By Emily Norman
Masterton Fab Lab co-founder John Hart has put his name in the ring to stand for Parliament, representing the Green Party.
Not just as the Wairarapa electorate MP, but as a potential List MP.
Mr Hart was recently nominated by the Wairarapa Green Party Branch to be their candidate in the 2017 General Election, but he is also next on the Green Party list to enter parliament after two sitting Green MPs confirmed they would not be standing in the next election.
This List is subject to change, but Mr Hart remains hopeful.
“While the economy is doing well for some people, the government is doing a pretty poor job for a lot of people,” he said.
“We’ve got kids sleeping in cars, we’ve got rivers that we can’t swim in.
“We’re moving in the wrong direction as a country.”
Mr Hart is a sheep and beef farmer who has lived in Wairarapa for the past eight years.
He has a track record of “getting the job done” after setting up Masterton’s Fab Lab when he “saw a need for it in the community”.
“I said let’s do it and make it happen,”
“That’s a quality we should look for in MPs – people that want to get stuff done in the community.”
Mr Hart said people should vote for the person who best represented their electorate and he wanted to quash the perception that the Green Party was “anti-farming”.
“We’ve got hundreds of Green Party members who live in rural areas and some of them are farmers themselves.
“We’re not anti-farming, we’re pro- better farming.
“We want farming to be more sustainable and have a lower impact.
Mr Hart was the Green Party candidate for Wairarapa in the last general election.
He received 1566 votes in 2014 behind NZ First’s Ron Mark with 8630, Labour’s Kieran McAnulty with 9452, and National’s Alastair Scott with 16,223.
1. Can Mr Hart tell me how many children does he actually know that sleep in cars, 2 please name the rivers that one cannot swim in? 3.If the govt is not doing enough, would he please explain why is New Zealand the most prosperous country in the world at the moment.