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Image: Tina Tiller
Image: Tina Tiller

OPINIONPoliticsMay 20, 2024

Half-term report card: Tory Whanau’s wins, losses and re-election chances

Image: Tina Tiller
Image: Tina Tiller

Kia ora, welcome to Windbag, The Spinoff’s new Wellington issues column, written by me, Joel MacManus. In this first edition, I take a closer look at the first half of Tory Whanau’s term as mayor.

If you want to understand Wellington’s local political landscape, you need to start in 2013 with the Seddon earthquake. Along with the 2016 Kaikōura quake, it kicked off a long, slow backslide for Wellington.

It seems like every few months since then, another civic institution shuts its doors for repairs. The Central Library, the Town Hall, the City Gallery, St James Theatre, Reading Cinemas, Amora Hotel, and dozens of other offices and apartment buildings. The earthquakes also caused cracks in thousands of kilometres of pipes, which are leaking like crazy. 

If all that damage had happened at once, it would have been recognised as a national emergency. Instead, it was drip-by-drip. A sense of decay set in. All the shuttered buildings gave the impression the city was dying. In reality, it wasn’t; the population continued to increase, as did the regional GDP. But the vibes were bad.

Wellington is still in disaster recovery mode, even if it isn’t always top of mind. That’s a tough environment for any mayor. In fact, the city hasn’t re-elected a mayor since 2013. That anti-incumbency trend benefitted Tory Whanau in the 2022 election, which she won by a landslide margin over Andy Foster and Paul Eagle. But now it’s something she has to overcome.

People are anxious about their homes and businesses, and want reassurance that they’ve chosen the right city to build their lives in. Whanau needs to sell her vision of a brighter future, while showing a steady, responsible hand through the slow-moving crisis.

Wellington mayor Tory Whanau speaking after the Loafers Lodge fire (Photo: Hagen Hopkins/Getty Images)

Tory Whanau’s best moment as mayor so far was in the aftermath of the Loafers Lodge fire. She was highly visible in national and international media, looking responsive and compassionate. It was Ardern-esque disaster leadership. It shone particularly brightly in comparison to Wayne Brown’s hopeless showing in the Auckland floods a couple of months earlier. Those moments matter. Most voters aren’t following the day-to-day of council meetings, but they want to see their city leaders step up in time of crisis.

Whanau got a much-needed win around the council table with the new District Plan, the most significant change to the city’s housing rules in a lifetime. It won’t lead to too much real-world change in the immediate future (interest rates need to drop considerably before we see any kind of apartment boom) but it is enough to satisfy her base of nerdy progressives who actually pay attention to local politics.

Although not Whanau’s creation, the cycleway programme is closely associated with her due to her status as a Green mayor. The rollout is running relatively smoothly, on its way to 73km of bike lanes despite some budget cuts. The opposition is loud and increasingly intense, but as long as it’s handled with care it’s not a huge electoral threat. Whanau’s voters support bike lanes and bus lanes. Lately, those lanes have been some of the only visible signs of progress Wellington has. 

Whanau’s biggest weakness is her political instincts. She tends to place too much trust in council staff. Sometimes, it looks like she is being led around by the nose. Whanau is particularly close with her chief executive Barbara McKerrow and CFO Andrea Reeves. That’s not necessarily a bad thing – both are highly capable, and Whanau clearly values staff input based on her background as chief of staff for the Green Party. But staff advice is technical, not political. As mayor, Whanau needs to take advice, and combine it with her own political strategy. 

The decision to pump an extra $147 million into the Town Hall earthquake repair looked a lot like the tail wagging the dog. Council staff gave advice that was clearly angled to make it seem like there was no choice but to continue. It emphasised how much the council has already spent, suggested any delay would just increase the price more, and was dismissive about the idea of mothballing or demolishing. Councillors were painted into a corner. Politically, it was a missed opportunity for Whanau to show leadership and fiscal restraint by pausing the project.

The failed deal to reopen the earthquake-damaged Reading Cinema by buying the underlying land parcel was another case of political mismanagement. Council staff thought they had an elegant solution that worked on paper, but Whanau should have known the political risks. Any deal that appears to give council money to a multinational company was always going to be controversial.

The Reading Cinema deal was an L for Wellington mayor Tory Whanau.

Whanau was naive to think her conservative opponents on the council would agree to keep the deal secret during negotiations. It leaked almost instantly. Once that happened, Whanau needed to go out and sell it. Instead, she refused to say anything due to “commercial sensitivity”, while opponents had free rein over the debate and successfully torpedoed the deal. 

Big changes don’t happen just because it’s a good idea. The mayor has to use her bully pulpit to drive change. She needs to be a politician and a leader, not just a manager.

The second half of the three-year term could make or break Whanau’s re-election chances. The upcoming long-term plan, which the council will finalise on May 30, won’t have much to celebrate. It’s an austerity budget, and no matter which way you slice it, there will be cuts that will upset some people, and rates rises that will upset lots of people. The best hope for Whanau is to minimise the damage. 

The Golden Mile upgrade is an opportunity for a win, but it seems to be stuck in development hell. Wellington City Council took over the project after Let’s Get Wellington Moving was scrapped, but has gone back to the drawing board and has no official timeline. Unfortunately, even if the project does finally begin, it will be fully appreciated only after it is completed and the roadworks are cleared away, and there’s no guarantee of that happening before the 2024 local body elections.

Three years isn’t long enough to show much tangible change. Whanau will have to go into the election pitching her long- term vision, and hoping her political leanings still appeal to the largest chunk of voters. The smartest move she’s made recently was to officially rejoin the Green Party. Despite the party’s many (many) stumbles, the Greens are still the strongest political brand in Wellington, and the candidate with their endorsement will be the betting favourite.

