Why Support Dave When You Don’t Agree With Him?
This is my request for you to support my campaign.
I think we are all focussed as a community, as a world even, on what divides us and what we disagree on.
We stand far apart from each other and shout across a huge divide, no one prepared to give an ideological centimetre to their opponents.
But what good is that doing?
It gives us all a hollow moral victory dais to say “I’m right and everyone else doesn’t matter.”
I am sure you’re not that person and I know I’m not either.
I’ve never had any interest in standing for political office, and I had several offers over the years.
But I do believe that we need to come together and start acting like a community again, and embrace our differences rather than use them as weapons on each other.
That can only be achieved by showing people the way to do it.
I’m currently inviting musicians to participate in Dave Aid – A Concert For Whakatane.
One of my guests who has said yes is a musical friend who I have been involved with since my teens. He’s a Ponsonby property portfolio investment advisor and we couldn’t be further apart politically. But he knows me and he knows what I stand for.
He knows I will make a good councillor and he hopes other good councillors will out vote me and follow policies more aligned with his perspective.
But he isn’t worried that I will challenge them and prosecute for my own values.
He was concerned that participating might be seen as a political ‘endorsement’ and I told him I have no problems with you using the platform at the benefit concert to explain we don’t agree on some things, but I would ask you to see that by participating you also show that the world is bigger than a disagreement two friends might have.
Our world needs to know that friends can disagree and still be friends.
We can have strong disagreements and still be friends.
It’s because we are friends that we can disagree.
This is my message to the Whakatane Community – let’s remember that, at heart, we are all human and count on each other.
We need to heal our divisions.
If you think about this and still find it a bit more than you can be comfortable with, I am totally fine with that.
And I really appreciate that for some people this is a difficult decision, and whatever your answer to it is, is the right decision.
For you and me and for everyone.
