Wellington's longest-serving councillor stepping down

Friday, 1 August 2025

Iona Pannett has confirmed she is stepping down after 18 years of fighting for transparency, heritage and environmental causes as a Wellington city councillor.

Pannett joined the council in 2007 fresh from a campaign to stop the Wellington inner-city bypass and has served six terms.

Her passion to save heritage homes in Wellington saw her in conflict with the Green Party, which pushed for inner city suburb intensification. It was around this time she parted ways with the party and has run as an independent since.

As many of her colleagues around the table now embark on a re-election campaign it will be the first campaign in 18 years that Pannett will not be knocking on doors.

“Representing the Pukehīnau Lambton Ward has been an enormous privilege,” she said.

“I am deeply grateful to the many hundreds of people who have supported me during my time on council – my family, friends, constituents, stakeholders, colleagues and volunteers on my campaigns. Having this support has been such a gift.

“Te Whanganui-a-Tara is an incredible city, full of diverse, creative and talented people and there have been many opportunities to do good work in the city alongside so many passionate and hard-working Wellingtonians.”

She now planned to focus on health, history, environment and social justice.

Pannett listed her achievements over the past six terms:

• The Declaration of the Climate and Ecological Emergency and effective plans to reduce emissions,

• Strong and effective advocacy for more transparency at council,

• Granting of the living wage to council employees and contractors,

• Advocacy for the protection of our listed heritage buildings,

• Increased protection of the Town Belt,

• Leadership of the capital’s efforts to move to a zero-waste economy,

• Moves to creating better housing through City Housing and Te Kāinga programmes,

• Numerous plan changes to create more housing and better management of stormwater,

• Leading plans to improve the lives of disabled people and rainbow communities,

• Helping to stop the Basin Reserve flyover,

• Roll out of many initiatives to improve walking, cycling and public transport infrastructure,

• Initiatives to green our buildings,

• Advocacy and assistance for owners of earthquake prone buildings,

• Creating new and protecting existing green spaces,

• Advocacy for fair trade in our city,

• Fair leadership of a number of council’s decision-making committees,

• Working to resolve many issues for constituents and communities in my Pukehīnau/Lambton,

• Liberalising dog policies and better care of cats and other animals.