Nick Mills: Tory Whanau’s train wreck interview is a moment we’ll all remember

OPINION

What a week Tory Whanau has had.

It all started with our regular monthly catch-up on Tuesday. I asked the mayor if she was struggling with the cost of high rates and if she felt the pinch so many of us in Wellington are feeling.

Her answer was pretty clear.

“I’ve just sold my car recently, to kind of help pay the bills. I walk to work again, my mortgage rates have doubled in the last few years.

“I’m feeling the crunch as well,” she told us.

Just for the record, Whanau earns $190,000 a year. She won $1.4 million in Lotto in 2002 - and she made us think she’d sold her car to help pay the bills.

It made headlines, then the news cycle moved on.

But then the Mayor appeared on Q+A with Jack Tame yesterday, breathing even more life into the story.

“Did you need to sell the car to pay the bills?” he asked.

“No, I actually didn’t,” Whanau responded.

“It’s a shame because it was taken out of context. It was an hour-long interview, you get a bit relaxed.”

To say that those comments were taken out of context is rubbish. She said it. The comments are clear as day. She was struggling and she sold the car.

What can be taken out of context from that?

Then, when asked if she had misled people, Whanau said the interview was too long.

“No I didn’t mislead people,” she said.

“Actually what’s happened is I was probably very generous with my time when it came to an interview.

“An entire hour for a radio show once a month is probably a bit much and you just kind of, tend to let things slip.”

For the record, mayors of Wellington have been interviewed on Newstalk ZB’s local morning show for as long as I can remember.

It’s called accountability. It’s called fronting up to the public. It’s called a basic expectation of being mayor.

I have always said I like Tory. I think she is a nice person and she has always been good to me. We get along well.

But I have also said I don’t think she’s up to the job. And I don’t think she’s getting the right advice from people around her.

And if anything proves it, it was her performance in our interview on Tuesday and on Q+A on Sunday. What a train wreck.

In the interview, Whanau laughed and didn’t understand questions. She flip-flopped too - her office later clarified she did sell her car in part to help with mortgage payments.

At points, it felt like Jack Tame sat there completely bewildered, with this look in his eye that said “what on earth is going on?”.

Initially, Whanau told him she did not expect to have enough support around the council table to sell the city’s stake in Wellington Airport shares.

But then she seemed to change her mind a few minutes later, and her response was to laugh and giggle like a naughty student being caught smoking behind the bike sheds.

“That could have been scandalous,” she laughed.

I seriously think this interview might go down as the one point that changes things for her leadership.

The moment where the biggest nail gets slammed into the coffin.

Yesterday Tory also admitted a re-election bid next year might be tough.

She’s right - if voters turn out.

Nick Mills is the host of Wellington Mornings on Newstalk ZB, 9am-12pm weekdays.

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