Auckland East Chinese Society Alliance Election Forum

Thank you to the Auckland East Chinese Society Alliance for organising Monday’s election forum at the Pakūranga Community Hall.

With over 27% of our local 160k residents identified as Chinese in the last Census, we're fortunate to have several amazing local community groups supporting and celebrating their Chinese culture and heritage. This alliance of four local groups offered candidates for Howick Local Board, Auckland Council, and Mayor an opportunity to speak to locals about their vision and priorities. And the event was finished off with wonderful performances!

Tāmaki Makaurau Auckland is a wonderfully diverse city but we need to do more to embrace and empower our communities. Low voter turnout is a symptom of a wider problem. Too often language, terminology, and systems are a barrier to participation and engagement with council. Locally we've worked with groups to educate and empower them to be more involved in decisions that impact them, but we need to scale this up across the city.