Auckland Mayor Wayne Brown is heavily favoured to win a second term, but it doesn't quite mean the spot is reserved for him. Photo / Simon Wilson
This is a transcript of Simon Wilson’s weekly newsletter Love this City – exploring the ideas and events, the reality and the potential of Tāmaki Makaurau Auckland.
It’s election time: for mayor, council, local boards and licensing trusts. Until voting ends on October 11, Love this City is focusing on news, issues and personalities from the campaign trail. This week:
I’ve been to 26 candidate meetings and 14 other council-related meetings and events during this campaign. People look at me weirdly if I mention this, but I like it. You get to meet people, see the great variety of the city, learn how different we are and also not so different.
On the whole, you see people being their best selves: sharing the value of community service, being respectful, wanting to communicate, having a good laugh.
It’s not always life-affirming, of course. Some people do seem determined to be angry whatever the occasion. And tell lies. And parade their ignorance: “No, I haven’t read the council budget and I don’t know why they make the decisions they do, but I’m convinced they’re wasting money.” Ignorance is not a virtue and no one should be rewarded for it.
I confess I gave in to anger myself, one night in Parnell when I overheard a man in the hallway ranting about “the cycleways on Ponsonby Rd and all over Kingsland”. I went out and had my own rant at him. “Where are they?” I demanded. “Please tell me because I would really like to ride them!” If you’re reading this, I apologise. I should not have been rude.
But yes, the meetings were good. What wasn’t good was the social media. I’ve read far too much vileness and stupidity, and I know it shouldn’t be a shock, but it was. We’re fretting about the damage social media does to young minds right now, and fair enough, I think we should be. But what about older minds?
Meanwhile, in response to 1500 emails, Wayne Brown told the Auckland Ratepayers Alliance to “f**k off” and I applaud him for it. It seemed to me like a reasonable response to all that pressure.
And Bo Burns, standing for council in Howick, said the retiring councillor she wants to replace, Sharon Stewart, was a “f***ing cow”. That was out of place but, if Burns wins, will Brown have met his match?
Maybe we’ll look back on it as the sweary election. Or will it all get worse, and we’ll remember this as a time of innocence? Anyway, as always, two cheers for democracy. It’s good but it could be gooder.
Most of the country has been voting in a referendum on Māori wards. But not Auckland. Why not?
Short answer: because the Auckland Council has already decided it doesn’t want them. In October 2023 it voted 9-11 against establishing Māori wards in the city.
The motion was proposed by Alf Filipaina and Lotu Fuli, and supported by Josephine Bartley, Angela Dalton, Chris Darby, Julie Fairey, Shane Henderson, Richard Hills and Kerrin Leoni.
Those against were: Andy Baker, Christine Fletcher, Mike Lee, Daniel Newman, Greg Sayers, Desley Simpson, Sharon Stewart, Ken Turner, John Watson, Wayne Walker and Maurice Williamson.
Mayor Wayne Brown abstained.
After that motion, the council voted to delay a decision on Māori wards until after the 2025 election. This was proposed by Brown and Fletcher and carried 13-8.
All the councillors who voted against Māori wards for 2025 also voted for the delay, and were joined by Brown and Darby.
The argument for delay rested on the issue being “too complex” to resolve at that time. The argument against delay was that the issue had been argued for years and been supported through public consultation, the complexities can be resolved, and delay is just a stalling tactic.
There’s a history to this. In 2009, the Royal Commission looking at Auckland governance had recommended the council of the new Super City, to be set up in 2010, should have three Māori seats. But the National-led Government said no, although Prime Minister John Key added that “nothing is off the table”.
Māori Party co-leader Pita Sharples led 7000 people in a hikoi from the Ōrākei Marae at Bastion Point to the town hall, demanding a rethink.
Sharples was a minister in the Government, and he was confident. “They’re almost ready to give in, don’t give up,” he told the crowd.
But Key was advised by some iwi leaders that an advisory board, independent of the council and therefore maintaining the autonomy of Māori, was a better way to represent Māori interests.
And, he said, local communities should decide about Māori wards, “rather than doing it by decree by Government”.
So the Super City was given an Independent Māori Statutory Board, now called Houkura.
Houkura has two voting members on the big council committees but is not represented on the governing body of the council, which comprises all 20 councillors and the mayor. The governing body is the final arbiter on all council matters, including the budget, policy and structure.