‘Hutt Valley, Kāpiti, down to the south coast. Our Wellington coverage is powered by members.’
Joel MacManus
— Wellington editor
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Donald Trump and Joe Biden are battling it out for another four year term. (Photos: Getty Images)
Donald Trump and Joe Biden are battling it out for another four year term. (Photos: Getty Images)

PoliticsMay 16, 2024

Trump vs Biden round two: The 2024 US presidential election, explained

Donald Trump and Joe Biden are battling it out for another four year term. (Photos: Getty Images)
Donald Trump and Joe Biden are battling it out for another four year term. (Photos: Getty Images)

With less than six months to go, it’s time to start paying attention to what could be the most consequential election of our lifetimes.

It’s less than half a year until election day in the United States, which makes this a good opportunity to review what’s happened thus far in the campaign and take a look at the key moments that lie ahead. Given that both the Republican and Democratic candidates are already locked in, this has been a relatively subdued election season. But with Donald Trump fighting to regain the White House (and to potentially stay out of jail), you can bet there’s still some major fireworks to come.

When’s the election? (And other dates for your diary)

The 2024 election is held on Tuesday, November 5, with the winner sworn into office on January 20, 2025. Other key dates for the diary include the presidential nominating conventions, where the candidate is officially selected and the election campaigns kick off for real. This year the Republican national convention runs from July 15-18 in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, while the Democratic national convention is August 19-22 in Chicago, Illinois. Three presidential debates were originally set to take place in September and October, but the draft schedule has now been abandoned by both candidates. Just this morning Biden and Trump announced they’d agreed to a CNN debate on June 27 and another on ABC on September 10. The CNN debate will be the earliest in presidential election history.

US President Joe Biden speaks to an audience on January 27, 2024 in Columbia, South Carolina. (Photo: Sean Rayford/Getty Images)

Who’s in the race?

You know this one. With no challengers for his re-nomination, President Joe R Biden is running for a second term against a certain Donald J Trump. The former president made short work of his rivals in the Republican primaries, winning all the votes he needed for nomination by March 12. Also running for president is political scion, conspiracy theorist and brainworm victim Robert F Kennedy Jr. He says he already has enough signatures to get on the ballot in 13 states, but has plans to contest the election in all 50. His campaign for ballot access is is going surprisingly well.

Which states will matter?

While the national polls tend to hog the headlines, what really matters are the handful of swing (or “battleground”) states. By most reckons, this year there are just six states where the result is really in doubt: Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin (some analysts include a seventh, North Carolina). A New York Times/Siena poll this week has Trump ahead in five of the six, with Biden only leading in Wisconsin.

The issues that could swing the election

While history tells us that disaffected voters tend to “come home” to their party as the election draws nearer, the NYT poll clearly spells disaster for the Democrats unless something is done to stop their slide in support. The anti-Biden sentiment is particularly acute among young and nonwhite voters, two key pillars of the traditional Democratic coalition. Many of those polled cited the cost of living and war in Gaza as reasons for their disillusionment with Biden, but the malaise runs deeper than any single issue. “[V]oters in battleground states remain particularly anxious, unsettled and itching for change,” reports the paper. “Nearly 70 percent of voters say that the country’s political and economic systems need major changes – or even to be torn down entirely.” Biden’s age is also a major concern: a staggering 86% of respondents in a February poll said they believed he was too old to serve a second term. Biden is 81, three-and-a-half years older than Trump.

It’s not all bad news for Democrats. Vote-winning issues for Biden include the erosion of abortion rights in right-leaning states following the overturning of Roe vs Wade, the ongoing need for strong climate policy, and the serious threats to democracy posed by a second Trump term. Republican groups closely involved in the presidential campaign have released plans to overhaul the US government to permanently entrench Maga-conservative control should Trump win, and powerful Trump advisor Stephen Miller has said the new president would enact mass roundups of undocumented immigrants as one of his first orders of business.

Also in the plus column for Joe Biden: his money-raising efforts, which are blowing Team Trump out of the water. The Democrats’ huge fundraising totals will allow them to plaster the airwaves with ads touting Biden’s accomplishments so far and plans for a second term.

Former US President Donald Trump appears in court for opening statements in his trial for allegedly covering up hush money payments at Manhattan Criminal Court on April 22, 2024. (Photo: Yuki Iwamura-Pool/Getty Images)

What about Trump’s trials?

They’re not going to be as important an issue as first thought. While it seemed Donald Trump would be mired in multiple criminal cases throughout the pre-election period, it’s looking increasingly likely that all of them – other than the current business fraud/Stormy Daniels trial – will be delayed until after the election.

A Trump win in November would allow him to immediately cancel both the Mar-a-Lago classified documents case and the 2020 election interference case brought by special counsel Jack Smith. The second election interference case brought by Georgia district attorney Fani Willis could go ahead since it’s not a federal case, though Trump’s lawyer is already arguing it should be postponed until he leaves office in 2029.

And if he loses the election? All three cases will go to trial in 2025, and Trump is in for a whole world of legal pain.

Other races to watch

Whether it’s Trump or Biden in the White House, the president’s power will be constrained – or expanded – by the make-up of the new congress. A Republican-controlled Senate and House of Representatives would give a President Trump near-limitless control of the levers of government, so the down-ballot races matter a lot.

With a number of vulnerable incumbents facing voters this year, Democrats are unlikely to hold onto their slim majority in the Senate. They have a better chance to retake the House of Representatives, but a Trump win would likely mean a Republican blowout in the House too. One thing’s for sure, the Democratic Party has a hell of a fight on its hands over the next six months.

Catherine McGregor is the writer of the World Bulletin, a weekly global affairs newsletter exclusively for Spinoff Members

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