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Phil Goff closes the door. (Photo: Toby Manhire / Design: Archi Banal)
Phil Goff closes the door. (Photo: Toby Manhire / Design: Archi Banal)

Local Elections 2022October 6, 2022

Phil Goff on 40 years of politics and the idealistic young man in the photograph

Phil Goff closes the door. (Photo: Toby Manhire / Design: Archi Banal)
Phil Goff closes the door. (Photo: Toby Manhire / Design: Archi Banal)

The departing Auckland mayor reflects on a life in politics, his time at the cabinet tables of Lange and Clark, and what a younger, more radical Phil Goff might have made of the politician he has become.

Saturday will turn a new page in the short history of the Auckland super city, as it elects its third mayor. It will at the same time close a chapter on an extraordinary career in New Zealand politics, as Phil Goff signs out after 14 elections and 40 years spanning parliamentary and municipal politics.


Follow Gone By Lunchtime on Apple Podcasts, Spotify or your favourite podcast provider.


In a special edition of the Spinoff’s politics podcast, Gone By Lunchtime, Goff discusses everything from his time in the cabinets of David Lange and Helen Clark, a stint as Labour Party leader and two terms as mayor. He won’t confirm the widespread expectation that his next role will be as New Zealand high commissioner in Britain, but neither does he remotely deny it. He’s not yet in full diplomatic mode, however, and has some sharp words on the latest upheavals in UK politics. 

In an image from 1974, a younger, hairier, more radical Goff is shown in a group including then fellow junior lecturer Helen Clark at a demonstration. What might that young man have made of the mayor today – a pragmatic politician that some even call a technocrat?

Helen Clark, Phil Goff and friends. (Photo: Supplied)

“That young man probably thought, we can change the world,” said Goff, now 69 years old. “And we can do it quickly, if only the right people are in the right places. And he probably didn’t understand how complex the world was, that in a democracy, if you want to change the world, you’ve got to persuade other people to your vision.”

He had, he said, chosen the Labour Party over “one of the multiple fringe left groups that were often part of these protests”. He was “always pragmatic, because you know, when you go out and you door knock, and I door knocked from a very young age, you find that the world isn’t just a mirror image of yourself. There are a whole variety of people with different views. And your power to make change depends on your power to persuade those people that what you want to change the world towards, your vision, is a vision that they also share.” 

Phil Goff speaks as justice minister in 2000. (Photo: Robert Patterson/Getty Images)

Pragmatic is not a word readily associated with the fourth Labour government. From 1984, Goff had a front row seat to a seismic, highly controversial period in New Zealand politics, with David Lange as prime minister and Roger Douglas running finance. Goff was the youngest in a young cabinet. “It was an extraordinary government to be part of,” he said.

The tone was set, if not defined, by the currency crisis bequeathed by the departing Rob Muldoon. Upon seeing the state of the books, “I thought we will be a one-term government, this is such a mess.”

He said: “Lange used to use the phrase that the country was being run like a Polish shipyard, it was very evocative … And we were like that. We had wage control, rent control, price control. We had big tariffs. We didn’t open ourselves up to trade.” Did they not, for all that, go too far, too fast? “A lot of those changes were hard but necessary. Some of the changes went too far. And some of what Roger Douglas wanted to do after 87 went far too far. I’d been a strong supporter of the fundamental changes that Roger was making. But he lost me, you know, with some of the things [like] having a flat tax. How do you have a flat tax and achieve equity in society?

“So from being a very successful government in the first three years, we then had that terrible disunity between David Lange and Roger Douglas, that caucus was split down the middle. And fundamentally, if you go into an election disunited like that, how could you expect the public ever to have confidence in you? And they didn’t, and we got thrown out.”

Phil Goff on his motorbike in a campaign ad for the 2016 mayoral run.

When Goff returned to cabinet under Clark, “where we ended up was a far more centrist and traditional position for the Labour Party,” he said. “We still made changes. But we approached it in a different way. But then we weren’t dealing with the crises that the Lange government found itself in, caused by the snap election.”

If, as is expected, Goff heads to London for an ambassadorial posting, he will get a close-up view of a government undergoing its own strange convulsions. While he needed to be “diplomatic” in any assessment of Liz Truss’s explosive, U-turn defined early prime ministership, he did say this: “I was absolutely astounded by the decision that the government took and has since reversed [to cut the top tax rate]. It was never going to fly, it was never right. And you know, the Conservative Party recognised that for itself, but you just wonder how [they] arrived at a position like that. I mean, basic economics tells you that you don’t borrow to pay for tax cuts for people who are already very highly paid and you don’t do it in a way that damages the value of the pound and forces interest rates higher than they would otherwise have gone.”

As for keeping an eye on New Zealand politics, Goff says he won’t be sticking his nose in. “I really don’t want to be, you know, Sam the Eagle or Oscar the Grouch on the sidelines, saying, in my day, this is what we used to do.”

Follow our politics podcast Gone By Lunchtime on Apple Podcasts, Spotify or your favourite podcast provider.

