The other night, cooped up inside on yet another interminable stormy wet wintery night, I chanced across Batman Returns, the Michael Keaton Bat-flick featuring Danny De Vito as the Penguin aka Oswald Cobblepot and Michelle Pfeiffer as CatWoman. I realised that this was Tim Burton film-making for fun and enjoyment, without excess CGI – or possibly without any CGI at all (which just ruins the experience, because you know nothing is really real). The Penguin really did have at least some real live penguins swimming around – can’t CGI that! No skinny blue monkeys flying around on painted Muppets with USB drives in their hair-extensions (side-note: I really hope that Cameron’s crapfest of blue lemurs is a total fail at the box-office). But what I also noted in the Batman films is the importance of the figure of the Mayor, and as always, there is an arch-nemesis of the Mayor as well. And I realised that while Auckland has got a genuine evil bogieman in the runoff for Auckland Mayor (if we can classify the suitably loathsome Evil Molloy as the Penguin /CobblePot in their mayoral race), in Wellington so far we have only farce.
Yes folks, the Wellington race for a new Mayor has so far been a bit of a limp affair. So far we appear only to have been attracting the joke candidates, rather than the real main contenders. Last time we had a very Batmanesque arrival of the wealthy hobbit-botherer himself deciding to help fund one of the candidates, but this time there has been little noise of interest so far, and so far no appearance of the Master of Seatoun and Karaka Bay to orchestrate some magic from behind the scenes. Without the benefit of any numbers at all to back me up, the entire array of candidates for the leadership seems to me to be weak and rather pathetic. Uninspiring! So, let’s look so far at who we have actually got.
There is a supposedly front-running woman, former Greens chief of staff Tory Whānau (Pakakohi), but she does not appear to have made a single utterance as yet, so we can’t judge her on anything. Apparently she is very good at corralling obstreperous Green MPs into line – something that is clearly needed at the moment in the halls of power, given that the Greens appear hell-bent on ousting their best/only chance of any power in the control of political destiny in Aotearoa. Perhaps it would be best if Whanau returns to the Kakariki Whanau and wrangles them once more before they self-destruct and hand over the reins to more National voters. But Whanau’s force may be just the thing to cope with the triumvirate of stroppy young Councillors we are currently suffering from in Wellington. Young cats, strutting their stuff on the aged tin rooftops of nearby character heritage areas, and all their yowling is making a terrible racket.
We of course also have the grandly self-promoting former everything Paul Eagle (Waikato Tainui) who wants to “restore the mana” of Wellington and “return the city to its former glory” but has seemed disinclined to do anything for Wellington either in his time as a Councillor or his time as an MP. Mr Eagle would normally be my pick for the character of the Penguin, as he has a cartoonish demeanour, and would probably look just as good as DeVito in a spandex onesie, but he is sadly without a range of snappy one-liners and has shown less organisational ability than a dead sheep in a puppy-food factory. The capital is blessed, I guess, in having two Māori candidates vying for the same position, but that would only be a blessing if both of them were competent and interested, something that seems to be a remote chance at present.
But wait, there’s more! We don’t have to wage this war on a racially defined bi-cultural basis, because we have someone with Chinese heritage, the one and only Ray Chung, founder of the Onslow Residents’ Community Association. I was briefly hopeful that Chung would be a breath of fresh air into the Council debates, but his utterances are banal, repetitious and often blatant bullshit – he’s a small-town suburb man prone to exaggeration of the truth and inclined to make up wildly unlikely stories. He has been highly active on the social media of the Scoop pages, which is entertaining, railing against the likelihood of six to ten storey towers spreading along the route of the Johnsonville Railway. He also grew up in Jessie Street which makes him a Te Aro boy and so I should be supporting him, but I really can’t, as I think he is lost to the suburbs now.
We have more candidates, who are on the Fringe and yet not the normal nutters that Wellington seems to attract. Applications haven’t closed yet so there is still a chance that we will get some total fruitcakes like we have had in the past. Maximus had some pretty good Mayoral-hopeful analysis in the past, like this one from 2013 when Celia Wade-Brown was running (and won). Even back then some of the Council candidates like Eagle just had a series of question-marks levied against him, obviously still the loose unit then that he still is now. Or Leviathan from three years later when Justin Lester stepped forward with a promise to install blandness and niceness around the capital. But by far the best interaction was from 2010 with Max talking direct with Mayor Kerry Prendergast over matters such as who should be the Urban Design Champion for Wellington.
