Dunedin’s new mayor Aaron Hawkins is the first official Green Party mayor in NZ and, arguably, the first to represent the city’s student population as much as its older residents. Josie Adams, who guessed he would win, asked him some questions about it.
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Mayor-elect Aaron Hawkins was at a children’s birthday party when he got the call. He started his new job the next day by joining in the student clean-up and memorial to Sophia Crestani that took place on Dunedin’s notorious Castle and Dundas Streets. Hawkins is a young father, an experienced city councillor, and was once a big name in student media (in some circles, he still is). He’s familiar with Dunedin’s many faces, and maybe that’s why they voted for him.
Fourteen candidates threw their hats in the ring to take over from the retiring Dave Cull. When I said 35-year-old Green Party candidate Hawkins would win last month, our readers said, and I quote:
“I doubt he’s in the top two contenders. I love you guys but this is not the quality of journalism I have come to expect from you guys.”
“Hawkins the main contender? What are you on? Are you being paid by his campaign manager?”
“Are you saying Aaron Hawkins is the “main contender”? What the actual fuck. I will find it difficult to take any Spinoff story seriously again, because obviously they are just based on nothing.”
That no-one thought Hawkins was a top contender for the role is bizarre. He’s been on council for two terms already, received plenty of coverage by both the Otago Daily Times and Critic, and mayor Dave Cull himself gave him the nod. His win wasn’t guaranteed, but it was worth putting money on since Dunedin uses STV, a voting system which benefits a broadly popular candidate like Hawkins. Name recognition and a nice suit count for a lot. Almost the entire way through the race, Hawkins was polling equal or just ahead of his main competition, Lee Vandervis.
I reached out to Hawkins to ask him about proving the haters wrong and what his win will mean for Dunedin.
How are you feeling?
Overwhelmed? Numb? Mostly just incredibly humbled to have been asked by the community to lead our next council.
I feel very professionally vindicated by your win. Why do you think people ever thought you would lose?
Haha. Your punditry was thankfully closer to the mark than Francisco’s [ex-OUSA president and Green Party hack Francisco Hernandez]. Seriously though, I was optimistic that we would get a positive outcome for the city, I just wasn’t confident that it would be me.
Have you heard from Lee Vandervis?
Lee got in touch on Saturday night to congratulate me on winning by a decent margin.
I see he’s still on the council. Do you think there’ll be much simmering resentment at meetings? Are you going to cackle and shake the mayoral chains at him?
I think it’s important that all voters are represented around the council table, and a sizable chunk of them have chosen Cr Vandervis to do that for them. Having a range of views presented, in a constructive and collegial fashion, is healthy for local decision making.
How pleased are you with the council you’ll be presiding over?
The message we got on the campaign trail was that people were positive about the city at the moment, and broadly supportive of the direction we were heading, around environmental wellbeing in particular. The makeup of the elected council largely reflects that, which is good news for building on what we’ve done over the past six years.
What does it mean for you to be NZ’s first Green Party mayor?
I’m the first elected mayor to have stood under the Greens banner, though we’ve had members (Sukhi Turner) and former members (Celia Wade-Brown) get elected as independents. So it’s big news for the party. But more generally what I think it shows is that in local government people are more prepared to look beyond party political tribalism, and vote for individuals that they think are competent and capable of doing the job.
How do you feel about the title of NZ’s first psytrance mayor?
A few weeks ago they said that Dunedin was about to elect a mayor that knew what breakbeat hardcore was, which was quite the endorsement, but this is up there for sure. That aside, I definitely feel like I wear shoes far too often to be able to accept this accolade in good conscience.
Any more firsts up your sleeve?
Two? Oh sorry I read this as fists. It’s been a long weekend.
What will your mayoralty mean for the Port Chalmers noise scene?
I know this is supposed to be a joke question, but I remember running into Chris Heazlewood a few years back and he said that he had never felt represented by a local politician in his entire life. It’s important to see that your elected members share the same values and priorities as you. But yes, I’ve had at least two messages of congratulations from Robbie Yeats so far.
