At the end of June, The Wireless held a discussion at Q theatre loft in Auckland. On the panel were RockEnrol’s Laura O'Connell-Rapira; Joe Nunweek of The Pantograph Punch and Richard Bartlett, from Loomio, helped along by audience members, including one who called voting “viciously uncool”, and the orange guy “sick and wrong”.
Laura wants to use RockEnrol to help get young people’s voices heard in the Beehive, and to hold decision-makers to account. She’s looking to start a youth movement. “If you add every NGO, every media outlet, every well-known celebrity or ambassador, or every politician themselves, saying ‘hey this voting thing is important, I want to hear what your point of view is’, then we’d have a lot more people turning up come election day.”
“It’s that moment of changing your mind that is the stuff living for.” Rich says. “I want to see people creating the society that they want to live in, and I don’t see that voting is a particularly effective way to achieve that society. I don’t honestly think we can vote out climate change.”
Joe Nunweek wants to see politicians using social media. “But it’s because I like watching funny and awkward things happen through the cracks between my fingers.”
You can watch the full video of the panel on our Vimeo page.
If you’d like to hear more, listen to Rich Bartlett, and The Wireless’ Megan Whelan talking about the event on bFM.
