Mon 10 Oct 2016 In: New Zealand Daily News View at Wayback View at NDHA
Richard Hills It is looking increasingly certain that openly gay candidate Richard Hills will take his place on the Auckland Council this Thursday. “My majority has increased by 8 votes to 79, so that's a good thing and they are treating me as though I am the elected councilor so I have to go in on Thursday,” Hills says. “It doesn't sound as though the result will change, the trend is towards me and the special votes are small in number. So all going well I should be elected but I obviously can't claim that just yet. Hills says his success may be due to “my last two times on the local board... I tried to put myself out there and really worked hard so I hope it's a bit of a reflection of thew work that I've done. He believes the “positivity” theme of his campaign also motivated people to vote for him. He says being gay hasn't affected his campaign. “There have been a couple of nasty comments out there but nothing that I care about. People I feel are over it, that's the candidate and he happens to have a male partner, big deal which I feel excited about. A lot of the young people I work with are saying how cool it is, especially the ones that are queer students because it gives them more opportunity.
Credit: GayNZ.com Daily News staff
First published: Monday, 10th October 2016 - 9:03am