Wellington Mayor Tory Whanau’s large campaign spend-up pays off

New Wellington Mayor Tory Whanau. Photo / Mark Mitchell

Tory Whanau spent more money on her Wellington mayoral campaign than her competitors and was financially backed by friends, a philanthropist and a micromobility advocate.

Mayoral candidates in the capital are allowed to spend a maximum of $60,000 on their campaigns during the three months leading up to local body elections. Whanau’s expenses were just shy of that threshold and amounted to $59,844.

A key feature of the new mayor’s campaign was her proliferation of street-level posters dotted around the central city in locations like the central railway station and Courtenay Place.

Her expenses reveal she spent almost $23,000 on that strategy and a further $15,000 on digital billboards.

Candidates must declare donations which exceed $1500 in value.

Whanau declared four of these types of donations in documents which were published on the council’s website this week. She received $4000 from two close friends, one of whom is Philip van Dyk.

Labour Rongotai MP Paul Eagle dropped $57,733 on his campaign. Photo / Mark Mitchell

Whanau received $2000 from Chris Parkin, who is an entrepreneur, philanthropist, collector, patron of the arts, former hotelier and three-term Wellington city councillor. The pair were introduced through a friend during Whanau’s campaign.

She also received $2500 from Oliver Bruce, who is a micromobility advocate and invests in startups working on the future of transport.

Whanau said it was necessary to spend the full $60,000 on her campaign.

“I planned and booked pretty hard to reach that cap because I knew visibility was everything, especially coming in as an unknown.”

But she said her ground campaign made up of volunteers was also critical in her success.

Whanau estimated she spent about $50,000 of her own money since first announcing her bid for the mayoralty last year.

She confirmed she will be standing for re-election in 2025 and would like to have three terms as mayor.

Labour Rongotai MP Paul Eagle dropped $57,733 on his campaign, with his largest expense being flyers, targeted letters and envelopes.

He had no donations to declare.

Andy Foster spent $54,108 on his campaign with a decent chunk of that, just over $17,000, used to pay for billboards.

This is even more than Foster spent on billboards in 2019 when he had a $30,000 cash injection from famous film-maker Sir Peter Jackson’s companies.

There was no such money from Jackson this time around for Foster, whose declared donations amounted to $30,000.

Of that, $20,000 was from Stonewood Group, which is owned by the Chow brothers.