Several councillors opposed to Māori wards in Auckland say that because of Houkura, Auckland doesn’t need Māori wards. But Houkura itself doesn’t say that.
Houkura deputy chair Tau Henare told me last month, “They have different roles. Why not have both?”
His argument was that Houkura does not participate in the decisions of the governing body. As an autonomous entity, it has a different role. At a meeting in Mt Albert last month, councillor Julie Fairey said the same thing. In supporting the call to keep Houkura and have Māori wards, she described Houkura as a “Treaty-audit organisation”.
Councils won the right to establish Māori wards in 2001, but they were also required to hold a binding referendum if 5% of local citizens signed a petition requesting one. This led 24 councils to introduce Māori wards, but by 2021 only three had managed to keep them.
The Labour Government abolished the provision for binding referendums in 2021. Auckland’s then-Mayor, Phil Goff, supported this. “A referendum would rip our community apart,” he said at the time.
In 2023, the National-led coalition brought the referendums back. The law now requires a binding referendum before any Māori ward can be introduced. And it’s retrospective: all councils that have created such wards since 2020, or have resolved to do so, must hold a referendum during the current council election.
Forty-two of the country’s 78 local authorities are doing that now. The Kaipara District Council and the Upper Hutt City Council chose to abandon their Māori wards rather than put them to public vote.
If the Auckland vote had been successful, we would be voting in a Māori wards referendum now.
While not affected in this election, the Auckland Council voted 14-7 to oppose the reintroduction of binding referendums. It submitted to Parliament on this.
Those in favour were: Baker, Bartley, Brown, Dalton, Darby, Fairey, Filipaina, Fletcher, Fuli, Henderson, Hills, Leoni, Newman and Turner.
Against: Lee, Sayers, Simpson, Stewart, Walker, Watson and Williamson.
As a curious coda, councillor Fletcher told the Mt Albert meeting last week that she had supported Māori wards. But that was a reference to the Royal Commission’s proposal, which Fletcher supported at the time, in principle. She voted against Māori wards in 2023.
The issue will resurface during the term of the new council. It was, after all, only delayed, not abandoned.
“Of course I support the council’s climate action plan. I cried during my maiden speech talking about it.” Shane Henderson, seeking re-election for Labour as a ward councillor in Waitākere, at a meeting in Glen Eden.
“You do not have to put all the infrastructure in everywhere before you build any houses. That’s not how it works.” Richard Hills, independent, standing for re-election in the North Shore, in Milford. He was responding to suggestions that apartment blocks shouldn’t be allowed until new schools are built.
“It’s really hard, eh. Some Pacific people take a whole minute just to say their name. And you got your whole whakapapa in!” The (Samoan) MC at a meeting in Papakura, where 18 candidates were given just a minute on each topic.
“We didn’t pick it up. All those who did know didn’t want to share it.” Ivan Wagstaff, an independent seeking re-election to the Rodney Local Board, in Snells Beach, on the large rates rises sprung on many residents in the ward.
Response from the floor: “Have you given up?”
Wagstaff: “No. We’re working very hard on it. There is the possibility of High Court action. Our legal advice is that we will ‘possibly not’ get the rates rises negated this year, but going forward ...” Wagstaff heads a group seeking a judicial review of the rates decision.
“Te Ohu Whakawhanaunga has recommended that council increase its spending on homelessness from $500,000 to $2 million. I’m keen to take that to the mayor.” Julie Fairey, standing for re-election for City Vision in the Albert-Eden-Puketāpapa ward, at a meeting in Mt Albert. Te Ohu Whakawhanaunga is a coalition of welfare advocacy groups.
“The council doesn’t do community very well. Communities do community well.” Matt Winiata, Action Team candidate for the Manurewa-Papakura ward, in Papakura.
“There’s been a lot of overspend and Mr Fixit has allowed a $3 billion debt to become $14 billion.” Eric Chuah, candidate for mayor, in Glen Eden. In the annual budget of 2025, council debt did indeed reach $14b, but in 2022 it wasn’t $3b, it was $11b.
Response from Ryan Pausina, also a candidate for mayor: “If I was to be elected I would get Eric to tidy things up.”
“We need a royal commission into the way they spend money.” Matt Zwartz, independent candidate for Albert-Eden Local Board, in Pt Chevalier.