If your best public transport ideas are enacted by this council, will you stop hitch hiking everywhere?
I haven’t had much time to think about my future hitch hiking plans this weekend because I’ve been too busy answering questions about whether or not I’ll keep hitch hiking to work. Efficiency of the bus service aside, if I don’t have any work to do on the way in to the city it’s a great opportunity to get 15 minutes of unfiltered feedback from people about what’s going on in the city. Not that I think I’ll be short of that in the coming months!
The Spinoff local election coverage is made possible thanks to The Spinoff Members. For more about becoming a member and supporting The Spinoff’s journalism click here.
Hayden Donnell identifies who did well, and who got massively owned, in the 2019 local elections.
The Spinoff local election coverage is entirely funded by The Spinoff Members. For more about becoming a member and supporting The Spinoff’s journalism, click here.
Most of these winners and losers lists fail to capture the nuances of election humiliation. They opt to lump all democratic downtrous into one big pot of loserdom. Here at The Spinoff, we understand that not all embarrassments are equal. In recognition of that fact, we’ve sorted out the saddo wheat from the loser chaff, and come up with a list that notes the subtleties of electoral pant-crapping. These are the winners, losers, big losers, and gigantic losers of the local elections.
All four of those candidates were voted out on Saturday. Their replacements include Sarah Thomson, a lawyer who sued the government for failing to meet its climate change targets, and Kesh Naidoo-Rauf, a local pharmacist who went to Christchurch to volunteer in the aftermath of the March 15 massacre.
ANDY FOSTER SEEKING AN AUDIENCE WITH SIR PETER JACKSON
Maybe there’s some doubt as to the democratic impact of Jackson’s largesse, but this election should be a lesson to any aspiring Wellington politicians: don’t even think about defying the Lord of Miramar again.
SIR PETER URGES A WELLINGTON VOTER TO CAST A VOTE FOR ANDY FOSTER
People who write jokes about Peter Jackson
There were more Peter Jacksonjokes on Twitter than there were arrows in Sean Bean’s chest after the orcs shot him!
PLEASE DO NOT TELL MADELEINE CHAPMAN ABOUT THIS HORRIBLE MEME
Incumbency
Once again, ‘having the job already’ was the best predictor of whether you’d win a job in local elections around New Zealand. Incumbents were re-elected in many of the mayoral races, with John Carter, Phil Goff, Lianne Dalziel, and Tim Shadbolt leading the charge.
Phil Goff’s campaign launched with a sound more half-hearted than a whimper. His first announcement was that he would put rates up by an average amount. His biodegradable billboards fell apart in the spring rain. You couldn’t see his name on them anyway. At his official campaign launch, Jackie Clarke observed the energy in the room and decided to take matters into her own hands. She performed a full six-minute version of Bohemian Rhapsody, only without Freddie Mercury’s trademark restraint.
I just need you to know that Phil Goff’s campaign launch has just concluded with Jackie Clarke doing a full 6 minute performance of Bohemian Rhapsody pic.twitter.com/iJslodDF72
No wonder it looked like John Tamihere had the better of him in the early going. Goff’s leading challenger took the fight to him, knocking him off balance with a series of attention-grabbing announcements. Tamihere stole the limelight. Sucked up all the oxygen in the room. The mayor clawed his way back, partly through his own committment to the democratic drudgery of debating and meeting voters, and partly because of his opponent’s tendency to shoot himself in the foot, leg, chest and face. Goff won by 80,000 votes. He’s a winner. But it’s hard to say he was inspiring. At his election party, I asked him for the one big project he’d be most proud of achieving in the coming term. “Further progressing the development of world-class infrastructure in this city,” he said. At least Tamihere dreamed big.
