Sara Templeton announces bid for Christchurch mayoralty

Saturday, 12 October 2024

Sara Templeton wants to be Christchurch’s next mayor.

The 52-year-old third-term city councillor announced on Saturday that she is running for the mayoralty, making her the only confirmed candidate a year out from next year’s local body election.

Incumbent Phil Mauger is widely tipped to stand again, but says he will not confirm until the new year.

Templeton is confident she can win, even if history is against her. The last time a sitting mayor was unseated at an election in Christchurch was in 1974 when one-term mayor Neville Pickering lost to Hamish Hay. Hay went on to lead the city for 15 years.

But Templeton already has form in this area. When she was first elected to council in 2016, she convincingly won her seat from a sitting councillor.

Templeton is well-known for strongly supporting initiatives that reduce the city’s greenhouse gas emissions - she holds the council’s climate change portfolio - and also helping prepare the city to adapt to a changing climate.

She was thrust into the national spotlight in 2022 when she went public with her successful bid to track down the man responsible for misogynistic trolling of herself and other left-wing female politicians.

As a result, two members of the Young Nats resigned from the National Party after the courts identified their home as the source of the trolling.

Templeton has no doubt the online abuse will escalate if she is elected mayor.

“In general, the higher position a women aspires to take, the bigger the push back is.”

She says she has learnt a number of tools to help her deal with the abuse.

“I don’t think it’s about getting a thick skin, I think it’s just about putting that stuff in its place, and for the most part I manage to do that. I’ve been deliberate in upskilling and learning how to deal with it.”

Standing for the mayoralty is something Templeton has been thinking about for a while. People have been asking her to run for a number of years, but she says the timing was not right.

“I’ve had issues with cancer. I was recovering from stage 2 melanoma and it wasn’t good timing.”

She says she wants to be mayor because she is motivated to help the city be sustainable and resilient, now and for future generations.

“When I look at my kids and their future and their future city, we know there are huge challenges coming.

“I believe I have got the skills and experience to lead a future-focused council to make really good long-term decisions for the city.

“The community deserve a real choice at election time with a contest of ideas.”

Good decisions have been made by councils in the last decade or so, Templeton says, but she feels they are at risk now with the direction of central Government and the city’s existing mayor.

She is concerned about the “ad hoc, short-term, sugar hit” ideas coming from Mauger. Ideas like Christchurch hosting the Commonwealth Games, delays to cycleways, and closing some of the smaller libraries.

The city needed long-term thinking from its mayor, Templeton says.

She is also not happy with the decision made by the council as part of its 10-year budget, the long-term plan, to delay the renewal of water infrastructure, especially when water is continually leaking from pipes.

Making sure the city continues to invest in its underground infrastructure is one of Templeton’s major policies.

“People are tired of councils continually kicking the can down the road when it comes to infrastructure.”

She also wants residents to have safe, reliable and convenient transport choices to get around the city.

Templeton has ruled out selling any of the council’s strategic assets, which include Lyttelton Port and the airport. After five years on the board of the council’s investment company Christchurch City Holdings Ltd (CCHL), she believes they are best placed in local ownership.

She wants the next draft 10-year budget, in 2027, to give people options on council spending, especially around the level of services it provides and the rating impact of any increase or decrease to those services, which includes park maintenance, libraries and pools.

Cathedral Square needs to be more friendly, welcoming and safe, Templeton believes. She wants the fences around the Christ Church Cathedral pushed back, and would like to see the free central city shuttle reinstated.

The bright yellow shuttle previously ran in the central city for 15 years, but was stopped after the February 2011 earthquake.

One thing Templeton says she will not be doing is making promises she can not keep, especially around keeping rates increases to a certain level.

Templeton has been described by some as divisive, especially around the council table, but she says it is the issues that are divisive, not her personally.

“Many of the issues that I care deeply about are ones that people have really strong opinions with on either side. It’s the issues causing the disagreement, not me. It just happens that I’m really clear about where I stand on those.”

Cycleways is one of those divisive issues. She will be pushing to get the city’s cycleway programme finished sooner rather than later.

Templeton says she will not contest her Heathcote seat next year - she will solely contest the mayoralty because she believes that is where she can make the most difference.

She will also stand as an independent, and is no longer a member of any political party. Until earlier this year she was a member of the Green Party, but it has never funded any of her council campaigns.

Fundraising is probably the biggest challenge of her bid for the mayoralty, Templeton admits.

“I don’t come from money and I don’t have a whole pile of wealthy contacts, so it’s going to be a good old-fashioned fundraising campaign.”

There will be quiz nights and other activities to raise money.

The need to raise money is one of the reasons she has announced her bid now, 12 months out from the election.

“It’s hard to fundraise if you haven’t announced.”

It also seems disingenuous, she says, to keep telling people she is undecided when she has actually made up her mind.

Templeton was born and raised in Christchurch. She trained as a secondary school teacher and worked as an English and drama teacher at Greymouth High School and Lincoln High School before taking time off to have children.

She has recently separated from her husband, and they are co-parenting their three children. Rowan, 19, is studying at the University of Canterbury, and 17-year-old twins Skye and David are in their final year at Te Aratai College.

Her interest in local body politics grew after becoming involved in the community response to the 2011 earthquakes. She chaired the Heathcote Valley Community Association and was asked to stand for the community board.

She was elected to the local board in 2013 and successfully stood for council in 2016, 2019 and 2022.