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Simon Wilson: Desley Simpson for Auckland Mayor?
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Deputy Mayor Desley Simpson. Photo / Jason Oxenham
Opinion by Simon Wilson
Simon Wilson is an award-winning senior writer covering politics, the climate crisis, transport, housing, urban design and social issues. He joined the Herald in 2018.
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It’s clear enough she wants to stand. Now she will be working out if she has enough political and financial support to give it a real go.
The Auckland Ratepayers’ Alliance (ARA) and its parent group the Taxpayers’ Union (TPU) are already all in a twist about it.
“With strong National Party links, Simpson’s bid splits the centre-right vote,” they moaned in a media release, “potentially handing Auckland to a candidate backed by the Labour-Green bloc.”
Not that such a candidate exists, at least at this point.
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Simpson’s party links relate in part to her being married to former long-serving party president Peter Goodfellow. The ARA/TPU’s problem with her is that she’s not a scorched-earth austerity crusader, as they like their politicians to be.
On the contrary, Simpson is a right-leaning centrist who believes the council should run social and community services and facilities. She supported Mayor Wayne Brown’s moderate rates rises. She was Phil Goff’s finance committee chair and in that role engineered moderate rates rises for him, too.
If Simpson does stand, it will probably be because she’s fed up with Mr Grumpy, the Mayor who is, by repute, hard to work with and never seems able to find a good word to say about the city. These are my words, not hers.
She speaks often about the value of being positive about Auckland, addressing the problems but supporting the good. Selling the city, not complaining about it. Again, my words, not hers.
Prime Minister Christopher Luxon has declined to say whether the National Party would endorse Simpson if she runs.
But he did single Brown out for praise in his State of the Nation speech last month, when he complained that road cones were “everywhere”. He said Brown had “done a great job fighting back [against them] here in Auckland”.
That was a bit strange, because while the Mayor is famous for railing against the cones, they’re mostly still there.
It would also be strange if the PM sided with Brown, a political independent, over his own party member.
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Brown himself told me he has not spoken recently to Simpson about her plans.
Could she win? He’s popular now and will be hard to beat. But she’s popular too.
Does her “Remuera-ness” exclude her? She’s superwealthy and doesn’t hide it, unlike Brown, who’s told me in the past that “people would be shocked if they knew how wealthy I am”.
But Simpson annihilated the idea she’s too posh for wide appeal two years ago, presenting as a model of public leadership after the Anniversary Weekend floods.
Now she faces her moment of reckoning. Like Brown and half the entire council, she’s a member of the generation that refuses to slip away to retirement (me too, I confess it). But if she doesn’t run this time, it’s hard to imagine she’ll want to in another three years. Boom now or go home, you might say.
Auckland Quiz
Who’s the odd one out among these Auckland Council politicians and former politicians?
A. Christine Fletcher
B. Paul Goldsmith
C. Phil Goff
D. Penny Webster
E. Maurice Williamson
The mutts of Madills Farm
Madills Farm is a popular and very lovely park in Kohimarama, a few blocks back from the beach, valued by dog-walkers and busy with sports. There’s a big walking circuit around the perimeter, five full-size playing fields and a children’s playground. It’s home to Eastern Suburbs football club and the local yacht club.
It’s also one of the 78 parks and beaches where Auckland Council proposes to change the dog-walking rules. The changes follow complaints about dog owners not picking up after their dog, dogs wandering off-leash in areas where they shouldn’t, and packs of threatening dogs. They also reflect an “emerging concern” about walkers with large groups of dogs.
The council says the changes “aim to maintain a balance of dog-friendly and dog-free spaces”. At Madills Farm, as in many other parks, that means dogs will be prohibited from the playing fields.
The Dogs of Madills are barking mad. This local group, which has its own website and hashtag, says it will mean an end to throwing sticks and balls and all other off-leash dog action, because the perimeter area they’d be limited to is close to the road.
On the other hand, members of sports teams may feel reassured their playing fields are a little less likely to carry disease.
At heart, this isn’t a conflict between locals and the council. It’s about the conflicting interests of different groups of locals and the reality of such issues is there’s often no way to please everyone.
And it’s not the first controversy for Madills Farm. In 1975, when the playing fields were developed, the council wanted to build an indoor sports complex. Residents, worried about traffic, shot that idea down.
Public consultation on the new plan for Madills Farm and all the council’s other dog proposals is open until February 23.
Harbour crossings
“We haven’t built a harbour crossing for nearly seven decades,” said Act Party leader David Seymour in his State of the Nation speech, delivered in Auckland last week.
No? What’s this?
