They’re young, full of ambition and just want to make sure their mates stop leaving the country.
The competitive world of local politics, where greying heads and people named John dominate, is not a domain younger New Zealanders have traditionally gravitated towards. While this is changing – the number of under-40s voted in at the last last local elections in 2022 had doubled since 2016 – the median age was still 55, and only around 6% of members were aged 18-30. Looking to further increase that percentage when the country heads to the polls in October, these young candidates are hoping another youthquake could be possible in local government.
Born on a leap day in the year 2000, 25-year-old Wellingtonian Sam O’Brien may have only had six real birthdays, but he reckons he’s got enough life experience to represent the Motukairangi/Eastern Ward on Wellington City Council. Running on the Labour ticket, O’Brien is the second-youngest candidate in his race after the Act Local-backed 21-year-old Luke Kuggeleijn. Though their political stances are poles apart, they’re both driven by the same motivation: to prove the youth voice can speak for all New Zealanders.
It’s a rainy day in Kuggeleijn’s home suburb of Lyall Bay – Motukairangi/Eastern Ward stretches eastwards from Roseneath, Kilbirnie, Hataitai and Lyall Bay to cover the Miramar Peninsula that juts out into the mouth of Wellington Harbour – when we meet for a coffee at Maranui Cafe, just a stone’s throw from the Surf Life Saving Club where he works. A postgraduate medical technology student and athlete, Kuggeleijn told The Spinoff he decided to throw his hat in the ring after seeing the party he voted for at the last election move into the world of local government – he figured the support that Act could offer would make it easier for a first-time candidate at his age to “have the confidence to stand”. Also, it’s pretty handy to have some mentors around who can answer the hard questions, like “how do I not get rage-baited?”
Running in a Green/Labour stronghold city, Kuggeleijn reckons his chances of winning one of the three ward councillor spots are slim (and the Eastern Ward race in particular is pretty stacked, with mayoral candidates Alex Baker, Rob Goulden and Karl Tiefenbacher also running), but he says it’s still worth it if it encourages other young people to get into local politics. “Usually, [young people] only see older people on council, and they think it’s shit – you know, what’s the point [of caring?],” Kuggeleijn says. “We have a 45% voter turnout [in Wellington], and they’re mostly older property owners and people who are already interested in politics.”
Kuggeleijn says he feels “fairly aligned” with Act’s principles and “commonsense mindset” on council spending, a position also informed by the experiences of his parents, two local business owners dealing with the rising cost of rates. As a councillor, Kuggeleijn says he’d be focused on “ending wasteful spending and focusing on core services”.
There are times when Kuggeleijn feels slightly out of step with his more progressive peers, but he’s a firm believer that “in a democracy, you’ve got to give people a choice, even if it’s a minority view”. “I think the best course of action you should take if you’re elected is that [you see yourself] as a public servant, so you have to serve. People should make decisions that are not based on ideology or political favour – you’re supposed to make decisions based on what the people want,” Kuggeleijn says.
In Hataitai, Sam O’Brien’s vision for the Eastern Ward looks vastly different. Over a coffee and toastie from Coolsville Cafe, just up the road from his flat, the regional council environment policy adviser (who’s been endorsed by outgoing Eastern Ward councillor Teri O’Neill, herself elected to council at age 21), reckons he’s been to far too many leaving parties for his mates who are heading overseas for better opportunities. Encouraging development and demand in the Eastern Ward will be key to curbing the “general down-buzz” permeating the air in the capital, he says, and to turn off the tap on the brain drain.
Alexandra born-and-raised O’Brien is running for council in the city he moved to post-university because he believes the council could be more proactive at listening to the concerns of younger Wellingtonians. The Eastern Ward in particular has seen very little growth in terms of population, O’Brien says, and as a councillor he would push to enable housing intensification and greater density. Ignoring these issues will “affect young people more than anyone else” in the long run, he says.