The Green Party
Dunedin’s Aaron Hawkins became New Zealand’s first official Green Party mayor. He suffered several setbacks on the campaign trail, including being democratically shanked by environmentalist Jim O’Malley, having to cower in fear of potential Lee Vandervis outbursts, and being rated ‘four snakes’ by The Spinoff’s snake rating. Still, he battled through to win a classic STV victory. Is this a sign that the Green Party will fare well at the 2020 General Election? No.
Alex Casey Sophie Handford
Sophie Handford, who is not Alex Casey, is the national coordinator behind School Strike 4 Climate, and now, a councillor for the Kāpiti Coast. You can read Alex’s interview with her here, but in summary, she’s really smart and probably our only hope.
SOPHIE HANDFORD (GOOD) AND ALEX CASEY (DEMON) SIDE BY SIDE
Handford is one of a number of excellent and potentially excellent young candidates elected across the country. Others include Tamatha Paul, Teri O’Neill, Toi Iti, Aaron Hawkins, Fisher Wang, Sarah Thomson, Richard Hills, Tania Tapsell and Rohan O’Neill-Stevens.
Anger (local)
Aggressive local campaigns shaped the makeup of at least two local boards in Auckland. On the North Shore, Ruth Jackson and Trish Deans made it onto the Devonport-Takapuna board after leading a long-running fight to stop a huge carpark in the centre of Takapuna being turned into something better. In Albert-Eden, the local board looks like it will be controlled by the right-wing ticket Communities and Residents. Its candidates were buoyed by the support of a crew of local golfers fighting to stop the division of Chamberlain Park.
STV voting
If Dunedin’s local election had been run under First Past the Post, Lee Vandervis would have won. The outburst-happy councillor has the single largest bloc of support in the city. Today Aaron Hawkins is mayor because people who voted for the progressive candidates like Christine Garey picked him as their second or third option under the STV system. In the end, Hawkins’ margin of victory was just over 1700 votes. A significant majority of Dunedinites preferred him to Vandervis.
That’s one of the clearest examples of STV working to make results more true to voters’ actual preferences, but it’s not the only one. Wellington also ran its elections under STV, and has an incoming council that for the most part reflects the communities it represents.
Craig Lord
Craig Lord launched his campaign for the Auckland mayoralty by announcing a policy of having no policies. By the end of the race, he was tweeting out overt climate change denial, edging toward becoming an Agenda 21 conspiracy theorist, and most damningly, officiating a steampunk wedding.
Those might seem like disastrous electoral positions, but Lord managed to secure 25,000 votes – a similar amount to Chlöe Swarbrick in 2016. Special mention should also go to John Hong, who won 14,600 votes, and Ted Johnston, who got 13,600, though it’s possible some of those came from people who feared failing to vote for him would see them chopped up with an axe.
TED IS WATCHING
Losers
John Tamihere
Goff’s leading contender suffered a resounding defeat. Part of that was down to a series of self-inflicted wounds. His campaign messaging was confusing, some of his promises could generously be described as ambitious, and he said ‘sieg heil’ during a debate, which is arguably too Nazi.
But he’s not a bigger loser because, for all its faults, the Tamihere campaign was hard-working. It had more volunteers than Goff, a more expansive ground-game, and a giant truck with his face on it. Tamihere himself went to battle with Goff in roughly 4364 debates, coming up with many new insults for each one. He and his team fought hard, and they lost by 80,000 votes.
JOHN TAMIHERE IN FRONT OF HIS BIG TRUCK AT CHAMBERLAIN PARK. PHOTO: ALEX BRAAE
Anger (mayoral)
Though anger managed to swing local board seats across the country, it was less successful in more high-profile election races. John Carter remains mayor in the Far North, despite a boisterous campaign to unseat him., Phil Goff was also re-elected, despite pockets of Boomers all over the city being extremely pissy at him over everything from bike paths to plans to change a carpark in Takapuna. Nearly all of Tim Shadbolt’s councillors became democratic Judas Iscariots and he’s still around. It takes some real screwing up to get a sitting mayor ousted. To understand the scale of disaster necessary, see Mike Tana (spiralling expenses scandals), Michael Feyen (entire council turned on him) and Justin Lester (bad buses, too handsome, Peter Jackson, Wellington, everything).
