Meet the Candidates: 'Imperfect' Auckland mayoral hopeful John Tamihere on his fiery campaign

Tuesday, 18 June 2019

Meet the Candidate: John Tamihere.

Over the next month Stuff will sit down with four of Auckland's most vocal mayoral hopefuls. First up, we speak with outspoken Westie John Tamihere.

John Tamihere arrives nearly 30 minutes late for our interview at Stuff's Auckland newsroom.

There is no apology. Nor is there a handshake when he leaves the building.

But this is Tamihere's style – he's unapologetic, he calls things exactly how he sees them and, at times, he will offend you.

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John Tamihere announces his mayoral bid with his running mate Christine Fletcher, a current councillor and former mayor of the then-Auckland City Council, at his side.

And over the years it is his ability to offend that has put him in the headlines – from calling his Labour colleagues 'front bums', 'queers' and 'tossers' in an infamous Investigate Magazine interview, to making widely condemned comments around the Roastbusters scandal.

Now Tamihere wants to lead the country's most powerful council.

So is he worried his past could hurt him this election and beyond, should he wind up wearing the mayoral chains?

'Look, that's really up to some people that'll vote accordingly,' he says.

'I'm not perfect, I haven't lived a blemish-free life, but I've learnt a lot from my mistakes rather than from my successes.

Tamihere leaves the Mediaworks building with current Auckland Mayor Phil Goff after a short live debate during Three's AM Show.

'I'm moving on – some of them will, some of them won't, but ultimately that's over to them.'

'SHAKE IT UP'

In keeping with his campaign war cry, Tamihere wants to shake up Auckland's council controlled organisations (CCOs) – the likes of Auckland Transport and Panuku.

He is already gunning for the for AT board, announcing he would sack the lot of them if elected, while also pledging to stop AT's so-called 'anti-car strategy'.

He has taken shots at AT's widespread speed limit reductions, as well as wholesale traffic changes in St Heliers.

'The biggest problem is the way in which they're structured,' he says.

Tamihere sharing a drink with former National Party president Michelle Boag, left, and former Labour Party chief of staff Matt McCarten. Both are strategists on his campaign.

In Tamihere's view, elected councillors, accountable to ratepayers, have no oversight of the CCOs, which he estimates are responsible for 75 per cent of the city's operations.

'We're going to have to start to position elected folk on some of these companies … as relationship managers to drag them back in to be far more responsible,' he says.

Panuku has also drawn Tamihere's ire.

In his capacity as chief executive of Te Whānau O Waipareira, he lobbed a corruption claim into a stoush between the trust and Panuku over the level of social housing at the Tavern Lane development in Papatoetoe.

'At the moment you're just met with absolute contempt and arrogance in a number of places,' he tells Stuff.

'This is legend across the city. I'm not saying anything that's unsurprising to you.

'When 75 per cent of your business is run by people who in effect are unaccountable to elected politicians, who are accountable to the citizens, and that's the only accountability we've got, you need to drag those CCOs back in.'

Tamihere says current mayor Phil Goff has failed to keep CCOs in line.

'Under Goff there is no accountability, so there's no connectivity between the shareholder's letter of expectation, the [statement of intent] coming back and any way of measuring what's going on there,' he says.

'So as a consequence you've got seven back offices. We are back to seven cities.'

DON'T CALL ME DONALD

Voters thumbing through Tamihere's Twitter feed could be forgiven for thinking he has taken a leaf out of United States President Donald Trump's campaign play book.

Tamihere has made claims of fake news and continually expressed his dissatisfaction with coverage of his campaign, claiming it lacks balance.

Despite the similarities in style, Tamihere is emphatic in his rejection of comparisons to Trump.

It is a 'lazy' and 'very poor' simile, he says.

'I'm not a billionaire, I'm not a big white guy,' he says.

'My wife sold my golf clubs a long time ago, I don't like casinos and gambling.'

Trump is clearly trying to distance himself from the Donald, despite his Twitter tirades.

In fact, he reckons a Trumpian-style campaign would turn off Auckland voters.

'Whilst I'm forthright, I like to be as respectful as I can be and Kiwis are far more measured and stoic, and so a Trump won't go down,' he says.

'So to use a lazy simile like Trump on me you'd have to actually express some specificity about that and give me some evidence.'

Incidentally, if Tamihere did become Auckland mayor, and Trump retains the presidency, the pair could find themselves rubbing shoulders at APEC 2021.

GOFF'S 'ATM MACHINE'

'Shake it up' and 'sort it out' may sound clunky when paired as campaign slogans, but they appear to perfectly reflect Tamihere's intentions if he wins the October 12 election.

Auckland's controversial regional fuel tax, one of Goff's hallmark policies during his successful 2016 mayoral bid, is firmly in his sights.

The tax is 'unacceptable discrimination', Tamihere declares.

'We're the only city that has to pay 11.5 cents a litre for gas,' he says.

'The leverage that Auckland has got, as 44 per cent of the GDP driver, we're getting double taxed all over the place.

'We just can't continue to be Goff's ATM machine.'

A freshly elected Tamihere would jump straight on a plane to Wellington to re-negotiate the tax, though it is not clear exactly how it would change.

'Remember it's an election year, 2020, and so there's significant leverage in the Auckland populations,' he points out.

'Why should we stand by and get double taxed? One, to the central Government base and, two, as a ratepayer doubling up.'

Tamihere belongs to the school of thought that while it pays for Auckland's transport projects, the tax hurts the region's poorest.

'You've got people under $80,000 a year earnings in this city doing it really tough. They can't get ahead,' he says.

'It's just unfair, and if it's unfair you need someone strong enough to take the debate, not sign off on it like a puppet.'