An Interview With Lianne Dalziel
This interview was conducted on the 1st of February, 2021
Written with Charlotte Hawkins
When you first came to Christchurch, did you feel informed about the city you were moving to? We don’t just mean where the nearest liquor store is, or what bars do karaoke on a Wednesday night (Which to be fair is important to know, and it’s the Craic on Riccarton road). Christchurch has more to it than being just a place to study and get on the piss. What is the wider city like? Who is in charge? Where can I go if I need help? We take knowing these things about the cities we grew up in for granted,and the general knowledge accumulates as you get older but we hope to give you the leg up that many didn’t have in getting to know the garden city. What better way to learn about a city than to talk to the boss. In early February we sat down with Lianne Dalziel, who has been the Mayor of our fine city for more than 7 years, and asked her about what Christchurch can do for you, and what you can do for the city.
Before becoming the mayor of Christchurch Dalziel was a cabinet minister and the labour MP for Christchurch central and Christchurch east. We asked her what she did before politics, and why she chose to be a politician. Before politics she was a union organiser, getting involved while working at the hospital during her time at law school. Just prior to the 1990 election there was a leadership change in the labour party with the Prime Minister, Sir Geoffrey Palmer, deciding not to run again. At the very last minute, Dalziel was nominated and selected as the candidate for Christchurch central, running a blitz campaign for about 5 weeks and being elected under the old first past the post system. While this wasn’t what she was expecting to do with her life, she held a position in the government until deciding to run for the mayoralty.
Politics these days is all about personality. You want to know what your leaders are like as people, not just what their policy is, and what better way than someones go to order from the fish and chip shop. So we asked Dalziel
Well, I’m trying not to eat fish and chips, I prefer Thai takeaways.
What.
Someone may have just lost my vote.
The Mayor however, does drink a lot of coffee just like us students and living in the center of town she is ‘spoilt for choice’. According to the mayor you can’t really go wrong, there are heaps of great cafés in the CBD that she frequents on a weekly basis and feels that “it’s an awesome place to live especially for a coffee drinker!”. If you’re in search of a good coffee in the CBD or perhaps a place to study away from uni, Just walk around and maybe try out Fiddlesticks or Caffeine Laboratory.
One of the few things the American education system does better than ours is teaching everyone civics, where they learn how the government works and the different systems that make up their society. We asked Dalziel to whom she was accountable and what kind of professional relationship the Mayor has with both the local council and the national government. The Mayor, as it turns out, is just a councillor who is the face of the collective decisions that are made. She only gets one vote at the table, but has to represent the decision that they make, whether she agrees with it or not. Other councillors can disagree publicly with decisions made, but not the Mayor. She told us she is “accountable to the people of Christchurch because they’re the ones who elect me to office” and that the only person who is directly accountable to her and the councillors is the Chief Executive. The Chief Executive is a position which handles the day to day running of the council, a common role in organizations that vote in their decision making members. Even the UCSA has one. The council is a separate entity from the national government, but Dalziel has striven to work with MP’s from every end of the political spectrum. She said she felt it was “really important that I ran independently of my political allegiance” for the mayoralty, an approach which must have made it easier to work with the partisan members of parliament.
On the topic of the council, at the end of 2020 the council voted to add vaping to the existing smoke free policy in public areas and parks. What was interesting about this vote was even though it was voted into law, the council decided not to enforce it. We asked Dalziel if this was a waste of taxpayers money, and of the councils time. She said “Our experience is that if you do put up a sign telling people that this is an area that you shouldn’t smoke in, this is an area that you shouldn’t vape in, people will generally comply. The odd person who doesn’t, who just sort of kind of thumbs their nose in the face of that will often be told by others to look at the sign. So that’s a hell of a lot cheaper than putting an enforcement officer on the payroll and getting them to go around and check to see who’s complying with the law”. So not a waste of time, and actually a cost saving measure, who would have thought.
