Josephine Bartley. Photo / Supplied
Josephine Bartley has copped more than her fair share of threats and abuse since becoming the first Pasifika woman elected to Auckland Council in 2018.
But don’t think that will stop her doing the job, which she says she only sought election for “because I care and because I love this community”.
In an interview with Newstalk ZB’s Real Life with John Cowan on Sunday night, Bartley said her heart is “definitely” in the role — and she had been given a heads up about the increased public scrutiny she would likely face before taking it on.
“Ever since I became a councillor … people were warning me,” she told Cowan. “They used to say to me, once you become a councillor you are in a fishbowl… you are in the public eye even more so — more subject to criticism and negativity.”
In the height of the Covid-19 pandemic, after criticising the actions of people who attacked a Panmure vaccination centre, Bartley received a deluge of online abuse and was confronted by three men who threatened to vandalise her car.
She continues to receive a lot of abuse online, some of it racist, but she’s resolute in the face of it all.
“ I constantly go through: ‘Am I making a difference here? Am I making any impact? Am I pursuing my purpose? [Am I] doing what my community’s asking of me?’ And if the answers are all yes, then I’ll carry on.”
Despite the fierce criticism she faces, Bartley has been voted into council three times in a row — growing her voter count in the Maungakiekie-Tamaki ward with each election.
She says she thinks people vote for her because “they see I work hard for our communities”.
“My heart is definitely in it. I only do this because I care and because I love this community. If I lose that, then I shouldn’t be representing anymore because I wouldn’t be in it for the right reasons,” she told Cowan.
“I come into it thinking of public service. My job is to serve the public regardless of your political affiliation.
“People who are National voters, they vote for me in the local government elections because they can see that I will work for everybody. I’m quite proud to hear that kind of feedback because that is what I try to do.”
Her desire to make a difference was part of what initially motivated Bartley to go into law then local body politics.
“ It was hard back then because my parents didn’t have the connections to law firms like my classmates’ parents did. So I worked in the camera centre, I did lots of different jobs until a National Party MP gave me my first foot in the door as his electorate agent.”
Bartley said as a lawyer, she got a sense of the issues plaguing the community, particularly in the consumer affairs space, where she helped vulnerable people being ripped off by loan sharks and others.
But she always wanted to do more for her community, so in 2006 she ran unsuccessfully for a seat on the community board.
“I didn’t get selected because I stood on a platform of safety. When I moved into Tamaki, I was saying, ‘there’s no point in having all your facilities if people don’t feel safe to walk out the door and use them,’” she told Real Life.
“I didn’t get selected at the time because I was told that safety was a central Government issue, not a local government issue.
“But then in 2008, I stood for Parliament to get my profile up so that I could run for city council. I’m backwards — others use local government elections to get their profile up to run for central government, but I did it the other way around.”
The plan worked, and Bartley was elected to the Maungakiekie-Tamaki Local Board in 2010, going on to be re-elected in 2013 and 2016, before successfully making the step up into Auckland Council in 2018.
She says faith has been a big part of her journey and has a positive impact on her political decision-making.
“I have to go right down to what my values are. I find that it comes down to those principles of your faith: love one another and treat your neighbour as yourself.
“Some of the major things that we go through as a city, my perspective is not just about myself, but about others. That comes from my faith background.”
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