Airport shares selloff splits mayor’s supporters

Thursday, 13 June 2024

Three left-wing councillors say the sale of the airport shares has shaken their faith in the mayor’s leadership.

Mayor Tory Whanau was elected with a Green Party endorsement, but had been unwilling to push back on ideas from staff even when they conflicted with progressive values, said three of her colleagues.

Green councillor Nīkau Wi Neera and Labour councillors Nureddin Abdurahman and Ben McNulty will no longer commit to voting with the mayor’s policies.

The vote to sell the airport shares, spearheaded by Whanau in the Wellington City Council’s long-term plan meeting two weeks ago, was the final straw.

“We’re not going to be co-operating unconditionally in the same way that we were, until we receive some guarantees that the progressive agenda that the mayor's office is supposed to be pursuing is the agenda that is actually going to be pursued,” Wi Neera said.

For the first half of the term, the progressive transport and housing decisions made with the council have been made possible by the eight votes of the Labour and Green councillors, including Whanau’s casting vote as mayor.

No longer. Without the votes of Wi Neera, Abdurahman and McNulty, Whanau will have to make compromises with independent councillors to maintain the eight votes needed to pass her core policies.

The three councillors will instead vote issue-by-issue. They will not re-enter the voting bloc unless the mayor agrees to set some boundaries or “red lines” around what might be on the table for the rest of the council term.

“The airport has totally shaken my faith, that is the major outlier for me,” Wi Neera said.

McNulty and Abdurahman said their protest had been building for a while, since the vote on the Town Hall and the Reading Cinemas deal.

“The mayor is not leading, the bureaucracy is governing us … In future if we have something in common I will work with [the mayor], I don’t have a personal issue, but the way we are heading I have to stop and reflect a little bit,” Abdurahman said.

For all three councillors, the decision to sell the airport shares was a clear case of Whanau going against the platform she was elected upon in order to push through a favourite idea of council staff.

The question of whether the shares should have been sold was an “active discussion” within the Green Party, Wi Neera said. Labour councillors had taken a more cut-and-dried view that selling a major asset was clearly against the party manifesto.

“Council’s officers say: ‘Jump,’ and the response of the mayor’s office is to say ‘How high?’” McNulty said.

That had led to the council moving forward with some unpopular ideas including approving a $329m budget for the Town Hall upgrade, approving the now-defunct deal with Reading Cinemas, and now selling the airport shares.

“I am just scared, what’s the next terrible idea that’s sitting in the bowels of the machinery ready to be brought up to us?” McNulty wondered.

There was disquiet about the three councillors breaking ranks, with their colleagues suggesting that they needed to ground their decisions in reality rather than ideology. Their political play was variously described as ego-driven, bewildering, and holding the council hostage.

“It’s just a question of trust,” said Wi Neera, who did not believe they were holding the council hostage. “If I felt tomorrow that we would be able to deliver a progressive agenda for the next 16/17 months I would be back straight away.”

McNulty said the three were standing up for what they believed in. He had stopped attending the Labour-Green caucus meetings because it was “not a healthy environment to have an opinion different from the majority”.

Abdurahman said it was “bizarre” to claim that their campaign was ego-driven, when they were just trying to represent the community, who hadn’t wanted to sell the airport shares.

“It’s not up to individual councillors what we can and can’t make decisions on,” said Labour councillor Teri O’Neill.

“I agree that selling the airport shares wasn’t a good decision, but we’ve still got to come in to work and do our jobs.”

“In my experience when you work constructively with colleagues you can achieve lasting progressive change, like the new District Plan,” said Rebecca Matthews. She said the mayor’s office had played a positive role there.

There were a lot of Labour-Green councillors who didn’t want to be in the same room as each other at the moment, Wi Neera said. “It is a really difficult time, and a lot of people have got hurt, and there’s healing that needs to happen.”

On the right of the council table, Diane Calvert was pleased with the change in voting dynamic. She said it gave independent councillors a voice they had been lacking.

Calvert was previously investigated by a lawyer appointed by Whanau along with four of her independent colleagues, but most had been happy to vote for Whanau’s long-term plan. In the meeting right-wing councillor Tony Randle praising Whanau and her staff for making the process easier than it could have been.

“If I was a right-wing councillor I’d be stoked about the Long-Term Plan. I just got everything I wanted,” Wi Neera said.

Whanau said she remained committed to leading Pōneke “with a progressive vision”.

The Reading Cinemas deal and the Town Hall had both been voted through with a progressive majority, she pointed out.

“The reality of governing is that you must make difficult choices. It can be hard when two things you hold dearly come into conflict, but ultimately, it’s about making tough decisions for the good of Wellington,” Whanau said.

“I will continue to work constructively with everybody around the Council table, but especially my colleagues who share a progressive vision for the city.”

Green councillors Geordie Rogers, Wi Neera and deputy mayor Laurie Foon issued a joint statement saying it had been a “long couple of weeks” but they remained committed to “progressive change”.

“There’s a lot of common ground and shared values here at council, and we’re going to tap into that to deliver the change Pōneke voted for.”