cheapest mayoral campaign in Queenstown Lakes<\/a>.<\/p>\nDaniel Shand has made his own hoardings with no words, no logo and no photo.<\/p>\n
The signs were scattered from Queenstown to W\u0101naka to Lake H\u0101wea, resembling more of an art installation than a traditional campaign.<\/p>\n
“It was the cheapest signage I’ve done in any election, which was kind of a relief financially,” Shand said. “Signs do get a beating sometimes, like, from drunk children or someone who’s irritated with the system.”<\/p>\n
The H\u0101wea Flat local has stood in two general elections for Waitaki and two local body elections for Queenstown Lakes District Council.<\/p>\n
He said, this year, his hoardings were both pragmatic and philosophical.<\/p>\n
“They’re cheaper… but also sort of deconstructionist,” he said. “I’m kind of making fun of politics, like the election cycle.<\/p>\n
“It’s a bit of a circus.”<\/p>\n
For anyone squinting hard enough, Shand insisted there was a message that the representative system was “broken” and direct democracy – where voters can decide on laws and policies -deserved a look-in.<\/p>\n
Shand said he was not running to win the mayoralty, so much as to raise awareness of his ideas.<\/p>\n
“It’s always been about more accurate representation of the public, either directly via referendums or just a representative representing their electorate, not a political party,” he said.<\/p>\n
“I’m unlikely to be getting elected, to be honest. It’s more about building up a platform and it’s also fun.<\/p>\n
“People need that. It should be fun to interact with representatives and the system.”<\/p>\n
Shand had nine signs in circulation and he planned to shuffle them around to add to the artistic effect.<\/p>\n
Only the minute, mandatory “authorised by” text gave any clue who was behind them.<\/p>\n
“Quite a few people have worked out that it’s me, because I’ve done a few elections with unusual signage, but it’s almost like you’re trying to sell something and these signs are attempting to not sell something,” he explained.<\/p>\n
“It’s just putting it in the public arena and seeing how the public want to take it. It is sort of a narrative through an election.”<\/p>\n
Shand is running for Queenstown mayor, alongside five other candidates.<\/p>\n
Incumbent Glyn Lewers, businessman Nik Kiddle, retiree Al Angus, business owner John Glover and Queenstown kaum\u0101tua Darren Rewi are also in the race.<\/p>\n
Sign up for Ng\u0101 Pitopito K\u014drero<\/a>, a daily newsletter curated by our editors and delivered straight to your inbox every weekday.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"One of Daniel Shand’s mysterious signs on Frankton Road, Queenstown Photo: RNZ\/Katie Todd The man who once ran…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":34651,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[48,47,42,43,49,46,44,45,40,38,41,39],"class_list":{"0":"post-34650","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-headlines","8":"tag-audio","9":"tag-current-affairs","10":"tag-headlines","11":"tag-news","12":"tag-podcasts","13":"tag-public-radio","14":"tag-radio-new-zealand","15":"tag-rnz","16":"tag-top-news","17":"tag-top-stories","18":"tag-topnews","19":"tag-topstories"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34650","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=34650"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34650\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/34651"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=34650"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=34650"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=34650"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}