Keep going!
With no election for city councillors in Tauranga this time around, local politicians seem to be turning their attention to the regional council.
With no election for city councillors in Tauranga this time around, local politicians seem to be turning their attention to the regional council.

Local Elections 2022October 5, 2022

Race Briefing: The Battle of the Bay (of Plenty Regional Council)

With no election for city councillors in Tauranga this time around, local politicians seem to be turning their attention to the regional council.
With no election for city councillors in Tauranga this time around, local politicians seem to be turning their attention to the regional council.

With Tauranga City Council replaced by a commission, local politicos are turning their attention to the regional council this election. Who’s running to take charge of the Bay of Plenty Regional Council and how do they plan to tackle the big problems facing the region?

Why is the Bay of Plenty the best place in the world?

It’s all in the name – this really is the Bay of Plenty. With long stretches of white sand and breathtaking lakes, the region is one of the warmest, driest and fastest growing in the country. More and more Aucklanders are making the short trip down permanently – but what do they find local government-wise when they make it there? 

What is the contest?

The Bay of Plenty Regional Council spans an area from Tauranga and Rotorua in the west, to Ōpōtiki to the southeast, with Kawerau and Whakatāne in between. Along the way it shares responsibilities with a range of city and district councils – including the beleaguered Tauranga City Council, which was replaced with a commission after a 2019 review found the entire affair dysfunctional.

With no election for city councillors in Tauranga this time around, local politicians seem to be turning their attention to the regional council. Last election, the Tauranga constituency went uncontested – but this year, that race is the region’s most competitive, with 17 candidates running for five spots (healthy!). 

The other races are less competitive affairs, with the Kohi Māori seat remaining uncontested and the other races falling somewhere in between. In total across the region, 37 contenders are vying for 14 spots across three Māori and four general constituencies. 

Who is in the race?

The local elections this year are a veritable who’s who of the Bay. 

In Tauranga, incumbents Stuart Crosby, Andrew von Dadelszen, Paula Thompson and David Love are running again, while Stacey Rose is calling it a day. In a farewell post on Facebook, Rose echoed recent criticism of the lack of diversity on the Tauranga line-up, abstaining from offering any endorsements. New candidates include Larry Baldock (discharged from city council in 2020), Ron Scott who’s been on the Bay of Plenty DHB, and bus driver Bryan Deucher, among others. 

In the Western Bay of Plenty, incumbent Jane Nees is running again while Norm Bruning is stepping down. The other three contenders include conservationist Julian Fitter, Sean Newland and former politician Ken Shirley, whose political career is of a rare ACT and Labour Party combination.

The Eastern Bay of Plenty also has two seats, with current chairperson Doug Leeder running again while his colleague Bill Clark steps down. New faces include former police officer and kiwifruit orchardist Russell Orr, current Kawerau mayor Malcolm Campbell, Mawera Karetai, and business person Sarah Jane van der Boom.

Both incumbents in the Rotorua General Constituency, Kevin Winters and Lyall Thurston are having another go, running against lawyer Katie Priscilla Paul, Church elder and rotary Mark Gould, 26-year old student Radhika Dahya and business owner/teacher Tim Smith.

The Kohi Māori Constituency will stick with current councillor Toi Kai Rākau Iti, who is the only candidate running. Both incumbents from the Okurei and Mauao constituency, Te Taru White and Matemoana McDonald are running against Raina M Meha and Buddy Mikaere, respectively.

What is at stake?

Climate resilience and transport have dominated debates in the Bay and feature extensively in the council’s pre-election report. The majority of council hopefuls acknowledge the need for meaningful action on climate change in the face of increasing extreme weather events in a region vulnerable to droughts and sea-level rise.

In responding to this challenge, some candidates are focusing on adapting to climate change, while others emphasise the need for the Bay of Plenty to reduce emissions, according to candidates’ profiles on Policy.nz. Multiple candidates propose turning the council vehicle fleet electric.

However, a small number of candidates remain reluctant to embrace the scientific reality of climate change, instead standing on platforms opposing “unworkable climate-based policies” and “doomsday prophets.” 

Transport is another high profile issue, with recent driver shortages causing havoc for the region’s would-be commuters. A recent report revealed Tauranga’s bus usage has decreased 20% in the past year. 

The current council is set to confirm an ambitious target to shift 20% of urban car commuters to public transport in the next 10 years. The feasibility of this target depends significantly on who gets voted in for the coming term. 

The majority of candidates propose to at least do something about transport. A handful are calling for transformational change and mode shift away from private vehicles, including by reducing or scrapping fees for public transport and improving cycling infrastructure. Others believe the council shouldn’t try to frustrate people out of cars. 

The race in a sentence?

Empty buses, chocka cars and boiling shores, plenty of hopefuls go head-to-head in the race for the country’s hottest region.  

The brass tracks

The Bay of Plenty Regional Council election is voted under the first past the post system. Voting papers should be with you by now. If not, you can cast a special vote. The last day to enrol (for a special vote) is October 7. Your vote needs to be received by midday on Saturday October 8. Read more race briefings and other Spinoff coverage of the local elections here.

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