At present the other Mayoral possibilities are listed as Ellen Blake, the Wellington co-ordinator of Living Streets Aotearoa; Barbara McKenzie, founder of the Wellington Significant Natural Areas (SNA) Committee; and someone called Chris Dudfield, architect. That get’s my suspicions and hackles up, as there is no Dudfield listed on the NZRAB register as an architect, which sort of proves that he is a lyer or possibly a fantasist, and probably not doing any good to either the NZRAB nor the Mayoralty. He’s obviously a complete nutter too as he wants to damn the entrance to Wellington Harbour in order to stop sea-level rise in Wellington, a proposal so stupid that it is not even worth wasting breath explaining how bad it would be in real life. Ellen Blake looks sweet and very nice and probably not savage enough to be able to keep the full rabble of Councillors in check, and Bab’s McKenzie is a crusty old fart who listed her policies on a flier that got into our FishEye towers, but none of which seemed remotely likely to be important to the city – although all will be key discussion points amongst the white-haired conservatives of Karori and Khandallah.
That leaves us with Andy Foster, the incumbent mayor.
Speaking to people outside of Wellington, the media impression that he has gained is evidently as someone who cannot control a Council and should therefore not be re-elected as Mayor – but I think that they are very much wrong. Our current Council is, in effect, ungovernable, due to the large rift between hard left and hard right. The days of a centre left and centre right are, it seems, long gone. The charismatic Green and extremely green Tamatha Paul rules a cabal of three young green Green women, who are backed by the twitterati of Wokesterdom, and she will not budge. Along with Cllr Rebecca Matthews, they are of the “any single character villa in a heritage area must be put to death” camp, somehow believing that the logical item which will replace a single house will be a well-built, well-designed, warm, comfortable and affordable block of apartments which somehow will be magically provided at a decent, low, rental price by friendly property developers with only her interests at heart. Sadly, she has no idea that this outcome is not likely to happen at all, yet alone every time.
On the other side of the great divide are a couple of people like Sean Rush who are so far to the Right it is amazing that he is not permanently awash in a sea of petrol fumes. Or perhaps he is. He has the air of a boy thinking too much about the rugby after school, instead of concentrating on the Maths lesson going on in school at the moment. He’s one of those people that will still be going on about getting Four Lanes to the Planes, long after that ship has sunk off the end of the Miramar wharf or that plane has been permanently grounded due to global warming. He’s alongside Mr Woolf, who I think is not standing again, which is probably just as well as clearly he has had enough, and mentally, Wolff gave up years ago, except to collect the pay check. And in the middle, along with Foster, are the swing voters – imminently sensible people on both sides of the political spectrum. I’ll include Ilona Pannett in that as she is the current Green candidate for Wellington Central, yet has been thrown to the wolves by the Greens for not being stupid enough to go along with Tamatha Paul’s nonsense views. What is someone who has been denuded by the Greens? A Brown, instead? Perhaps she is now more like a deciduous tree, in winter, currently leafless, but still brimming with sap. On the other side of the fence is that rich posh woman whose name I can never remember. Nicola? Nicola Willis or Nicola Young? Too much of an Old-Girl of the School choir for me, but actually reasonably sensible most of the time, in a very Nicola manner. Posh and oh-so pale. Almost translucent.
So we are left with a Council once more that is just a step away from being replaced by a Commissioner, in order to be able to rule this town coherently. If there is ONE of the candidates that is capable of rolling over this incoherent clutch of cuckoos in the Council, and get them to make decisions and stick to them, no matter how much they dislike it, that person is not going to be Eagle, who hasn’t demonstrated the capacity to power a boiled egg, let alone come to his own decision over the Island Bay CycleWay. It is certainly not going to be Blake, Dudfield or McKenzie either, all of whom are really just there for the novelty value and to add some amusement to the election. It comes down to just two people as far as I can see – one tried and tested in the Green Party, whose members are probably as scatty and erratic as the three young greenies are on Council – but how will Whānau fare against the True Blue Tories on the other side of the Tall Table? And the other is current Mayor Andy Foster, whose track record is that of the last 30 (?) years in politics, wrangling every day with a mix of left and right, striking a mostly consistent central line that seems to annoy people equally on either side of the political divide, so it must be right.
Andy Foster has also been the only person from Council to have consistently fronted to the small scale media like Wellington Scoop and the Eye of the Fish, frequently posting helpful and informative commentary online, at all times of the day and the night, which shows me that he is at least totally engaged and still enthusiastic about the job (certainly not something that Eagle has ever done or seems likely to do). At this stage therefore, without anyone having announced any real policies, Andy Foster still gets my Vote for Mayor – as someone who can get the job done.
Am I wrong? Am I right? Do you have a better choice for cartoon villain? Or who should be our saviour? Let us know below….
