Electioneering politicians can be pretty boring. MPs travel around the country at this time of the parliamentary cycle and give their well-rehearsed speeches and party-lines on the issues of the day and supposed ‘visions’ for the future. This can make politics seem fairly bland, superficial, and non-dynamic. Of course, in most ways this merely reflects reality: parliamentary politics is in fact mostly stale and uninspiring, with little real meaningful debate and differences being offered to society. Yet general elections are in fact still very important. In their own very limited way, parliamentary elections are still the major time for debate about how we run society – the campaigns, the meetings, the discussions continue to be the central means by which political issues of economy and society are debated and contested in this country. Therefore it’s important to be involved and it’s important to try and increase the quality of this debate. In one small way, this is what the Otago University Vote Chat forums attempt to do. [Read more below]
‘Vote Chat’ is a series of public interviews of politicians at the University of Otago. Every week a different MP or candidate is interviewed in front of a public audience by myself, another academic, or a Politics student. The idea is to foster a different type of political environment whereby the audience doesn’t just get the usual well-rehearsed campaigning speech from a politician. The aim is for the forums to be friendly and relaxed but challenging, and hopefully throwing up something a bit different and maybe revealing about politics in election year.
The Vote Chat initiative is reported in today’s Otago Daily Times – see: Quirky questions welcomed. Blogger and Otago student James Meager has also reported on it on his mydeology blog: Vote Chat 2011, Vote Chat 2011: David Parker, and Vote Chat 2011 with Jo Hayes: highlights. In fact, Meager has been one of the guest interviewers – he co-interviewed Dunedin South National candidate Joanne Hayes last week (together with Ella Spittle). Other Politics students have also had turns (Niki Lomax and Finn O’Dwyer Cunliffe interviewed Metiria Turei, Josh Hercus and Ashley Murchison interviewed David Parker). And I’ve also interviewed Dunedin North Labour candidate David Clark and National MP Michael Woodhouse.
Next up (tomorrow) is Senior Labour MP David Cunliffe. And next week there are two Vote Chats: I’m interviewing Hone Harawira on Thursday and then Annette King on Friday. Other MPs that are scheduled for future sessions include Hilary Calvert, Carol Beaumont, Catherine Delahunty, Phil Goff, Clare Curran, Simon Bridges, Tau Henare, Gareth Hughes and Kevin Hague. I’m hoping to include more MPs – but am still waiting on the parties to offer them.
Although the meetings are primarily intended as a two-way conversation between the interviewer and politician, I’m trying to encourage a fair amount of audience participation. The audience is certainly invited to cheer or boo anything they feel strongly about. And questions are invited from the floor. I’m also trying to utilise social media, by using the Twitter hashtag of #OUVoteChat2011 – with the Twitter feed projected up on the lecture theatre screen, allowing questions and feedback, not only from the audience in the room, but also from the wider twittersphere. This experimental element has it’s pros and cons, but certainly seems to be allowing additional engagement. The next challenge is to try and get the Vote Chat sessions streamed live on the internet. There’s also a Facebook page here.
Anyhow, if you’re in Dunedin, feel free to come and participate in a Vote Chat session in the Archway 4 lecture theatre at 12 noon every Friday. But if you’re further afield, please feel free to email me any interesting questions to ask any particular MP, or else participate on Twitter.
