Waikato journalist on OE will cast vote while in the UK

After moving to the UK from the Waikato in March, former journalist Kashka Tunstall is now living in Liverpool.

For the moment she is living with her granddad and has taken up a marketing job with a movie theatre while she figures out her next move.

An avid follower of politics and a vocal advocate for social justice, the main thing she wants to see come out of this election is a change of prime minister.

“I want John Key not to be the Prime Minister anymore.

“The financial policies that come out of Labour and the way that they work taxes I think is a more fair system than what National has got in place.”

Tunstall is not stuck with any political party, but she “tends to go with Labour despite the fact I am a swing voter.

“It is important to me, not really financially, but more like in a social justice sense, cause I’m really into social justice.”

As a former reporter she has had no trouble keeping up with the action back home.

“I’ve been kinda surprised because I follow all the news stuff on twitter, like different news agencies and websites, and I think I can keep pretty up to date with everything despite the fact that I live over here.”

Tunstall says she has been reading a lot about Dirty Politics and thinks the media should be focusing on the real issue: policies.

“Most of the news has been about scandal and none of it has been about policy, and that’s been really frustrating in trying to figure out who you are going to vote for overseas and you can’t watch the debates live or anything like that because no one is talking about policy.”

She says that with smaller parties, unless she is actually seeking out the information there is not a lot to find.

“I think the Greens get a little bit of a look in, and there was actually a really big feature about Kim Dotcom in the [London] Guardian.

“All of it has been overshadowed by dirty politics anyway.”

Despite being unsure about when she will return, Tunstall thinks it important she votes in the election.

“Most likely I’ll be back in the country before the next election so whoever gets into government in this election will affect me, even if it is a couple years down the track,” she says. “And just because you live overseas doesn’t mean that policy doesn’t affect you, it still affects me and my student loan. How I’m repaying my student loan all of that kind of stuff.”