Surreal but awesome

Completing a master’s degree in ecology is just one of many achievements for Elliot Weir, who graduates from the University of Otago this Saturday after spending their student years exposing neo-Nazis, feeding geckos, and serving a term on the Otago Regional Council (ORC).

After growing up on a diet of David Attenborough documentaries, Elliot says they’ve always been drawn to the natural world. Ecology was the perfect fit, and university life also enabled Elliot to pursue another interest: journalism. After writing a piece for student magazine Critic Te Ārohi, Elliot quickly became the magazine’s features editor.

“Prior to that I’d had a job standing on the street trying to get people to fill out a survey for someone’s PhD research. It was good practice for getting myself out there and talking to people who would rather not talk to me!” Elliot says.

That practice paid off when Elliot later ran for council, becoming the youngest-ever ORC councillor at age twenty-one. Elliot’s passion for ecology made them a natural fit for the council, which is tasked with managing Otago’s environment.

“Working for the Critic, I’d followed what was happening with the Manuherekia River and the ORC. The use of the river was contentious and there was all this drama. I fell into a massive rabbit hole of watching council meetings and reading documents,” Elliot says.

“The local election was coming up, and I didn’t think any candidates would make significant change, so at the last minute I decided to stand. At first I was worried about the other Councillors being older and more experienced, but after listening to a few council meetings I thought I could probably hold my own in that room.”

After the campaign wrapped up, Elliot was working on a Monarch wildlife cruise looking at Hector’s dolphins when they noticed they had a missed call.

“I rang back and they were ‘like, yeah, you’ve been elected’. It felt surreal but awesome.”

Sitting around the council table, coming face-to-face with people whose “antics” Elliot had written about for Critic, was also an interesting experience.

“It was a little bit awkward, and they were trying to figure out how seriously to take me. But I think I manged to show I was across the issues.”

Elliot continued studying part-time while on council, so they had mixed feelings when they weren’t re-elected at the end of their term.

“It definitely stung, but I was happy to start doing other things in my life. I was looking into the role of kōrero geckos in the reproduction of the mingimingi/coprosma plant. Dunedin’s great for ecology research because it’s the doorstep to so many natural environments. Going to the Catlins for field work was a real highlight, and the Otago Peninsula’s got to be one of the coolest places in the country.”

Though it was Elliot’s environmental writing that changed the course of their career, their most impactful Critic piece was about something quite different: neo-Nazis.

“I spent six months undercover in neo-Nazi organisations, feeling as though I was in a spy movie. One of their members was running for Hutt City Council, and my work contributed to him being outed.”

Elliot wouldn’t recommend infiltrating hate groups, but they would love to see other students stand for local government.

“Students are residents and need to have a stake in the decisions that are made. It’s also a great job to have while doing postgraduate study, because it’s flexible,” Elliot says.

“University was the perfect preparation for council. It gave me ecological wisdom, a sense of what was needed for tauira, the analytical skills to process big policy documents, and a foundation of community.”

-Kōrero by Kathryn van Beek, Communications Advisor | Kaiarataki Pārokoroko