Last night’s Aro valley meeting was a pleasure. It was superbly organised. The Chair (Bryan Crump) was well chosen, and there was a persistent current of good humour outlasting nastiness. There may be relief in my pleasure because all of us candidates know in advance that our only required role is to be the target of audience wit.

Witty they were but I think that for this meeting there was more interest than previously in the policy tensions between parties. I’ve had a look back at my rumination on the meeting before the last election. Apart from feeling that it was a nadir for Marian Hobbs who is deservedly well liked, the comparison shows this year’s meeting as much more informative as well as amusing.

I speculate two explanations.

First the finance meltdown may have focussed minds on who may be governing in uncertain times, and they suspect that ideology may not a comprehensive guide to what to do at the moment.

Secondly, many on the left have lost some of their moral smugness as they’ve discovered their heroes involved in electoral corruption, cynical suppression of free speech and an obvious desperation for power whatever the price in the embrace with a lying NZ First leader.

DimPost’s reportage gives some of the flavour.

I was a little surprised that Robertson’s team again tried with three "questions" to smear me as anti-gay. Gay friends had warned me that Robertson thought it was working well for him but this is the fourth meeting in which they’ve tried it. I was glad when the meeting gave me extra time to outline what was actually in the civil union legislation, and why I voted against it despite being in favour of  the Law Commission proposal based on a Danish precedent, and despite a long-standing position against the criminalisation of homosexuality when that was much more controversial.

I think he’s wrong about this issue.  Wellingtonians want to know about what we can respectively offer Wellington and how we will champion the city. I get the same concerns from gay and others alike. I can not think of a single law or policy proposal that has been raised in my ten weeks of knocking on doors where it would have occurred to me or the people at the door to draw a gay/non-gay distinction.

I wish someone in the audience had called on Grant to explain exactly what gay friendly policies he thinks are at risk or what he would promote if he gained power, when he has been at such pains to make this an election issue.