I’m going to start this off with a comment from Barbara McKenzie from over on Scoop, showing her rabid monkey sense of campaigning:
Barbara McKenzie, 24. July 2022, 20:48. https://wellington.scoop.co.nz/?p=146206
“Paul Eagle, endorsed by Labour councillors, is a member of a Labour government which has brought in numerous measures which are highly destructive to New Zealand. They include:
– Measures to undermine traditional property rights, contrary to the Legislative Guidelines, which stress their importance;
– Bribing all and sundry to replace agriculture with monoculture pine, including allowing foreign purchase of pasture providing it is converted to forestry;
– Numerous abusive education programmes, from critical race theory, to lying about polar bears, to bullying little kids into feeling insecure about their gender.
– The intent to divide us wherever possible, including racially.
Wellingtonians have made it clear that they abhor the present Labour / Green council and its ideologies. They would be making a big mistake if they thought Paul Eagle would be any different.”
Great read, Danny Devito stil stands as my favourite Gothem villain.
It would be nice if there was one candidate leaps and bounds in front of the rest but in this case I’d say no one is much better than Andy.
Something about Paul tends to leave a bad taste on my mouth.
And Ray seems to be campaigning on the “cut back on unnecessary spending” catchphrase but when you look at his definition of unnecessary it is things he doesn’t personally enjoy. Seems like a good way to further repel the the younger gens from our city and make it more like the drab days of the 80s. Maybe that is the former glory that half the candidates keep referring to…
Hi Tui, thanks for your comment but actually, there are things that I do like but oppose because of their exorbitant costs. For example, everyone’s favourite subject to like or hate: cycleways! I ride a bike but object to the huge cost to businesses of installing these and the dictatorial methods the WCC take to implement these. How about the $1.2 million for furniture for the COB and MOB in Civic Square to be “disposed of” only four months later when the WCC moved to their premises on The Terrace. What’s to like about this? Perhaps you do but I think it’s a total waste of ratepayer’s money.
Reporting of Eagle’s campaign launch seems to suggest current Labour endorsed councillors Matthews and O’Neill were not in attendance. Can anyone confirm?
You’re wrong. Calvert and Young were both at Eagle’s launch yesterday. Foster has alienated all bar maybe one returning councillor. He’s not up to the job of leading a group of councillors, surely everyone can see that now. That’s the core part of being Mayor, not commenting on blogs. He also now has a record – he’s bern unable to deliver anything – indeed much of what the council has delivered has been in votes against him. How have you’ve construed this as”able to get the job done”?
Also – Whanau has a full suite of policies, but I guess that doesn’t suit your narrative.
Nothing to do with suiting my narrative or not – I simply haven’t seen or heard a thing from her. In terms of reaching out to the public, I’d have to say that at present, from my perspective, she has been invisible.
Incidentally Conor – are you standing again? You’re obviously still interested and active in the social media commentary sphere – I resume that you may still throw your hat in the ring?
She’s had a 4 page profile in the listener, her launch was covered extensively, and She’s been quoted on most council issues in the dom. Her website is easily googlable and has her policies, and she’s active on social media. I’m not sure what more could be expected? Billboards of questionable legality?
Not for me Nemo. My main takeout from standing was that councils need major restructuring, or abolishing!
Thanks Conor – I’m obviously out of touch more than I had thought. I’m probably like the majority of slightly older Wellingtonians who simply don’t do much of Social media – don’t believe in the toxic twitter, or the gormless tiktoxs, or even the horrible Facebook any more. I rely on what comes through the letterbox by the front door. So, yes, I’m waiting for Billboards.
Incidentally, Eagle’s billboards said absolutely nothing, other than he likes Yellow, and is therefore probably trying to appeal to Phoenix Phans, or to Hurricane Blokes, but he is clearly standing – although it is not clear why he is standing. Eagle for Mayor # 1 – yes, and….?
This post also contains an obviously nonsense misrepresentation of Paul and Matthew’s views on the District Plan.
What any commentaror should be most concerned about is how our Mayor and his deputy ended up with a DP which pushed almost all development out of their wards and into other wards. Deeply, deeply cynical behavior.
Please enlighten me. I don’t even know what ward it is that Andy Foster represents. What has he done there that does not apply elsewhere in the city? Honest enquiry – I am not clear what measure you are discussing.
There is almost nothing zoned for apartments (6 stories or more) in the Western and Eastern wards. A few scraps here and there and a few blocks of Kilbirnie. Foster raised the amendment to downzone the Western ward. This compares with significant amounts in other wards – most notably the inner suburbs, Newtown, the CBD Johnsonville and Tawa.
