Jevan Goulter No stranger to controversy himself, Jevan Goulter is making a bid to replace the controversial Michael Laws as the mayor of Whanganui. The gay 21-year-old believes councils across the country need new young blood and with Laws leaving, it's a good chance for someone fresh to take the helm. Although he believes Laws has done some good work, he says the mayor is also "anti-anything that's not him" and locals are sick of him. Goulter is not from the area, but says he has been to the town a number of times and run shows there. "I'm not born and bred in Whanganui, but when I was at high school my principal left and both of the deputy principals applied for his job and neither of them got it. They brought in someone completely new from somewhere else who had new skills and attributes." He thinks the situation is similar in Whanganui, with the current deputy and two other councillors standing for mayor. "It's not very exciting, they've all been there for quite a while, so it's not going to actually gain anything from electing those people." Goulter says Whanganui has huge problems with healthcare, education, safety and gangs, and those are some of the areas he wants to tackle. "I want to move Whanganui into a positive direction and give a positive image to the rest of the country. I think Michael Laws, though he's also done some good, has sabotaged Whanganui's image," he says. His campaign is being backed by Lisa Lewis, the adult entertainer who notoriously streaked at an All Blacks game in Hamilton in 2006, who Goulter says has a great following in Whanganui. "She's jumping right behind me and she's going to be hard on the campaign trail with me. She thinks it's great. So it's great that two people like ourselves are working together. We obviously both come from different groups which have a lot of critics." Goulter has been a controversial figure in the gay community. A birthday fundraiser he organised for Carmen Rupe's birthday last October raised less than $500. He later apologised for the mismanagement. He knows he still has detractors, but has this response: "Oh look, you know what, if it wasn't for them nobody would be talking about me - so I must thank them." He is also standing in the Lambton Ward for the Wellington City Council, and says if he is elected to both roles it will simply mean he will be busy. "I was thinking about it and I thought, wouldn't it be funny if there were two mayors sitting at the council chamber in Wellington?" Infamous by Jevan Political aspirations aside, Goulter is currently in Brisbane working on his own cologne, Infamous by Jevan, which he is planning to launch on October 8, the night before the elections, which is also his birthday. He says the fragrance is very strong and distinctive. "When I went into the lab I said I wanted something I can wear into a nightclub at 11 at night - and walk out at six in the morning and still smell great," he says. "If you want to be smelt, if you want to be noticed, if you want people to smell it - that's what it's good for. It's not subtle . . . I wanted something that reflected me and I think it does reflect me, very much so."
Credit: GayNZ.com Daily News staff
First published: Thursday, 15th July 2010 - 6:06pm