Update: The make-up of the governing body of Auckland Council will look quite different in this fifth term of the Super City, with eight new faces around the table
As the dust settles on Auckland's local body election, it seems the one thing the third of Aucklanders who turned out to vote tended to agree on was that they wanted change.
Aside from Wayne Brown taking the mayoral office with an almost 55,000 vote lead in the provisional results, a number of wards around the city have thrown out the incumbent in favour of a new face.
There will be eight of those new faces around the governing body table in this new term, although some, such as Howick's Maurice Williamson and Waitemāta's Mike Lee, are political veterans returning from brief sojourns out of the halls of power.
New councillors Julie Fairey, Lotu Fuli and Kerrin Leoni all represent Labour or CityVision, while the other new blood is decidedly more towards the centre-right.
New governing body members Andy Baker, Maurice Williamson, Ken Turner, Mike Lee and Wayne Brown all represent a shift away from the Labour status quo.
Perhaps one of the biggest upsets of the day was independent Mike Lee taking his old Waitematā chair back from Pippa Coom. The seat was decided with a margin of 1257 votes in the provisional results, with Lee taking almost exactly half of the vote.
Coom was not far behind with around 42 percent of the vote for the area, which comprises the city centre and adjoining suburbs and the islands of the Hauraki gulf.
Back in 2019, Coom took the seat from Lee by just 319 votes - providing her with a grip that ultimately didn't prove firm enough to provide her with more than one term.
Lee was delighted to have his old seat back, and spoke about being right there with the new mayor when it came to doing some extreme forensic accounting at council.
"Too much power, and not enough accountability," Lee said speaking yesterday evening, on his way to Brown's celebration in Ponsonby to congratulate him.
Lee said his first priority would be to get books open at council and arrange an audit of spending.
"Auckland's finances are in a very bad way," he said. "And I think in all of the book-opening, Auckland Transport should definitely be prioritised."
He said with a new governing body and a mayor that had run on a platform of council reform, there was a good chance the new council would be able to effect some change.
Another big change is in the central Albert-Eden-Puketāpapa ward, where centre-left councillor Cathy Casey has held an assured seat for the lifespan of the Super City. Her retirement this year has left a space open for a newcomer to join C&R's Christine Fletcher.
While provisional results suggested C&R's Will McKenzie had taken Casey's seat, preliminary results on Monday morning had CityVision's Julie Fairey ahead by 551 votes.*
A similar Monday morning upset happened in the Whau ward, where Labour-backed Kerrin Leoni took the seat from incumbent Tracy Mulholland.
However, in Franklin, local board chair Andy Baker beat former All Black Keven Mealamu by a comfortable margin of 3641, suggesting that for this term, Baker is Franklin's man.
Quizzed earlier in the campaign around what it was like going up against rugby royalty, Baker said it "will be a great test to the relevance of name recognition at the end of the day".
Another relatively comfortable win was for former National MP Maurice Williamson in Howick ward, where he ousted incumbent Paul Young by more than 2000 votes
Williamson campaigned with a platform focusing on reining-in Auckland spending, which he said has treated ratepayers and taxpayers like “open-ended ATMs”.
“Something must be done to stop this juggernaut,” he said. “It’s simply wrong to keep accumulating debt to pass on to future generations.”
Places where the creep to the right were not felt included North Shore, where left-leaning Richard Hills and Chris Darby were able to hold on to their seats, and Maungakiekie-Tāmaki, where Josephine Bartley kept on.
The aptly named Labour candidate Shane Henderson held onto his seat representing the west, after which he posted on Twitter in thanks: "Thank you Waitākere! It was a tough campaign but we got the highest provisional vote share in the West I'm feeling truly humbled, and I will work hard to repay your support."
However, it's the end of the road for Linda Cooper, the other ward councillor from Waitākere, who was replaced by WestWard's Ken Turner, whose campaign included a smattering of C&R favourites such as keeping the carparks, restricting building heights on new developments and reining in spending.
The councillors of the fifth term of the Auckland Council are:
- John Watson
- Wayne Walker
- Christine Fletcher
- Julie Fairey
- Andy Baker
- Sharon Stewart
- Maurice Williamson
- Alf Filipaina
- Lotu Fuli
- Daniel Newman
- Angela Dalton
- Josephine Bartley
- Richard Hills
- Chris Darby
- Desley Simpson
- Greg Sayers
- Shane Henderson
- Ken Turner
- Kerrin Leoni
*This article was updated to reflect the wins by Julie Fairey and Kerrin Leoni at 12:10 pm on Monday.
