I am a Chartered Accountant, a Malaysian-born Chinese New Zealander and current president of the Ethnic/Multicultural Council Wellington.

I have years of experience in public, private, not-for-profit and voluntary sectors. I bring strong financial management, leadership and cross-cultural skills to the Capital & Coast District Health Board (CCDHB) and the Wellington City Council (WCC).

As a former Reporting Accountant for CCDHB, I bring valuable insight into operational issues. I will ensure the CCDHB provides quality and timely healthcare to all patients, regardless of age, gender or ethnicity, and evaluate efficiencies to ensure financial viability.

My previous work experience in the Quality Assurance and Finance division of WCC provides me with good understanding of the processes around striking rates, setting of Council policies and delivery of Council services to ratepayers and residents of Wellington.

I love Wellington and its vibrant multicultural nature. It is time for ethnic representation on the WCC and CCDHB to better serve the needs of the local community.

Top 5 Issues

1. AFFORDABLE RATES – Keeping home ownership affordable by managing the cost of rates through tighter Council spending on non-core activities and non-essential funding.
2. SENSIBLE URBAN & SUBURBAN PLANNING – Tighter control over subdivisions and infill housing rules. Reduce high density housing building consents in low density areas. Ensure Northern Ward housing development plans, traffic flows and inner city access are sensible and well managed. Ensure that Council decisions on commercial developments across the wards are impartial and fair, especially the development of the Johnsonville Mall. Ensure that city planning includes adequate, well maintained open public spaces for recreational use.
3. COMMUNITY SAFETY – Identify and address through Council policies any negative social consequences affecting the safety of city and Northern Ward residents and visitors.
4. AGED AND DISABLED – Ensure that Council decisions made on traffic access to the inner city, are not detrimental to the enjoyment of those with mobility and access issues. Ensure adequate public facilities and easy access to council services for the elderly and the disabled.
5. CCDHB HEALTH SERVICES - ensure quality and timely healthcare to all patients regardless of age, gender or ethnicity. Identify and reduce process inefficiencies to maintain financial viability.

Personal Profile

I first came to New Zealand in 1995 to study in Nelson where I met my then future husband Liam who is from Timaru. After obtaining my New Zealand Chartered Accountancy qualifications, I returned to Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia to work for 2 years.

In 1997 I came back to New Zealand to marry and live, this time to Wellington, where we moved into Newlands and have lived in the Northern Ward for the past 12 years. It has been quite an interesting experience, adapting to the Kiwi lifestyle which is quite different from the Malaysian culture that I came from.

My parents, both in their 80s now, came from Malaysia to live with us some years ago. We enjoy having their company and learn valuable life lessons and wisdom from them everyday. Dad is especially encouraging in his support for everything I do, for my involvement in community work, and in standing for this local body elections. Mum is invaluable as she supports me at home with her lovely cooking and housekeeping when I am busy. To achieve all that I do is only possible with the wonderful support and understanding of my husband and my parents.

I have worked in the Wellington City Council in 1997-2002 as the Quality Assurance Advisor and also as their Corporate Business Analyst in the Finance division. I have also worked in the Capital & Coast District Health Board as the Corporate Management Reporting Accountant between 2003-2005. In recent years, I have been working in the commercial, not-for-profit, and central government sector as a Finance Manager.

My involvement in the community includes being a past Vestry member of the Anglican Chinese Mission for 3 years, past Vice President of the New Zealand Malaysian Society of which I was involved in its committee for 6 years. Currently, I am the President of the Ethnic/Multicultural Council Wellington of which I have been involved in for the past 5 years. I currently attend church at the Abundant Life Centre in Wellington city which has a multicultural congregation.

When I have a rare bit of spare time, I enjoy cooking, gardening, eating out, travelling, aqua jogging, going to the beach, and social interactions with friends. I love animals, especially dogs.

It is great living in the Northern Ward, with its location being very convenient to Wellington, Hutt and Porirua cities. I was very glad to see the development of the new Newlands Community Centre which was long overdue. I have used the facilities and attend some of the activities held at the community centres in Johnsonville and Newlands and find that having these centres certainly helps improve social networking and bring about a deeper more connected community spirit.

In recent years with the housing and economic boom, house values have skyrocketed and rates bills have been spiralling upwards. This has adversely affected many lower income house owners in the Northern Ward. Vote me into Council so I can review the way rates are struck, and how Council is spending our rates money. I will work to ensure that rates charged are fair and reasonable, and we get value for money on the rates income generated by Council.

