Better Wellington attacks ‘tarnishing’ Independent Together candidates
Monday, 15 September 2025
A now-deleted social media post from the backers of Ray Chung’s Wellington mayoral campaign ‒ calling councillor Rebecca Matthews a “retard” and a “grift monkey” ‒ has sparked a backlash from a high-profile Team Chung candidate.
The post from Better Wellington, whose political arm Independent Together (IT) is running several candidates including Chung, described Matthews as “one of the mental, extreme, communist, trans-loving (like the guy who shot Charlie Kirk) Green Party retards”.
It is the latest in a series of attacks on left-leaning politicians, with the group earlier commissioning “research” on Labour-aligned candidates, labelling mask-wearers “Covidians” and painting pro-Māori views as extremist.
Chung also spread unsupported rumours about mayor Tory Whanau, which prompted three IT members to quit the group.
Paula Muollo, who is running for IT in the Southern/Paekawakawa ward, told The Post they were being tarnished by associates who they had “nothing to do with” any more.
Chung refused to comment.
Muollo said the comment was “absolutely appalling” and she planned to speak with the group to find out who posted the comments and why.
The post about Matthews further read: “Message to voters in Onslow-Western ward. It’s time to throw out the trash!
“She’s been a councillor for far too long and her track record is to pull money out of your wallet.
“Throw this grift monkey to the wind and evict her from council.”
Muollo said she did not condone behaviour attacking others. “It’s not nice … you personally will never see me attacking anyone.”
She sympathised with Matthews, saying her own campaign had been littered with “non-stop” attacks from members of the public ‒ including a push in the chest ‒ signs torn down and graffitied and one sign tagged with the word “fascist”.
IT candidates were largely “flying solo” from Better Wellington after the last roadshow two months ago, Muollo said, due to the nature of the campaign trail.
In response, Matthews called the post “disgusting”.
She told The Post the slurs used did not just hurt her, but others too.
“What these kind of comments do is try and make people like me go away, and I'm not going to do that.”
Matthews said she did not hold Chung responsible, but wanted him to know she would never speak like that about him or be associated with anybody that would talk like that.
She was not expecting an apology from Better Wellington..
Glenn Inwood, the author of many of Better Wellington’s blog posts, said he deleted the post after being approached by members ‒ but would not say who wrote it or asked to have it taken down.
The post was an example of “leftist politics”, he said.
“The Green Party today is a chimera, it’s an asylum, it’s a twisted version of the party founded by Rod Donald and Jeanette Fitzsimons.”
An Independent Together spokesperson said Better Wellington did not represent the group and Better Wellington’s press releases and public statements were its own.