THE St Saviour Parish Hall was packed to the rafters for a lively and wide-ranging hustings that touched on both local parish issues and Islandwide concerns in equal measure.
Proceedings were swiftly kicked off with a two-minute opening salvo from the five candidates in contention for the four available Deputy seats.
Deputy Louise Doublet, standing as an independent candidate, set her stall out as a community-driven, evidence-based and compassion-led politician with a proven track record of bringing tangible benefit to the St Saviour community.
“Important to me is working across the Assembly with people of different political views, and I have a track record of doing that very successfully”, she argued.
Her fellow incumbent, Deputy Malcolm Ferey, spoke of his extensive experience across the finance industry and working for Citizen’s Advice Jersey, before describing his election in 2022 as “one of the best days of my life”.
Like Deputy Doublet, he referred to his being on the “forefront” of “some really positive changes to the Island” throughout his time serving as a St Saviour Deputy.
Reform Jersey candidate Deputy Raluca Kovacs made the persuasive case that Islanders want “practical solutions and not political theatre”, before pointing to a slew of legislative efforts made by her party over the last term.
On the other hand, political newcomer Chris Leck set out a “business” approach to politics before peppering the audience with a series of rhetorical invocations.
“What are we spending money on? Why are we spending it? Can we spend on something better? We’ve got to grasp the nettle,” he said during an animated opening address.
Fellow independent candidate Robert Parker also suggested taking a more clinical approach to States of Jersey accounts.
He suggested that Islanders are now faced with “almost a 40% increase” in their tax-rate once above the basic allowance, adding: “It is not surprising Middle Jersey feels squeezed.”
The floor was promptly opened up to questions; with the St Saviour audience initially focusing on issues pertaining specifically to the parish.
One topic of particular note concerned the future of the St Saviour Hospital site.
Deputy Doublet said that any long-term solution for the site for the former mental health facility would require a considered approach that would “preserve our heritage” and maintain biodiversity.
Mr Leck was more unequivocal: “Just knock it down”, he stated, before adding that the site could be a “fantastic” for “recreational facilities” like a “skateboarding park”.
Deputy Kovacs made the case that the public should be “always consulted” on the future of the site.
“Barriers need to be reviewed”, she admitted, while also noting obstacles posed by the fact the site features a listed building.
Mr Parker generated perhaps the loudest applause of the night by railing against the “frustration” industry-leaders face by having to take a “back seat” to civil servants on planning issues.
Deputy Ferey said the most important thing was to “get something done with that area” and proposed a parish meeting with which to “get together, discuss it and move forward”.
As one would expect, the issue of Jersey’s cost-of-living crisis recurred throughout the evening, with the five candidates offering myriad solutions.
Fondly recalling being able to buy a round of drinks for “half the price” as you would in the UK, Mr Parker attributed spiralling prices across the Island to unnecessary “supply chain taxation”.
Deputy Ferey similarly argued that best remedy for cost of living is to “grow the economy”, while Mr Leck suggested that we need to first “find out why” Islanders are using food banks at an unprecedented level.
“Have they not had the right access to the benefits they can get?”, he wondered.
For her part, Deputy Kovacs proposed building more family-sized housing for young families; and pointed to Reform Jersey’s introduction of subsidised healthcare for two-to-three-year-olds as an example of actionable policy taken to alleviate cost-of-living.
Deputy Doublet, who spoke eloquently about cost-of-living throughout the night, referred to “rising inequality” and questioned the so-called “trickle-down” effect created by “high value residents”.
She directed parishioners to the “minimum income standards project”, a directive she believes would help low-income families “actually live comfortably”.
As the evening drew to end, the five candidates found themselves singing off the same hymn book for the first time in response to a question about the importance of the Jersey Employment Trust.
Each prospective deputy agreed that there was a “duty of care” to maintain funding for the JET and spoke positively about the significance of Jersey’s charity sector.
Final speeches were then delivered, with Deputy Malcolm Ferey praising the audience the audience for their “incisive” and “considered” questions – an observation hard to disagree with.
