WITH a general election in just over a month this week Capital Times starts looking at the election campaign and in particular the fight for Wellington Central. The electorate extends from Pipitea in the north to as far south as Civic Square.  It is the best educated electorate in the country, has the highest proportion of 20-29 year olds, and the highest income earners. Labour has held the seat since Marian Hobbs took it from Richard Prebble in 1999. It’s MP since 2008 has been Grant Robertson.
This week we profile two Wellington Central hopefuls Stephen Whittington standing for ACT, and Green candidate James Shaw.
Green man
JAMES Shaw is a big movie buff but it might be a while before he finds the time to go again.
The 38 year old enjoys sci fi movies, the visual effects in the big Hollywood blockbusters, and the experience of being taken into another world.
On this side of the screen Shaw is a freelance consultant specialising in management, sustainable business development, leadership and executive coaching. He was a former manager in the chairman’s office of PricewaterhouseCoopers.
Shaw is a Wellingtonian. He spent his teenage years in the Aro Valley and returned there to live 18 months ago. He attended Scots College, Wellington High and Victoria University before starting his career as a media relations assistant at ECNZ.
For 12 years Shaw lived in the UK where he obtained his MSc from the Bath University School of Management. While overseas he travelled to over 50 countries on every continent.
“What I saw really made me appreciate what’s great about New Zealand and what it is we need to protect and enhance.”
In London he formed a branch of the Green party of Aotearoa New Zealand and stood as a candidate there in 2008 to campaign for the expatriate vote.
Shaw says he first became involved with the Green Party when he heard a political debate while at high school.
“The Green candidate just made so much sense I joined the party and stood for Wellington City Council in 1992,” Shaw says.
Shaw does admit to becoming disillusioned with politics for a short while “but I realised if we are going to pave the road for sustainable development there are some things that can only be done through politics.”
He says the Greens are offering an alternative future for New Zealand and he’s standing for parliament now because he’s committed to transforming the economy and turning New Zealand into a sustainable, smart and prosperous country.
“I am committed to finding a way of bringing what I know of systemic change in organisations and applying it to transforming our economic system so that we and all our industries renew and replenish more than we take.”

ACTion man
IF Stephen Whittington makes it into Parliament we should see an improvement in the level of debating in the Chamber.
Whittington is a two-time winner of both the New Zealand Impromptu University Debating Championships and the New Zealand Prepared Debating Championships. Internationally he has twice made the grand final of the Australasian Intervarsity Debating Championships and in 2009 was named as the 15th best speaker in the world. He is currently President of the Wellington Speaking Union involved in organising school debating across the region.
Whittington is Wellington born and bred. He attended Paparangi Primary School, Newlands Intermediate and Wellington College before heading to Victoria University where he gained an LLB (Hons) and a BA in Latin. He worked at the TAB call centre to finance his studies and in his final year as a public law tutor and an advisor to Sir Roger Douglas in Parliament. Currently he works in the tax law team for Russell McVeagh in Wellington.
When he’s not working or debating Whittington plays squash “very badly” and enjoys mountain biking. He’s also likes gardening in the vegetable patch he’s created at the Newtown flat he shares with his long-term partner Chani, a doctor at Wellington Hospital.
The 25 year old says he’s entering politics because he believes he can make a difference and he thinks it’s an important time in New Zealand’s history when the right political decisions need to be made.
“The political decisions made today will shape the country’s future. I’m concerned as a young person that the government is borrowing $300 million a week and it will be my generation and the generations after that will be paying it back.”
He’s particularly concerned about the cost of property in Wellington and says young people in relatively well paid jobs are finding it increasingly difficult to step onto the property ladder.
Whittington has been a member of ACT for three years.
“ACT is the only party proposing the kinds of policies that are necessary for making New Zealand more prosperous and a fairer place to live. ACT has the only policies that will help those on low incomes and the disadvantaged. It’s not a party of rich pricks, it’s the opposite.”