Wellington Mayoral Race: Who Wants The Top Job?

Monday, 12 May 2025, 6:27 pm
Article: RNZ

Nick James, Reporter

Former Labour Party leader Andrew Little is a high profile entrant in the battle for Capital's mayoral chains - so who are the other contenders for the top council job? RNZ Wellington Issues reporter Nick James explains.

Karl Tiefenbacher narrowly missed out on becoming a city councillor last year when he lost a byelection to the Green's Geordie Rogers.

Now he wants a crack at the top job and the owner of Kafee Eis said his business experience was one of the key reasons why he was running.

"Realistically we need some business nous in the council and leading the council and we need not to accept the way the council is running at the moment.

"We've got to fight against the status quo of the way things are operating because it hasn't been working for a long time."

Tiefenbacher said his focus would be on lowering rates and getting debt under control.

"The more money we take out of ratepayers' pockets is less money they have for discretionary spend, then the businesses start to suffer."

Focusing on rates is something he has in common with current councillor and candidate Ray Chung.

Chung is running on a policy platform of no rate increases, which he thought was possible, potentially.

"It may be that we can't get down to zero, but we actually can get very close to it, because it all depends on people's appetite for the council not doing some things."

He would cut spending on projects like council funded electric car charging, but not core community facilities and services.

"The central government is actually putting in car chargers, and the petroleum companies are doing that [too]."

Graham Bloxham is well known online for running the popular Facebook page Wellington Live.

He is advocating some large cost cutting particularly with regard to council staff.

"We need half the staff - with mental health in mind - we need to help people across to other careers and cut costs so pensioners don't lose the homes that they've saved and lived in all their lives because rates are too high.

"The whole thing's a banana republic."

His other priorities were boosting tourism and improving the environment.

"Right now I think the things we can do is work on biodiversity and AI powered environment so I am going to work very, very hard on that."

Supporting biodiversity was also something conservationist and candidate Kelvin Hastie backed. He created Predator Free Crofton Downs to eliminate pests from the suburb.

He told RNZ he wanted to give residents more of a voice.

"It is about getting the community first back into the Wellington City Council, so putting community first and certainly engaging more."

He also supported amalgamating the council with others nearby.

He would commission a report looking at the benefits of the idea to ratepayers.

"So it is about looking at the benefits of amalgamation.

Another candidate, former councillor Rob Goulden said his focus would be developing a long-term plan for the city.

Goulden said that would look at what infrastructure was needed for the city provided by both the city and regional councils over the next 30 years.

He said the city is facing some big problems.

"One of those is the finances, we're living beyond our means. I don't want to sound negative but we are."

All candidates RNZ spoke to either backed pausing or scrapping the Golden Mile project.

Election day is 11 October.

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