Tarrant supporter doesn’t want youth vote

A Hamilton City council candidate who posted a petition calling for mass murderer Brenton Tarrant to be pardoned, says he does not want young people voting for him.

In response to questions by the Waikato Independent, Roger Stratford, a West Ward candidate, says young people should vote for their peers.

Tarrant is serving life without parole for the Christchurch Mosque attacks on March 15, 2019, but Stratford thinks he is entitled to the rights for parole due to good behaviour. Stratford says he thinks that the life sentence without possibility of parole is unreasonable.

Stratford, who has previously stood for Hamilton West, and also Hamilton East in the 2016 election, has expressed controversial views about council.

He told ElectionWatch.org, a Hamilton website which has surveyed candidates, that councillors should be exposed to an electoral recall system, which would get nonperforming members off council before their term actually ends. He said that while he supported Māori Wards, he believed that if those councillors were involved in hostile rhetoric they should be exposed to the electoral recall system he advocated.

He also said that as a former Fairfield College student, he believed Hamilton Boys’ High School’s dominance of council should end.

“Lets face it, Hamilton Boys’ High have coveted prized council seats for long enough, to the detriment of a diverse make-up on council”, he says.

He said that he supported the three-term maximum for councillors and did not believe that councillors should be responsible for organising citizenship ceremonies.

All city candidates were sent questions by the Waikato Independent about youth in Hamilton, and Stratford replied with “I don’t want youth voting for me. Youth need to support their peers. These elections are not about youth, aged or any particular community. Council representation is a compact between unborn, young, aged and the deceased, to say something about what Kirikiriroa Hamilton represents.”