{"id":73421,"date":"2025-10-12T07:27:08","date_gmt":"2025-10-12T07:27:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/73421\/"},"modified":"2025-10-12T07:27:08","modified_gmt":"2025-10-12T07:27:08","slug":"auckland-election-upset-as-victoria-short-breaks-once-unshakeable-albany-alliance","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/73421\/","title":{"rendered":"Auckland election upset as Victoria Short breaks once-unshakeable Albany alliance"},"content":{"rendered":"

A disappointed Walker cited the Fix Auckland<\/a> campaign and Short\u2019s more effective use of social media as decisive factors in ending his political career, which spanned 15 years on Auckland Council and 10 years prior on Rodney District Council.<\/p>\n

Short, who placed third, about 5000 votes behind Walker and Watson<\/a> three years ago, was the first of many challengers to beat either of the Albany pair, whose alliance had held firm since 2013.<\/p>\n

Short campaigned on her credentials as a trained accountant, pledging to manage council finances and draw on 12 years of experience in local and central Government to deliver practical results for the ward, including improved public transport.<\/p>\n

To loud applause from about 100 supporters last night, Brown credited his campaign manager, Tim Hurdle, with helping unseat one of the two long-standing councillors he\u2019s dubbed the \u201cAlbanians\u201d.<\/p>\n

Walker said he had not spoken with Short since losing his seat and would probably not.<\/p>\n

\"AlbanyAlbany councillor Wayne Walker plans to spend time with his family as he exits politics. Photo \/ Jason Oxenham<\/p>\n

\u201cWe weren\u2019t treated very well by the mayor and those people associated with the mayor. I acknowledge the incredibly supportive people. John and I have had a catch-up.\u201d<\/p>\n

Walker, who lives at Manly, said the immediate plan was to spend time with his wife, two grown-up children and grandchildren.<\/p>\n

Short is one of five new councillors around the council table of 20 councillors and the mayor.<\/p>\n

In Howick, Bo Burns topped the poll with 10,222 votes after sparking controversy<\/a> in the last week of the campaign with expletive-laden comments in a staff chat group about outgoing Howick councillor Sharon Stewart.<\/p>\n

The community newspaper owner called Stewart a \u201cf***ing asshole\u201d and a \u201cf***ing cow\u201d over comments the incumbent had made on social media about the issue of \u201cnews deserts\u201d and that social media was doing a good job.<\/p>\n

\"EasternEastern Times owner and publisher Bo Burns and (inset) retiring councillor Sharon Stewart.<\/p>\n

In a statement through her lawyer, Burns \u2013 who was the deputy chair of the Howick Local Board \u2013 apologised for the comments and acknowledged Stewart\u2019s service to the community.<\/p>\n

In the Manurewa-Papakura Ward, Matt Winiata won the seat vacated by Angela Dalton<\/a>. He and the other sitting councillor, Daniel Newman, stood together on the Manurewa-Papakura Action Team ticket and were about 5000 votes clear of the third-placed candidate, Allan Joseph.<\/p>\n

Outgoing councillor Chris Darby <\/a>has been replaced by John Gillon, chair of the Kaip\u0101tiki Local Board for eight years, who beat another member of the board, Danielle Grant, who stood on the Fix Auckland ticket. He had a winning margin of about 3000 votes.<\/p>\n

And in Whau, Labour candidate Sarah Paterson-Hamlin had a convincing win over Craig Lord, who stood for the mayoralty at the last two elections, by about 1200 votes.<\/p>\n

Sign up to The Daily H<\/a>, a free newsletter curated by our editors and delivered straight to your inbox every weekday.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A disappointed Walker cited the Fix Auckland campaign and Short\u2019s more effective use of social media as decisive…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":73422,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[74,41009,13738,806,51,38501,9084,8615,7558,5903,8127,12513,42,5126,43,42876,57697,5976,40,38,41,39,8496,2821,57698,19791,15358,3542],"class_list":["post-73421","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headlines","tag-after","tag-albany","tag-alliance","tag-as","tag-auckland","tag-breaks","tag-challenges","tag-come","tag-councils","tag-election","tag-end","tag-failed","tag-headlines","tag-john","tag-news","tag-numerous","tag-onceunshakeable","tag-short","tag-top-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topnews","tag-topstories","tag-upset","tag-victoria","tag-walker","tag-ward","tag-watson","tag-wayne"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/73421","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=73421"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/73421\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/73422"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=73421"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=73421"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=73421"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}