George Hampton has spent years working on energy infrastructure at the United Nations, but the Christchurch Central Labour candidate says the lessons he learned on the world stage matter most when they hit close to home.

“When you think about things like climate change, I think people think of international conferences rather than their guttering,” Hampton said. “But that is increasingly what we are seeing around the country. Every eight days this year we have had an extreme weather event.”

He said the connection between global forces and local hardship runs deeper than most people realise.

“Anything from the price of butter to the price of bus fares right now is being affected by what is happening in the Strait of Hormuz,” Hampton said. “I want to bring that practical problem solving back home to Christchurch.”

Hampton was born in Christchurch and lived here for his first 24 years before heading overseas.

He has been back on and off since late last year and is now campaigning full time in the electorate.

He and his wife also have a three-year-old daughter, which he said sharpened his thinking about what kind of country New Zealand should be.

“We really want to have her grow up in the best country in the world, which is of course New Zealand,” he said. “The more you see the incredible sense of momentum Christchurch has right now, the more you want to be part of that.”

Hampton said that momentum depends on having strong representation in Wellington, and he sees that as the core argument for his candidacy.

“If you don’t have a strong voice up there, there is enormous sucking up into Auckland,” he said. “The momentum that we have in Christchurch right now did not come for free and will not keep on going unless we actually have people up there hitting the bat pretty hard for us.”

On the doorstep, he said one issue consistently stands above the rest. During recent door knocking in Papanui, he encountered families facing choices that would have been unthinkable not long ago.

“You have got families literally choosing between going to the doctor or putting fuel in the car right now,” he said.

“They are not just doing it tough. For some of these people it is the worst time in their entire lives. An average Kiwi would think if you have got a job and maybe your partner has got a job, you are going to do okay, but that is not actually their reality anymore.”

Hampton described Christchurch Central as a place with a distinctive character that sets it apart from other urban electorates, one he believes gives it particular economic and political weight.

“Christchurch Central has always been that dichotomy between being the heart of liberal Canterbury, both on the left and the right, and really the dynamism of business for the entire region, if not the South Island,” he said.

“There is an intellectual, political, and financial hub here, really, and that interaction has always made Christchurch special and different from the other two big centres.”

He said Christchurch’s current economic strength came from deliberate investment and self belief, not luck, and warned the gains are not permanent.

“In 10 years’ time you could be looking at 250 people sleeping rough in the city, a transport and water infrastructure that probably cannot take another 50,000 people unless we make some major investment decisions, and kids deciding that instead of an overseas experience they want to be part of an overseas exodus,” Hampton said. “That is not the future that Canterbury and Christchurch needs.”

He said the city’s resilience was built incrementally and needs the same commitment going forward. “The potential we have as an economy has come from a lot of hard won years by Cantabrians,” he said. “We need to keep putting the foot to the pedal.”