“They all talk about accountability. I meant to bring in about three inches [thick] of paper, which is this year’s report, the annual report from the council. Everything you need to know is in there. They just don’t read it. And they make speeches about accountability.” Mayor Wayne Brown, Herald interview, responding to critics like Chuah and Zwartz.
“I’m a chartered accountant and I’m wearing a $10 jacket from a New Lynn op-shop.” Rob McNeil, Animal Justice Party candidate for mayor, in Glen Eden.
The mayoral race might be a bit cool this election, but the contest is as hot as hell in some of the wards.
The list includes Whau, Albany, North Shore, Howick, Waitematā, and Albert-Eden-Puketāpapa.
In Whau, Labour’s Sarah Paterson-Hamlin, a local board member and disability activist, is up against WestWards candidate and maintenance engineer Craig Lord. That’s a straight left v right showdown in this single-seat ward, although the presence of a Greens candidate and three who lean to the right does complicate the picture a little.
Incumbent Kerrin Leoni has chosen not to stand again, so she can focus on her mayoral campaign.
The ward includes New Lynn, Avondale and Blockhouse Bay, and it’s the most volatile in the city. In three of the past four elections it has flipped from right to left or back again, usually unseating a sitting councillor, with only a couple of hundred votes in it.
Paterson-Hamlin, if she wins, is expected to align with the left-leaning councillors, like Shane Henderson and Josephine Bartley, who work with Brown to achieve compromise outcomes they can all live with.
This happens on the left and the right, but there is also a handful of councillors who have an almost kneejerk reaction against Brown. They also include some on the left and others on the right.
If Lord wins, he may join his team leader, Turner, in this opposition.
In Albany and Manukau, Brown’s Fix Auckland candidates are up against experienced and popular sitting councillors. There’s no clear evidence that being on the mayor’s ticket has done much to help them in either ward.
In Albany, John Watson and Wayne Walker are proud of their opposition to Brown, although it does mean they lose most of the time at the council table.
But they’re experts on the campaign trail. Walker says they’ve delivered 123,000 copies of their “newspaper” to letterboxes in the ward, in three different versions, all of them talking up the virtue of “independence” and containing a catalogue of “achievements”.
In North Shore, most people I’ve spoken with say Richard Hills is popular and will keep his seat.
But with the retirement of Chris Darby, local board stalwarts John Gillon and Danielle Grant are both going hard after the other spot. They used to be political allies, but this year they’ve diverged radically. Gillon has linked up with the Albany oppositionists, while Grant is on the mayor’s Fix Auckland ticket.
Also in the race: Act Local’s Helena Roza, who wants to stop “wasteful spending on pet projects”, and Eric Chuah, also a candidate for mayor and local board, who says much the same.
In Howick, Maurice Williamson is likely to be re-elected, and Bo Burns, the local board chair who is standing with him, is very popular and may well get the second seat.
She’s up against her board deputy, Damian Light, a liberal who seems to have reinvented himself as a conservative, and former councillor Paul Young, a conservative who reinvented himself under Mayor Phil Goff as more of a liberal.
In Waitākere, former councillor Linda Cooper wants her job back, but the man who won it from her, Ken Turner, is a popular guy, and so is the other ward councillor, Shane Henderson.
Turner is the council’s leading climate sceptic and, as reported last week, a member of his WestWards’ team is also a leading member of Voices for Freedom.
Henderson is the council’s most consistent advocate for climate action and frequently calls on “central suburbs to do their bit to enable housing, taking pressure off Westie communities”.
Cooper stands between them, politically. Her voting record on the council puts her at the liberal end of the National Party, to which she belongs. She lists her three priorities as better public transport, a swimming pool for Massey and investment in Henderson to make it “a thriving town centre”.
But perhaps the biggest and most consequential ward clashes are in Waitematā and neighbouring Albert-Eden-Puketāpapa. Central isthmus Auckland, from Pt Chevalier to Parnell, Lynfield to Royal Oak.
The housing density debate and the future of the central city are both solidly focused on this part of the city, and in both wards a fierce contest has been under way.
In Waitematā, sitting councillor Mike Lee is battling challenges from City Vision’s Patrick Reynolds and independent Genevieve Sage, the local board chair, who wants to step up.
