Election 2026: Wairarapa candidate Jared Gardner wants to change the monetary system
A Wairarapa candidate wants to change the country’s monetary system.
Originally from Napier and living at a public marae in Pahiatua, Jared Warren Gardner, 39, ran as an independent candidate in the 2023 general election in Wairarapa and the local election in Tararua District in 2025.
For this election, Gardner has established Te Pāti Hira, which he said stood for truth, love and serving the people.
He said if elected to the seat, which also covers most of Tararua and parts of Central Hawke’s Bay, he planned to change the country’s monetary system from the “debt monetary matrix”, the framework in which modern money is created, expanded and sustained through credit-debt relationships rather than physical commodities, to a jubilee system, a concept more than 4000 years old that he said would include widespread public and private debt forgiveness.
Gardner said his policy was a way of starting a conversation around monetary systems.
“Money in a lot of ways dictates our everyday lives, and very few people have sat down and really studied the system that really dictates even what happens in Parliament.
“If we are to address some of these systematic inequalities, we really have to start looking at the monetary system at large.”
He said a vote for him was a vote to look at the country’s monetary system.
“Is governance about the people, is it about te tangata [the people], or is it about wealth and accumulation?
“Time and time again, it seems to be that through Parliament ... the aspiration of life, the purpose of life, is just to accumulate and to be as profitable as possible.”
He said anyone interested in the “root of problems” at Parliament should vote for him.
“What I’m all about is looking at the root causation of where out issues come from in governance.
“If [voters] are for truth, for doing truly loving governance, they should vote for me.”
If he didn’t get voted in this election, Gardner said Wairarapa voters should expect to see him run in many future elections, “God willing”.
Jack Riddell is a multimedia journalist with Hawke’s Bay Today and has worked in radio and media in Britain, Germany and New Zealand.