Fears for the would-be female mayors

Saturday, 21 June 2025

“When did it become acceptable to talk about people like this online?”

Tory Whanau - soon to join a list of one-term Wellington mayors - asks this question, having been on the receiving end of “horrific death threats” and ditching X, formerly Twitter, due to the negative comments.

She believes the abuse she and other female politicians face is scaring women off public office.

The last time the capital had no women running for mayor was 1986 and before that, 1971.

For Wellington, it is a shift away from a city that has had more females in the top job than male since Fran Wilde, in 1992, was the first woman elected.

It’s a different story elsewhere in the country, where Auckland councillor Kerrin Leoni and Christchurch councillor Sara Templeton have thrown their hats in the ring for the top job.

Whanau’s time in office has come with misfires; from the called-off airport share sale that led to the ultimate appointment of a Crown Observer, to losing a clear left-wing majority bloc to the failed Readings Cinema deal.

Her personal life was front and centre when she walked out of a restaurant after drinking and forgot to pay and told Newstalk ZB's host Nick Mills she sold her car to sell the bills.

While Whanau acknowledged there was legitimate criticism about her mayoralty, where she paused was when the criticism became personal.

“It’s good to hold people to account, but sometimes I feel the reaction or the ongoing attention is a little out of sync.”

A study done disinformation researcher Dr Sanjana Hattotuwa examining the social media response to Whanau’s decision to step down as mayor found targeting defined by racism, misogyny and hate.

It’s not just Whanau. Hattotuwa performed a similar analysis for Dame Jacinda Arden in the days leading up to the former prime minister’s book launch, and found an escalation in direct, graphic and varied threats, including a horrifying catalogue of specific methods for her killing.

Across the board, female politicians are reporting feeling unsafe from online abuse in their roles.

Whanau said government rhetoric and attention from the media had seen an influx in online hate comments towards her, and said Prime Minister Christopher Luxon’s “lame-o” comment had sparked comments about Whanau’s intellect, expertise and appearance.

“When a negative comment in the public is made, whether it’s justified or not, what that does is amplify that word.”

Whanau said the reaction to her past actions felt “overblown” and said the amount of online discourse that came from the comment she made about selling her car versus Auckland mayor Wayne Brown, who was fined for driving while making a phone call, was “imbalanced”.

When asked whether she would recommend the role to other women, she said she would, as long as they had their eyes wide open.

“I didn't have that reality check when I came in. I was shocked by what it was like.”

A lack of security was another issue, and Whanau said there was not much support or safety measures in place for local government politicians.

“If you’re threatened at Parliament and you’re an MP, the Parliamentary Service security will escort you almost immediately, whereas in local body, you kind of have to beg for it.”

She said it took multiple discussions to agree to have a security guard escort Whanau so she could show her support at a trans right march during a time she was being threatened online.

Whanau said her choice to run in the Māori ward seat came from a place of wanting to continue to push for representation, even if it did not feel safe.

‘No place’ in politics

Seeing Whanau step into leadership three years ago had inspired former political staffer in the Labour Party leader's office Lamia Imam to run for mayor.

Being a similar age to Whanau and a person of colour, Whanau’s appointment made it feel like there was a place for her in politics, but she said her view changed after seeing Whanau’s treatment online and was a strong contributing factor in her decision not to run.

“It’s hard to see a women of colour taking a leadership position and being attacked this way and not think the exact same thing would happen to you.”

Watching the treatment of other politicians such as Golriz Ghahraman and Arden was “very dispiriting”.

“I’m not saying these are flawless perfect people that were taken out, that’s not true, we all have flaws, we are human. I think it’s the way it feels like if men had the same transgressions we would laugh it off.”

Women, she said, felt like they had to be perfect, because they weren’t just representing themselves, but opening the path for all the women who came behind them.

She compared mayor candidate Andrew Little to Whanau, saying the policies he was putting forward were not too dissimilar to Whanau.

“I don’t think he’s going to get nearly the same level of backlash she did.”

Women have ‘unfair run’ in politics

Lara Greaves, associate professor in politics at Victoria University of Wellington, said there were many different variables interacting around gender and the experiences of women in the public space.

“There is a lot of discussion, anecdotally and some evidence-based that shows perhaps women get an unfair run in politics and that might contribute to women less likely to put themselves forward.”

Unfair scrutiny towards minority women and women of colour such as Whanau played a factor, as well as real security risks for female politicians and their families.

The study done by Suzanne Every-Palmer on stalking, harassment, gendered abuse, and violence towards politicians during the pandemic showed the situation to be worse than she expected.

But Greaves noted it also could be the fact no women were at a stage of their career where they were ready to stand.

Stepping in for representation

Aditi Tiwari is an Indian student at Victoria University running for a seat at Porirua City Council and is one of the people Whanau is coaching into leadership.

She was hesitant to run and said it was “no wonder” others weren’t but was stepping up despite this.

“I know what it’s like to not see yourself in decision-making spaces and that is why I wanted to step in.”

She said women were being criticised for their empathic and community-minded leadership style that was “integral” to politics.

“I feel like I'm not even here to be nice or quiet. I just want to be real and I am angry, and I think angry voices are the ones that get heard.”

Tiwari had been told to prepare herself mentally for people who were not in her corner, and be wary of how she used her social media.

“Should I actually take my car to this meeting because people can see my number plate? Where do I put my address if I'm filling out forms for council?“

When she talked to her male colleagues who were also standing for election this year, she said it was a thought that never crossed their mind.

But Tiwari was hopeful, and said in Porirua, half the council seats were held by women with mayor Anita Baker in charge. In the 2022 elections, Porirua was the only council in the country with all female mayoral candidates.

Last election, 28.1% of mayor candidates were women. Of those, 31.8% were elected as mayor, rising to 34% due to by-elections.

Of the 66 councils who had two or more mayoral candidates running in the 2022 elections, 15 of them only had male candidates running, Tauranga excluded.

Porirua, Upper Hutt and Lower Hutt all have women running this year.