Sage became chair with the support of City Vision, despite being elected on the C&R ticket. Some people are still furious about that, and she’s had to put up with a lot of shouting in meetings and what she calls “grossly and unnecessarily toxic” opposition online.
Lee used to be one of Auckland’s leading progressive activists, but these days he aligns with C&R’s Christine Fletcher and, at times, Act leader David Seymour. He’s campaigned with both of them against the proposed new residential zoning in these two wards.
Lee also wants to rekindle “the golden age” of Queen St by “lifting the blockade on cars” and having more lights on the strip at night.
Both Reynolds and Sage say Lee is living in the past, and it’s time for a change.
Reynolds is an “urbanist”, committed to greening the city, boosting the housing stock and undoing the car dependency that has clogged up our roads. Sage talks about the vision needed to make Auckland “one of the world’s great cities”.
In Albert-Eden-Puketāpapa, the two councillors have been in a stark face-off over zoning. C&R’s Christine Fletcher has led the campaign against density, while City Vision’s Julie Fairey has put the case for the density plans we’ll soon be consulted on.
Both say that more housing where it makes sense is needed. But Fletcher says it doesn’t make sense in Mt Eden, Mt Albert and Mt Roskill, and Fairey says it does.
“We’ve focused on sharing accurate information about the city planning choices councillors face,” Fairey says, “rather than misleading folks.”
She says the new proposals are “an opportunity for less sprawl, more flood protection and more homes close to public transport, and we will work with the community to get it right”.
Both Fairey and Fletcher are hoping not just to hold their own seats, but that their running mates will upset the other.
Fletcher’s team-mate Mark Pervan and Fairey’s colleague Jon Turner are on the Puketāpapa Local Board, which has been dealing with its own highly controversial issue.
Pervan and the C&R majority recently voted to ban off-leash dog walking in Monte Cecilia Park, despite public submissions being 88% in favour of the off-leash arrangement. Turner helped lead the campaign for the dogs, and many locals expect public dismay at the vote to show up in the election results.
City Vision and C&R are largely confined to isthmus Auckland, the area of the old Auckland City Council. But in many ways, their contest represents many of the other showdowns around the city. Both have put out final statements this week.
“This election,” says C&R, “you have a powerful choice to make for the future of your community.”
City Vision calls it “a stark choice: positive policy or a failure to plan”.
C&R says it’s “back to basics” time and has refined its message to three key points: “low and fair rates”, weekly rubbish collection and “clean, safe roads”.
What do they mean? Every candidate in every meeting I’ve attended wants rates to be low and fair, but that’s not what the rates argument is about. Rates pay for about 40% of the operating expenses of the council: the real debate is over what those expenses should be.
I covered the weekly rubbish collection issue last week: the council wants to trial fortnightly general rubbish collection in three suburbs, starting in February next year.
C&R asks, “Why is weekly rubbish collection a thing of the past?”
Apart from the fact that it isn’t, these two pledges, taken together, raise a question. Why does C&R oppose a trial, given that one of its goals is to limit spending and therefore help control rates? Shouldn’t the council be trialling all sorts of ways to do that?
And the roads pledge? “Clean, safe roads that keep our neighbourhoods moving and end the gridlock” is the full promise.
I don’t know what that means. More street cleaning in the central city? That would be good. But “safe roads” require slower speeds and more low-traffic zones, cycleways, speed humps and other traffic calming measures. C&R has never supported any of that.
As for ending the “gridlock”, that requires fewer vehicles on the roads. There are many ways to achieve this, but over time the best, by far, will be to have lots of people living in apartment blocks near train stations and bus transit stops. C&R candidates have campaigned against this.
City Vision calls the C&R campaign “fear mongering”, and candidate Jon Turner says C&R has been “spreading misinformation about the weekly rubbish collection and plan changes” (the housing density proposals).
“Auckland Council delivers far more than ‘rates, roads and rubbish’,” he says. “Planning for the future means investing in our libraries, parks, pools, cleaner water and a greener city.”
If you haven’t voted yet but want to, don’t post your ballot in an ordinary mailbox. It’s too late for that. Take it to a Countdown/Woolworths supermarket, public library or one of the dozens of other places that have a special orange collection box. They’re all over the city.
Voting closes at midday on Saturday, and the results are expected from about 3pm.
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