Shane Henderson was voted in as a councillor for Waitakere. His partner, Brooke Loader, was voted onto the Henderson-Massey local board. Their baby, James, has not taken the news well.
BABY JAMES RECEIVES THE NEWS THAT BOTH HIS PARENTS HAVE BEEN ELECTED TO ROLES IN LOCAL GOVERNMENT. PHOTO: HAYDEN DONNELL
FPP voting
Independent progressive candidate Victoria Tupou ran an enthusiastic, engaging campaign in the Owairaka subdivision of the Albert-Eden local board. She won 2757 votes in the preliminary count – respectable but not enough to win a seat. Meanwhile, incumbent City Vision board member Graeme Easte was three votes behind his C&R rival Monique Poirier. The result may change in the final counting, but it’s possible he would’ve defeated Pourier outright if Tupou hadn’t stood, thus narrowing the field of progressive candidates.
That’s stupid! It illustrates one of the problems with FPP. People should be encouraged to stand in local elections. Voters should be able to support the candidates they like without worrying about vote-splitting. STV all-but eliminates the issue of ‘tactical voting’ by employing a ranking system (you can read more about how it works here and here). Some people think the system is too confusing for low-information local elections, but the alternative is having more results that fail to reflect what communities actually want.
Tauranga
Tip for next time: Don’t elect a councillor that posts stuff like this to Facebook.
Big losers
Justin Lester
Lester became the first Wellington mayor in 33 years to lose after just one term. Under Wellington law, he must now allow Sir Peter Jackson to tattoo an L on his forehead, and then sit in the bucket fountain for a full 24 hours. If he survives, he will be allowed to run again in 2022. I’m sorry, I don’t make the rules.
People who do not like Peter Jackson jokes
People who don’t like Peter Jackson jokes are feeling worse than Sean Bean after the orcs shot him with all those arrows!
Mike Lee
Auckland’s grouchiest councillor looks set to be defeated after 27 years in local government. Once known as a public transport champion, Lee has spent three terms opposing apartment developments in rich people places, staunchly advocating for historic trains to run around Wynyard Quarter with no-one on them, and saying no to a lot of things. If the result in Waitematā holds, and Pippa Coom retains her narrow lead, Lee will be remembered for some great achievements. Unfortunately, too few of them will be from the last nine years.
Friendship
One of local democracy’s greatest buddy acts has come to an end. Horowhenua District Council mayor Michael Feyen has been turfed out of office after spending much of the last term trying to install his council pal Ross Campbell as deputy mayor, against the express wishes of his resentful council. Meanwhile, Campbell has retired. The pair may not have votes, but they have each other. Hopefully they have more time to water the flower of their friendship away from the council table.
It’s clear things need to change. Postal voting is anachronistic in the year 2019. Online voting won’t be a panacea, but maybe people’s last-minute rush to find physical ballot boxes is an indication more are needed in places where people actually go, like supermarkets. One-stop shops across the country might also help. The Electoral Commission could be given a mandate to increase participation in local elections, like it is for central government elections. Maybe we could have more civics education. Lastly, it would be great if the charred wreckage of our media could afford to cover councils properly. On that note, you can sign up to The Spinoff members here.
Gigantic losers
The Spinoff’s local elections team
These sad nerds spent so much time thinking about local elections! I’m writing this list on the morning after The Spinoff founder Duncan Greive’s 40th birthday party, plumbing depths of misery I barely knew existed. Alex Braae is similarly hungover in Wellington, writing cheat sheets about Andy Foster. I haven’t heard from Josie Adams or Alice Webb-Liddall. I fear for them. These writers have been heroically, stupidly committed to covering local democracy, even in the face of a public who repeatedly told them they don’t care, and to stop. They are truly the most irredeemable bunch of losers in the world and I appreciate them all greatly.