Having affected mobility due to hip and knee replacements as a child, O’Brien is also pushing for a more accessible capital by way of supporting more pedestrian-friendly urban spaces and improving the public transport system in the city. And should he make it onto the council table, O’Brien hopes older Wellingtonians will be able to see themselves and their interests reflected in his work.
“What benefits young people benefits everyone, and I don’t want to come across a candidate that only cares about young people,” he says. “A lot of older voters that are on fixed incomes are really struggling, and you can see the similarities between them and students.”
‘I’ll sacrifice myself, I guess’
Further north in Auckland, 21-year-old Caitlin Wilson is running for the Waitematā Local Board with City Vision, the Labour-Greens-independent local government coalition in the supercity. She’s also seen too many of her mates headed to Australia for work opportunities, and as a former co-convenor for the Young Greens, Wilson had tried last year to put together a campaign to “push the vote out for our younger audiences”, but struggled to find any young candidates keen to stand in 2025 – until she realised she should just do it, deciding, “I’ll sacrifice myself, I guess.”
“There’s no pathway, which is why a lot of young people say, ‘I don’t know where to start’,” Wilson says. “You feel like you have to fit a certain mould, talk a certain way, look a certain way … But I definitely think I’m learning that people should respect me for who I am, regardless of how I dress and speak.”
Wilson says local government isn’t designed to engage young people – too few councillors are showing up in youth-focused spaces, and holding local board meetings at the “retiree time” of 1pm can be a barrier to accessibility. “Young people, and myself included, have in the past thought, ‘they don’t care about us, they don’t care about our opinions, so why should we be engaged?’” Wilson says.
Her own interest in politics happened by accident – she was 15, there was a global pandemic going on, and Green MP (now co-leader) Chlöe Swarbrick was on Facebook Live talking about the cannabis referendum. It was the first time Wilson had seen a politician “speaking in a language I could understand”. She hopes that standing for council and replicating some of Swarbrick’s 2020 campaigning by hitting the universities and letterboxes can also help the youth vote grow.
“My whole thing has just always been to bring people into politics, people who’ve never felt welcomed or that they needed a certain level of knowledge to enter this space,” Wilson says. “It’s not just young people – I feel I can represent disengaged communities in general, families and people who don’t have the time and luxury to be in the know with local government.”
Young enough to know when to quit
Rohan O’Neill-Stevens was only 19 when they were first elected to Nelson City Council in 2019, and had just turned 22 when they became the city’s deputy mayor, after putting their name forward for the top job. Now 25 and having spent a quarter of their life in local government, O’Neill-Stevens reckons it’s the right time to give someone else a chance to bring their ideas to the council table.
“I promised myself when I was first elected that I’d ask myself every single day, ‘Is this where I’m most effective and most able to drive change?’” O’Neill-Stevens tells The Spinoff. “I can step away with confidence that I’m making space for someone else to have those opportunities to shape the future, and that I’ll be able to find new ways to do the same.”
Their experience in council has shown them that younger elected members tend to face more scrutiny than their older counterparts – it wasn’t uncommon to field “way more technical questions” to prove that they were on par with older councillors. “There was definitely that period of being sized up,” O’Neill-Stevens says. “It’s so hard to know what my experience would have been like if I wasn’t young. But also, I’m a male-presenting white person, so those layers of perception are different in terms of what it takes to earn respect, and to have your voice be treated as one of authority.”
To the next generation of young councillors, O’Neill-Stevens says the “service to the kaupapa” has to be the driving force behind a campaign, and to “approach every conversation with the expectation that you’ll learn something”. Being able to create meaningful dialogue with community members, even those who might never vote for you, is still “an innate source of information” for what’s going on in your area.
That attitude to conversation even works with fellow candidates. “So many people will tell you exactly what their debates are before you go in, even if they are completely opposed to you,” O’Neill-Stevens says. “Use that to your advantage, get them talking. Let them spill their secrets.”