Over these years I have watched the commercial growth and housing development of Johnsonville, Newlands, Grenada, Tawa and Churton Park areas. I noticed how these have brought about an increase in traffic flows during peak hours, and contributed to congestion of narrow winding streets with parked cars from increase in households through subdivisions and high density housing in recent times. This created higher risk of accidents and road safety for school children walking to school or getting off buses stopped at congested roads. I see the need for urgent review of suburban planning to address these issues.

Community safety is a growing concern in the Northern suburbs. We need to nip crime in the bud and have zero tolerance for violence, vandalism, burglaries, shoplifting, and snatch thieves. Through appropriate Council strategies, development of better community network and support, neighbourhood watch, teaching our kids and working closer with Police, the community can do much to improve our own safety.

There is an ageing population of baby boomers who have long set up home in the Northern suburbs and stayed. There are also many migrant elders who have come to live with their adult migrant children and look after the Kiwi-born grandchildren while the parents go to work. These elders often do not have access to social networks and community activities, partly due to lack of transport and also language barriers. The Council has to be continually conscious of the needs of the aged residents group and ensure adequate facilities and avenues for them to connect with each other and access Council services.

I have also noticed how the Northern Ward has become very multicultural, with a noticeable increase in people of ethnic origins living here. The Statistics Department 2006 census shows that the Northern Ward consist of the highest percentile of ethnic residents in the whole Wellington region. There is currently no ethnic representation on the City Council. I believe it is now time for greater diversity on the City Council to better represent the multicultural nature of Wellington City.

As for wider city issues, I believe that water supply should remain public owned. It is a commodity essential to life, and should not be privatised as that would lead to control by a small group of individuals with profit oriented objectives. I do not want to see our water pipes go down the way of our railway, where the private owners milked it dry of money and did not maintain its infrastructure. Now taxpayers have to foot the bill for the derelict state of our railways. It could easily head the same way with our water supply if we privatised our water. Wellington City has always prided itself in supplying clean good tasting potable water. The Council has done well in that respect, let it remain that way. We just need to explore affordable options how we can sustain our demand for water for the future.

With regard to artificial sports surfaces/turfs, I support the development of more artificial turfs, as we need to grow our local football talent, and sports is good for health and good for communities. It would be sad to see growth of local talent impeded by the regular cancellation of games due to muddy fields from constant wet weather in winter. However, my support for this is on the proviso that there is sufficient funds to go around after all the core essential council services are funded, and also that football clubs should also try to raise funds themselves to help build these turfs.

I am in support of building a highway to the airport, as this is an essential point for any city plan. Light rail and other options are also good, but should be supplementary to, not in replacement of the road access. Light rail is not necessarily practical when it means that travellers have to haul their heavy luggage across the city by train and by bus or taxi and then switch to the light rail which will most likely be an overhead light rail requiring passengers to walk up stairs to board it with their luggage. That would be completely impractical for those with kids and elderly people heading to the airport. (I know, I used to live in Asia where there is light rail).

I am familiar with the financial operations of the CCDHB as I have previously worked there as the Corporate Management Reporting Accountant in the Finance division for two years between 2003-2005. While I was there I noted areas of potential process improvements and cost savings that can contribute towards the objective of stronger financial viability. I made radical changes to the financial report to the Board, to make it easier for non-financial members to understand, and provide decision useful information. I received accolades for the new report format from the Board members for its conciseness, readability and decision usefulness.

The CCDHB is facing a significant crisis with operational difficulties due to limited funding availability. The current elected board members consist of 4 medical personnel and 3 city councillors, it speaks much when the CEO resigned with frustration at being unable to deal with the financial situation. What the CCDHB desperately needs now are experienced accountants who are well versed in financial management to give strategic direction to senior hospital management. I have this public sector experience. So vote with this in mind when you cast your vote for the CCDHB.

I ask that you give me your number 1 vote for both the Northern Ward (if you are a resident of Northern suburbs) and the Capital & Coast DHB (for all of Wellington city and the Kapiti Coast). I aim to serve the local community to the best of my ability using my strong financial and leadership skills, local government and public sector experience, as well as my good cross-cultural understanding through my ethnic council leadership.

I thank you in advance for your support by giving me your #1 vote for both the Northern Ward City Councillor role and the Capital and Coast District Health Board role.