The Upper Harbour Bridge on State Highway 18 connects Hobsonville Point with Greenhithe and is part of the important Western Ring Route around the city. The original bridge was opened in 1975, well within Seymour’s 70-year timespan, but was quickly deemed inadequate. The wider five-lane version, built next to the original and fit for motorway traffic, was opened in 2006.
By all means, let’s keep the debate about a new harbour crossing going. But the Greenhithe bridge exists, it’s impressive and highly functional. Any additional crossing will be our third, not our second.
A centre-left candidate for Mayor?
The Auckland Ratepayers’ Alliance is not wrong that a Wayne Brown v Desley Simpson mayoral contest should entice a candidate from the centre-left into the fight. But do Labour or the Greens have a candidate?
Usually, big-city mayors come from the ranks of retired or retiring MPs, sports and entertainment stars, and occasionally sitting councillors.
One councillor has already announced she will stand for Mayor: Labour’s Kerrin Leoni, from the Whau ward.
Kerrin who? Don’t worry, you’re not alone. Leoni is a first-term councillor with a low profile, who has told several people she wants to become better known so she can get into Parliament, either through the list or perhaps as the candidate for Tāmaki Makaurau.
This has apparently caused some consternation inside Labour ranks: cynical personal politicking is not the most obvious strategy for impressing party bosses.
Who else is out there? Olympic hero Mahé Drysdale easily won the mayoralty in Tauranga last year, so what about Dame Valerie Adams giving it a shot, haha, in Auckland? Before her Olympic shot-putting predecessor Les Mills turned himself into the ultimate gym bunny, he spent most of the 1990s as Mayor of Auckland City.
What about an entertainer? Sir Dave Dobbyn is a popular guy and Stan Walker also seems to have his head screwed on right.
This isn’t entirely jokes. Wayne Brown didn’t obviously have the credentials to lead the city when he got the job.
In Aotearoa, Walker sings: “Ahakoa nō hea mai koe / Ka whawhai tonu mātou mōu. No matter where you are from / We will always fight for you.”
And in Welcome Home, Dobbyn sings: “There’s a woman with her hands trembling, haere mai / And she sings with a mountain’s memory, haere mai ... welcome home.”
Imagine a Mayor who doesn’t know how to build a bridge, but does know about leading with the purpose and beauty of those songs.
I know, fanciful. A former Labour leader is also back in town. He never really got the chance to show us what he could do if he was in charge, and is surely twiddling his thumbs. Any interest, David Shearer?
All-electric Pukekohe
“Transport Minister to mark start of first passenger trains to Pukekohe,” said the headline of an excited media release this week.
In fact, passenger trains have been running to Pukekohe since 1875. But when the Auckland commuter network was electrified in 2015, they ran the overhead wires only as far as Papakura, where passengers had to change trains.
Funding to fix the last 19km of the Southern Line was approved in 2020 and work began in September 2022. On Monday the line will reopen: electrified rail will now run all the way from Pukekohe to the Waitematā (Britomart) station. When the CRL opens next year, passengers will be able to travel even further.
Auckland’s deep south will become home to 120,000 more people over the next 30 years. That’s the size of two Napiers. The train will be a lifeline for many. As well as a revamped Pukekohe station, three other new train stations are being built on the line: at Drury and Paerātā Rise, which will both open next year, and at Drury West, which will follow.
Each station will have a bus interchange, walking and cycle paths connecting to local communities, and there will also be park-and-rides.
The week ahead in Tāmaki Makaurau
Auckland Pride ’25, from Saturday February 1: Events all through February: aucklandpride.org.nz
Laneway Music Festival, Thursday February 6: Charli XCX and all the rest at Western Springs: lanewayfestival.com/auckland/home
Waitangi Day, Thursday February 6: Celebrations all over the city, with entertainments, food, arts and crafts, cultural learning opportunities and lots for the kids. Among the bigger events: Ngāti Whātua Orākei host their annual festival at Okahu Bay and big crowds are expected for Waitangi ki Manukau at Barry Curtis Park.
But the music will be most massive at Parrs Park in Glen Eden, where Hoani Waititi Marae and the Waipareira Trust present Stan Walker, Ladi6, Black Slate, Aaradhna, Rob Ruha, Mark Williams, Che Fu & The Kratez, Troy Kingi, Corrella, Annie Crummer and more.
All these Waitangi events are daytime, family-friendly and free.
Quiz answer
The odd one out among the politicians and former politicians is B: Paul Goldsmith. All the others were MPs who became members of the Auckland Council, but Goldsmith, the current Minister of Justice, went the other way. He was an Auckland City councillor who became an MP.
