Wellington mayoral candidate Ray Chung has just narrowly scraped onto the city’s council.<\/p>\n
Chung was voted onto council in 2022 and ran for mayor this year, spearheading an election ticket of council candidates named Independent Together.<\/p>\n
He came third in the race for the mayoralty behind Andrew Little<\/a> and Karl Tiefenbacher.<\/p>\n Final results<\/a> released on Friday show he has only just made it onto council, 44.51 votes ahead of Labour’s candidate, Joy Gribben, in the city’s Wharangi\/Onslow-Western Ward.<\/p>\n Both the prime minister and the opposition leader criticised Chung over an email<\/a> about former mayor Tory Whanau<\/a>, saying it was “absolutely disgusting” and calling it “vile and unacceptable”.<\/p>\n Whanau had earlier rejected the contents of the email, saying it was false and contained “malicious and sexist” rumour.<\/p>\n Chung ran on a policy platform of a zero rates increases over three years.<\/p>\n When speaking to Morning Report in June he ruled out cuts to “core council activities” including “parks, swimming pools, libraries, community facilities”.<\/p>\n But he said the size of the council’s payroll was a problem.<\/p>\n Wellington Mayor-elect Andrew Little described the policy as not credible.<\/p>\n “I don’t think that’s at all credible, and I know look, I’m the first to say rate rises of 30% over two years is not acceptable.<\/p>\n “That’s not credible either, and so the council has to be doing what it can to manage those rates rises.”<\/p>\n With regard to turnout Wellington City Council said the 2025 local body elections was understood to be the highest in 30 years.<\/p>\n The voter return was 49.99% which was 81,574 voting papers, including special votes.<\/p>\n With final votes returned there was no changes to who had been elected compared to the preliminary results.<\/p>\n