Busses. A bit of fun. The second biggest pest on the roads after cyclists, and the second greenest way to get around, once again, after cycling. Christchurch busses aren’t exactly the cheapest around, without a bus card it’ll set you back a little less than 5$ for the short trip into town. Every day, Dalziel dreams of creating a fully integrated public transport system, but sadly both this and creating a student fare, which she thinks should be as low as free, are not within her jurisdiction. She told us “The public transport system or the buses component that’s all controlled through ECAN (Environment Canterbury) and the rules that have been put in place by [the] central government which do require a return from the fare box, which I think is totally and completely at odds with the reality which is [that] the more you can encourage people to use the buses the greater the benefit will be obtained by reducing our carbon profile”. Before this interview we were not aware that the central government mandated that busses turn a profit, which really does seem a little counterintuitive.
Another big issue facing students (besides trying to save money on bus fares) are mental health issues. Although the uni services are great, it’s also important to know what services are available in Christchurch. One service that the mayor rates highly is 298 Youth health (1/25 Churchill Street), they focus on young people and have a peer support service alongside it, so often you will be getting support from people your own age.
One scroll on the UCSA noticeboard and you are bound to see a post about someone scoping out a student’s flat to burgle or someone having their car broken into, so logically we asked the mayor if the council was aware of these high levels of crime and what they are doing to combat it. Dalziel acknowledges it is an area that the police are focused on (partly due to drunken student behaviour, oops) but she said it’s also important that we look out for each other,so keep those UCSA noticeboard posts coming and we can all have the comfort that we have each other’s backs.
Some of you may or may not know but she actually went to UC, studying here for many years. Most of her memories include spending lots of time in the cafés (she does really like coffee). She also attended lots of student meetings which she looks back on fondly. However, one not so fond but interesting memory she has is watching an event called the chunder mile. Which was where contestants would run around a track while drinking warm beer and then eat a cold pie and do an obstacle course, and it doesn’t take much imagination to see why it was called the chunder mile. The authors do not in any way condone bringing this back, and would never tell you there is a perfectly functional running track on Ilam fields.
Thinking of getting into politics? Well here is a top tip from the mayor herself. “Don’t underestimate the value of doing.” This includes doing some classics, philosophy, or ethics during your degree as these subjects can be important for creating context or meaning. Employers and academics highly value the skills that these subjects offer people. So don’t worry that taking a paper in something you enjoy will have a negative impact on your chances of getting a job. If you want the top political job in Christchurch you might be out of luck, but is this city just somewhere to come to study, and then head elsewhere in search of employment? Who better to ask about how the future of Christchurch can benefit graduates than the mayor? As Christchurch is a still rebuilding city as this year we mark 10 years since the devastating earthquakes. This leaves room for lots of innovation in the city according to the mayor, and with companies and firms with overseas ties Christchurch can have great opportunities above and beyond those in other cities in NZ, with the added benefit of much less traffic.
This drive towards innovation also leads to more diverse industry opportunities, and when asked what industries are up and coming in Christchurch that would be relevant for graduates, we were surprised, especially by her saying aerospace. Aerospace is the big one apparently, and it does make sense considering Christchurch is one of the five international gateways to Antarctica, hence UC’s great Antarctic programmes. New technologies is also the direction of major industries in Christchurch with the mayor naming the future of transport, health technology, food fiber and agriculture technology all being the up and coming industries in Christchurch. These industries would be great to get into Christchurch according to the mayor as they play on the regional strengths of Canterbury while also helping to create solutions for global issues. So don’t rule Christchurch out just yet when thinking of where to work after you finish studying.
Talking to Lianne Dalziel was a great experience. She’s intelligent, down to earth and even though she doesn’t eat fish and chips we’re confident our city is in good hands. According to her “‘I’ve said this more than once that it [Christchurch] is on the cusp of something’’ so stick around, get involved and dont forget to vote in the next local election!
