars more every week to cover their repayments as interest Bourke says her party is the only one with a plan to strengthen the economy “so we can reduce the cost of living for people in Māngere”.
“We’ve also announced our FamilyBoost policy, which will provide up to $75 per week in tax rebates to help families with the cost of childcare.”
Bourke has lived in Māngere for almost 30 years and raised her four children in the area. Over the years, she has volunteered with local schools, sports clubs and local community groups. She has also worked as a tutor for local parents, supporting them to be the first teachers at home to give their children a head start.