Conor, this voting against development trope is false. A huge amount of development has been enabled across the entire city, three houses of three storeys on any almost every section, six storeys in town centres and four storeys surrounding town centres. Setbacks even less restrictive than the MDRS. The new DP is not preventing Councillor Matthews getting her duplex almost anywhere in the city, nor did the old DP.
Julie – 3 houses on a section is 90% of parliament over riding councils. Has nothing to do with Foster, Matthews, or any councillor. Mainly because the entire central government political class has realized how ridiculous councillors have historically been on these issues.
The point stands anyhow – significantly more capacity has been added in Northern, Central and Southern wards than Eastern and Western wards
Отвяжись!
Thanks John – exactly!
Bloody Russians ! How come they are breaking down my impeccable defences? Sorry Boris, but you’ll have to go !
I vote for a guest post on the candidates from Conor! And maybe also one on abolishing the Councils – that sounds like an idea worth entertaining.
I basically agree with this post, though don’t think it’d be popular with nemo! If you care about housing and public and active transport there are pretty straight forward front runners in each ward. http://www.islandbaycycleway.org.nz/blog/the-fab-5
Conor – I’m completely happy for you to do a guest post – no worries about that at all. On the couple of times we have met, you seemed like a bloke with his head screwed on the right way round, so I’m sure that you would write a good column. Email us at contact @ eye of the fish dot org
The problem I have is that living in the city, as I do, I don’t get much in the way of street posters for candidates as you suburban dwellers do. Coupled to that is that we have a locked front door to the apartment building, and this keeps the riff-raff out from distributing those endless bloody fliers you get in the suburbs. We have a virtually junk-mail-free existence, which is blissful, but is also why I have not seen any promotional material for candidates yet. Even the Listener doesn’t get through half the time, which is possibly why I have heard nothing about Tory Whanau.
Yes, as Connor says, I should be doing my own research – and I probably will, once the registration period closes.
I basically agree with this post, though don’t think it’d be popular with nemo! If you care about housing and public and active transport there are pretty straight forward front runners in each ward. http://www.islandbaycycleway.org.nz/blog/the-fab-5
Great link and read, thanks Conor.
Great post indeed – really good to read it. Echoes a lot of what I. have been thinking too – that despite the anti feelings from the press, the Council is not actually dysfunctional, but is torn between two extremes.
In terms of your candidates that need re electing how about the following.
Terry O’neil stood on a platform of not selling Shelly Bay then changed her mind and voted to sell. Sad, as the peninsular would make a great Regional Park – the only one with a 6000 postcode.
Laurie Foon has her heart in the right place and wants to plant 1000 trees in the city. But is quite happy for existing trees to be chopped down for ‘affordable housing’ whatever that is. Instead of promoting good design around existing greenery.
She and Fleur have just voted not to have a ‘set back’ in some places which would be great for some greenery. Which we all need as shown by the results of research during lockdown.
Lauries solution to rubbish is to just ‘close’ the rubbish tip. Yes, we should all throw away less and buy sustainably, and she is great at it, but you can’t just ‘close’ a tip without an alternative. Better recycling or reduced packaging or many other alternatives.
Tamatha Paul bemoans one week that the council isn’t a team and they can’t work together and then the next week has a full page spread in the Dompost (I think) about how she is an activist and proud of it. The two don’t go together. And I understand she is a masters student in some sort of planning qualification. A nice wicket getting the full council stipend and being a student. I must try it.
The council solution to spending $1.4m (I think it may have been much more – like $14m) on a cycle lane in Island Bay is now spending another $1.2m making it safer. The actual counter for usage is outside Wakefield Park – a full 400m past the north end of the cycle lane. I still see cyclists not using it – don’t blame them but the council thinks that every number on their counter is using the cycle lane.
To be fair, I don’t think the council officers help the situation either with the quality of the papers they put to the council for voting on. A councillor asked for the number of cyclists on a particular lane and the council officers ‘didn’t bring them along as they didn’t think it was pertinent’ to the vote on cycle lanes…
The ‘loopy’ left/green is sadly making the right wing look quite normal. I for one am in the political wilderness waiting for candidates worth voting for.
Thanks Katherine – excellent break down of the issues around some of the candidates. I’m waiting for official start to the campaigning, as I am not sure exactly who is standing again and who is not. We’ve had a diverse make-up on the Council this term – I’m unsure what we are going to end up with next term.
“The ‘loopy’ left/green is sadly making the right wing look quite normal. I for one am in the political wilderness waiting for candidates worth voting for.” You and me both !
