Former chartered accountant, progressive takes Wellington mayoral race to seven

Monday, 9 June 2025

Alex Baker is running to be Wellington’s next mayor.

A greenish contestant in accountancy colours has entered Wellington’s mayoral race.

Alex Baker will today become the farthest-left in an all-male field to run to be the capital’s next mayor in the local body elections in October.

But he faces an already full field in the contest to run Wellington City Council. Already announced are Labour’s Andrew Little, Independent Together-backed Ray Chung and independents Karl Tiefenbacher, Kelvin Hastie, Rob Goulden and Graham Bloxham. Baker is also running for a council seat in the Motukairangi/Eastern ward.

Nominations are open until midday on August 1.

While the usual progressive tropes – better public transport, bike lanes, environmentalism and affordable housing – are part of in Baker’s playbook, the former chartered accountant running as an independent is also making a play for the political right.

Business rates – commercial rate payers pay a rates multiplier of about 3.7 – were unsustainably high and needed to be fixed, he said.

Another suggestion, sure to see ears prick in the business community, was looking at how commercial rates are charged, with a suggestion of doing away with development contributions and looking at rates based on the value of land rather than land plus the value of the building atop it.

Wellington’s other mayoral candidates, clockwise from top left: Ray Chung, Andrew Little, Karl Tiefenbacher, Rob Goulden, Kelvin Hastie and Graham Bloxham.

“I think that progressive policies need to be implemented with a degree of commercial discipline to make sure that they're going to be effective,” he said on Sunday in an exclusive interview with The Post.

The thinking was, lower development costs meant more housing and businesses doing better. This would in turn bring more people to the city allowing costs, and rates to be spread across more people – eventually. Success for him would be Wellington City annual population growth of about 2.5% by 2028.

The father of two young children said he threw his hat in the ring after becoming “disillusioned” with the race of Little on the centre left and the remaining candidates seen as to the right of him.

There was no-one, Baker said, representing progressives like him – people he thought may opt out of voting all together. He was progressive but, he stressed, not tied to any party.

“If you're too closely aligned with any party, you end up being stuck between the priorities of a party, which can be quite different to the things that are needed to effectively manage trade offs at that city level,” he said.

Baker was realistic – no known recent polling has come out but Little is seen as the favourite with Chung far from being ruled out. The then-little known Tiefenbacher nearly won a 2024 by-election for a council seat and enters this race with name recognition.

To Baker, paradoxically, a loss in October could count as a win: “I would consider it a win if voter turnout was higher because of me running, and that resulted in a council that was more progressive and more focused on proper commercial discipline and financial responsibility.”