Auckland mayoral contest goes live as Phil Goff confirms candidacy

Sunday, 3 March 2019

Auckland Mayor Phil Goff said a hoped-for second term would be about 'Building Auckland's future' as he launched his tilt at re-election in October.

Goff told an audience of 230 at his launch in Mt Albert on Sunday afternoon it could be easy to leave the task of solving Auckland's challenges to someone else, but that was not his style.

A pledge to explore extending the Living Wage from council staff to at least some contractors was the only hint of new policy.

Phil Goff announces to 230 supporters in Mt Albert he will run for the Auckland mayoralty again.

In response, his main rival and former Labour Cabinet colleague John Tamihere called Goff a 'puppet for central government' under whose watch things had worsened.

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'There are huge problems in this city that Phil Goff has totally neglected,' said Tamihere in a statement in the first serious exchange of fire since launching his bid in January.

Goff's launch attracted a big turnout of political supporters, including Labour Cabinet ministers Phil Twyford and Jenny Salesa.

Goff campaigned in 2016 on introducing the Living Wage to all council employees, a policy that would be completed this year.

But in his launch speech he was not specific on how far an extension to contractors might go after making a reference to cleaners.

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'I have asked [the] council to begin the work of looking at all the implications of how we can extend the Living Wage of to some of our contractor group, and we'd probably want to start with cleaners,' he told Stuff after the launch.

'Cleaning our offices is a fundamental job that's done for council officials and elected representatives – that seems to be a good place to start the next step.'

He wouldn't say when the next phase of extending the $20.55 an hour rate would be complete for contractors. The wage was $4 higher than the statutory minimum wage.

Goff was building his campaign on a narrative of continuing initiatives taken by the council during his first term in office.

Those included new targeted rates to accelerate work to improve water quality at beaches and in streams, and to tackle pest and threats to the natural environment.

Goff has also linked the continuing rise in home construction to his three years as mayor.

'We have saved ratepayers hundreds of millions of dollars through value for money exercises and achieving efficiency at council,' Goff said in his launch address.

He said he had delivered his 2016 promise of general rates rising by no more than 2.5 per cent, but from next year backed the 3.5 per cent rises agreed by the council last year in its Ten Year Budget.

Tamihere has responded to Goff's launch by firing out areas where he believed the mayor had failed.

'Why hasn't Phil pushed back against the plan to slow the entire city down by making 700 kilometres of our roads only 30 kmh?' Tamihere said, referring to the safety initiative by Auckland Transport, which is currently out for public consultation.

'Phil's the only mayor in New Zealand that has imposed new petrol taxes on his own people,' he said, pointing to the 11.5 cent-a-litre tax introduced in July 2018 to accelerate investment in transport projects.

Neither Tamihere nor Goff have released any detailed policy of their own, with Goff telling Stuff his campaign might not get into full swing until a few months before the October poll.

Goff was introduced by senior councillor Penny Hulse, who would retire this year.

She praised the mayor in a way some saw as a swipe at Tamihere.

'Phil's an absolute joy to work with as a woman,' Hulse told the audience.

'[He's] deeply respectful of women, deeply respectful of our ethnic diversities and deeply respectful of the rainbow community.'

Tamihere's career as an MP came to an end in 2005 when a conversation recorded by Ian Wishart of Investigate magazine was published which quoted Tamihere as referring to women as 'front bums'.

He referred to colleagues as 'smarmy' and 'queers', took swipes at Prime Minister Helen Clark and called her advisor Heather Simpson 'butch' and 'dangerous'.

He lost his seat to the new Māori Party's co-leader Pita Sharples.

Three other declared candidates for the mayoralty are third-time challenger John Palino, 28-year-old cafe owner Joshua Love, and media 'operator' Craig Lord.

Palino who was runner-up to Len Brown in 2013, and fourth in 2016, has criticised Goff for not signalling the targeted rates for water quality and the environment, introduced last year, in 2016.