The political system is complex and difficult to oppose.

It can be difficult to make yourself heard when you have an issue with politics.

Erika Harvey has dedicated her career to levelling the playing field and influencing the government on behalf of the people.

Erika wants to be the bridge between politicians and the community.

Some people are too busy to do it on their own, they don't have the money to hire lawyers or the time to create a lobby.

“In 2019 I ran in my first election because the council had made some decisions and it was affecting a lot of small businesses.

“We were one of them.

“We had just left our job, and put everything we had into this small business, and then the council was making a silly decision and it wasn't even fit for purpose in the area.

“For a few years we kept having these meetings and as we were having meetings, the development was still going ahead.”

It was then that Erika decided she wanted to run in the election.

“Through that election I learned a lot and I learned a lot about processes. I learned a lot about lobbying and how things get done in the city and local and central government.

“I learned a lot about how they make decisions, which is on data, not on feeling, and that most of the people making decisions don't have the expertise in the areas of the decisions that they're making.

“They make those decisions based on the evidence and the data that they have to make them go, ‘Oh, that makes sense, we'll put it through’.

Erika realised the biggest issue is the lack of access to lobbying.

“In New Zealand, we don’t have lobbying regulations.

“The reason why most people don’t lobby is because almost everyone has (like I did), a full-time job, we have bills to pay, we have kids, we have so much other stuff going on in our lives that to follow something in politics, A, it’s boring, and B, it just takes too long and you have to have a lot of time.”

Erika says you also have to have a lot of money, “it requires legal expertise, specialists, sometimes you might need an engineer.”

“The only reason why I ran in these elections was never because I wanted to be a politician, I don’t want to be a politician.

“However, what I really want to do is represent people, communities and voices.”

Erika says she can use her skills through corporate and entrepreneurship to develop solutions and she can then lobby on behalf of people to government.

“That way people have a contact that is invested in helping them.”

“I’m like a bridge between communities and politicians and decision-makers.

“The elections have allowed me to build up my credibility and people know who I am now.

Erika says this will make it easier as people will know that she will do all the work, figure out what she can do and find out what the blockage is and why it’s not going through.

Erika asks people to send in their petitions for her to have a look at and figure out what she can do.

Erika will help to come up with a lobby and come up with the campaign.

“We then crowdfund that lobby from the public to see if they can contribute to towards it and then the funds that we get, we will g and hire our lawyers, the teams we need, financial people, and everything that we need to create the lobby.

“Then we do a marketing campaign as well.”

“We’re looking for ways to level the playing field and influence government on behalf of the people, the people who are too busy to do it on their own, who don’t have the money to hire people, people who love to live here and want ways that they can make a difference, but they're too busy to do it on their own.

“So they can hire us to do it for them.”

“My biggest fear of politics right now is that there is such a distrust that it’s going to make things very hard because you have people who instead of looking for solutions are being angry and getting mad at the wrong people.

“I really want to find a way that we can actually create this bridge.”

Erika says in 2020 you had a portion of Kiwis who were so afraid of the virus they wanted the vaccine, and the other portion of people were so afraid of the vaccine, they would rather catch the virus.

“What the government did is they said, your fears are okay and your fears are not, you guys are crazy.

“You can’t say, your rights matter, but yours don’t.”

Erika says you don’t care about politics and decisions until they directly impact your life or someone that you care about.

“That's usually when people get involved and by that stage, it's usually too late.”

“We're going to be holding workshops in the New Year around, how to create the perfect lobby.

Erika is working on “Creating good lobbyists out there so that people can start not just advocating, but making an impact by following this methodology that we've come up with to help them get traction.

“I encourage the public to start a petition to highlight how many people are affected by some local issues and to submit it to us to lobby on their behalf.

To submit your petition click here.