Housing advocate to contest council by-election for Greens

Monday, 4 December 2023

Housing advocate Geordie Rogers will contest the upcoming council by-election for the Greens.

When Tamatha Paul resigned from the Wellington City Council to take up her post as MP for Wellington Central, she left a vacancy in the Pukehīnau/Lambton ward.

The council seat includes 34,000 voters and covers the inner-city and nearby suburbs including Kelburn, Aro Valley and Oriental Bay.

The seat is the Greens’ to lose – Paul was a popular candidate at the last local body election, winning the most first-preference votes of any single councillor in Wellington.

Rogers was selected as the candidate to replace her last night in a meeting of Green Party members in the area.

“I’m honoured to have just been selected as the Green Party candidate for the Wellington City Council … The real work starts now and we need all the help we can get,” he posted on social media.

His post garnered the support of Green regional councillor Thomas Nash along with Labour city councillor Rebecca Matthews.

Rogers is best-known for his role as president of Renters United, where he has pushed for better living standards and been vocal about the effects of the housing crisis on tenants.

The vacant seat brings the Labour-Green numbers on council down to seven, just under half of the council.

The council has several critical votes coming up over the next year including ratifying its District Plan, which involves zoning for more housing and removing some character protections, along with the serious budget decisions in the Long-Term Plan.

The by-election will take place in the summer, with postal voting beginning on January 26 and closing on February 17.

No other candidates have publicly announced a run at the seat so far.

Matthews said Labour would not be putting forward a candidate for the by-election. Nominations had opened but no suitable candidate had been found.