The idea that activism and politics don’t go together is the nuts one. Every progressive politician ever has been an activist. I’d say your just betraying your conservatism Katherine.
“Every progressive politician ever has been an activist.” Hmmmm. I’m pretty sure that we could disprove that one quite quickly. Putin. Progressive or regressive? Hitler – he was an activist, then served jail time for it. Wouldn’t call him progressive though…. Closer to home then: David Seymour? Pretty sure he wasn’t an activist, and I’m not sure I’d call him progressive either. Chris Luxton? Definitely never been in a protest in his lily-white life. Jacinda Ardern? She’s def been on a few. But which one of those two is “progressive” ?
As Connor has (thankfully) outlined, I’ve been covered quite extensively in the Dom Post, Herald, Listener, Capital Magazine, Womens Day, various radio stations like ZB, Breakfast TV and so on. A quick google would reveal that. My policies are available on my website http://www.torywhanau.co.nz. Door knocking and letter drops begin in a couple of weeks, so hopefully I’ll catch you then. Do feel free to reach out if you have questions. I’ll very much prove that I want the job for sure.
Paul, Ray, Ellen and Barbara have also all released policies from what I can see. So I’m very much disputing that claim.
Thanks Tory for the comment, and yes, I’m indeed looking forward to hearing from you and more about you. As I noted, I think that you are probably one of the few people with a realistic chance of getting through to the top job. There are others on that list that are, to put it bluntly, rather incompetent, or more politely, there are some who may not have the stamina to cope with a job like Mayor of Wellington. I’ve known several of the past Mayors, and noted how the stress of the job has drained their energy over their time in the role.
I’m going to go now and have a good long hard read on your website.
Thanks Nemo. Feel free to email me at tory@whanauandco.com if you have any questions.
Confronted today with a wall full of Tory Whanau posters in the inner city – the campaign has kicked off ! Despite the early start by Paul Eagle (Paul Ego?), there’s no sign of him yet. He seems to be avoiding the media, just as much as Tory Whanau seems to be lapping it up!
One way to get your name in the headlines. Whoops!
https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/national/472146/wellington-mayoralty-race-tory-whanau-breaches-election-advertising-rules
Here are five points to consider for a better local body outcome…
Wont make any judgement on where that points you…
1 You need a mayor to have a manifesto of what they are going to do.
Get it out upfront rather than seeing what you can do later
2 A mayor needs a team behind them.
If a mayor cant organise support from other potential councillors then they are a leader without any followers. That’s just a guy out for a walk.
3 No central government candidates.
It is well proven they don’t look out for the city. Their interests lie in getting into a central government position. Did you know they only need one Central government term to get the MP pension these days?
4 Being a Mayor / Councillor is a fulltime commitment.
There is no room for more than 5-6 hours a week doing something else.
The city needs your attention!
5 There needs to be some form of behaviour rules to bind the Mayor and his supporters together.
I think that speaks for itself
Think them through – I (obviously) think they are self evident truths.
I didn’t say it would be easy to apply these!
Good luck picking through the field of Mayoral hopefuls
Excellent advice Matt. Very well thought through! “That’s just a guy out for a walk…” Tres droll!
I really like your point 5. I wonder how we could get them all to sign up to that?
Ummmm, have you ever thought of running, yourself?
Point five?
The answer is likely to be a mishmash of the other points.
I don’t think there is going to be many teams offered.
Defo rule out on-their-own Mayors or Councillors.
Its not a team of Champions we want.
We want a champion team not a team of champions.
The answers may take a while to become clear.
PS I’ve got a day job thanks.
Here’s a couple of possibilities: what would happen in the city if there was a Greens-veering Mayor, and more than three Green MPs? Would the city work as well? Or better? What would the blue-rinse brigade think and do? Would they storm out and leave the city?
Or what would happen if the opposite happened – a city Council full of right-wing Tory-voting snobs (as probably happened a 100 times before, about a hundred years ago… Would the red-green fringe rebel? Through carrots into the air, refuse to recycle, not recharge their e-bikes? Hmmmm
I’ve seen Ellen Blake being neither sweet nor nice towards transgender people. She was a signatory to a Speak Up For Women NZ campaign to deny them identity document rights. The green and purple branding on her website echo this particular type of trans excluding feminism. She is also a fierce advocate for walking which is good in theory but she has clashed with cycling advocates over shared pathways. Not ideal in a uniting role.
So Ellen probably *is* savage enough to be able to keep the full rabble of Councillors in check, so that’s nemo’s mild criticism countered!
And the rather nuanced descriptions of SUFWNZ and Ellen’s branding might be saying more about the commenter than about the candidate…