Both left and right had reasons to celebrate on Saturday – and to worry about deepening voter apathy, writes Catherine McGregor in today’s extract from The Bulletin.
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Rates revolt or status quo shrug?
Saturday’s local elections delivered mixed messages across the country. In many places, frustration over steep rates rises appears to have cost incumbent mayors their jobs. Newsroom’s Jonathan Milne writes that of 18 councils that imposed double-digit rates rises this year, 14 have elected new mayors.
Yet the ideological mood may not be as clear-cut as that stat suggests. Despite widespread frustration over rates increases, only around 20% of Act candidates won a council seat in the party’s first formal foray into local politics, suggesting its calls for spending restraint and cutting “waste” failed to resonate with most voters. In Marlborough, new Act-aligned councillor John Hyndman admitted that while voters “grizzle like hell” about high rates, keeping a cap on them would be “very, very difficult” – an early warning to his supporters not to expect miracles. Andrew Geddis told the Sunday Star-Times the overall picture was less a rates rebellion and more “a slightly apathetic endorsement of the status quo”. The public, he suggested, “seem to just be a bit sick of local politics so won’t engage.”
Blame game over low turnout begins
If there was a true consensus on election night, it was despair over turnout. Just 32.6% of eligible voters participated – the worst result in 36 years. In the main centres, only 28.8% cast ballots, compared with 43.6% in rural areas. Geddis said the long postal voting period may have been counterproductive, suggesting ballots “sit on the bench, then in the recycling, and finally people decide they can’t be bothered doing a special vote”. Local Government NZ called the figures “a clear signal that the system needs to change urgently”, urging central government to act on LGNZ’s long-standing proposals to bring in the Electoral Commission to run elections and replace voting by mail with in-person polling booth voting.
But commentators are running out of patience. As The Spinoff’s Hayden Donnell puts it this morning: “Every three years, central government politicians wring their hands at the situation, and perhaps commission a working group. It doesn’t appear to be working. Here’s an idea: what about changing tack, and actually enacting some meaningful reforms? God knows they couldn’t make things any worse.”
Little cruises to victory in Wellington
Turnout was low in Wellington, but voters’ preferences were clear. Andrew Little’s mayoral victory was, The Spinoff’s Joel MacManus writes this morning, “one of the most emphatic in the city’s history”. Despite early polls favouring his rival Ray Chung, Little’s disciplined ground game and reputation for competence propelled him to an overwhelming victory.
Chung’s collapse, by contrast, showed how a credible community candidate can be derailed by external actors. As the NZ Herald’s Ethan Manera observed (paywalled), his campaign was “taken advantage of by those with an axe to grind about issues he likely didn’t even understand”. Once championed as a hard-working ward councillor, Chung became embroiled in scandal and culture-war theatrics that alienated even his natural supporters. That Chung was headed for a big loss seemed obvious to everyone – except the candidate himself. According to Manera, at one point Chung “was so confident, he [said] he had a $90,000 Rolex pre-ordered from Partridges as a gift to himself for when he won.”
Labour finds its pulse again
For the national left, Wellington’s result was the night’s one unambiguous morale boost. As the Sunday Star-Times’ Andrea Vance wrote, “It would be a mistake to read too much into Little’s victory nationally … But for Labour in Wellington the result is proof of life.” The campaign, she said, “rebuilt dormant volunteer networks, trained new soldiers and showed that the party can still organise, and connect”. Upper Hutt’s election of Labour-aligned Peri Zee and Lower Hutt’s of Ken Laban reinforced that sense of regional momentum.
Labour leader Chris Hipkins called the wins a “clear rejection” of the government “trying to blame councils for a situation that central government has contributed to.” His contention, shared by many on the left, is that councils keep being handed costly responsibilities by government ministers and then condemned when they must raise rates to pay for them. While voters punished incumbents elsewhere, in the capital they appear to have cut the council some slack.
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