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Campaign diary: Wellington is a city in conflict. The former cultural capital is a deflated Pavlova of crumbling, overpriced, and underinsured buildings, built on congested streets, overlaid on decaying sewer pipes, trellised over symphonic fuel lines.
The multiple crises facing the city were addressed by candidates vying for the Wellington Central seat at the Wellington Chamber of Commerce’s Wellington Central debate on Wednesday night.
The city has been a safe Labor seat since 1999, having spent time in the hands of ACT after the first MMP election (and National before that), a career so fascinating it inspired its own movie. But despite being a safe seat, parties have a habit of putting some of their most promising candidates on the roster, making the race for him one of the most fun in the country, even if you always know who. will win.
Wellington Central can boast of being one of the most polite seats in the country. It has the highest number of residents with graduate or master’s honors and the second-highest number of doctors.
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The candidates for the debate were also a rather overqualified group: Tracey Martin of NZ First (not running in Central Wellington, but neighboring Ōhāriu) is a minister and former deputy leader of her party; Brooke van Velden of ACT, the only debater who has not yet been a deputy, is the deputy leader of her party and will almost certainly be a deputy after the elections; James Shaw of the Greens is his party’s co-leader, and incumbent Grant Robertson is not only finance minister, but also the effective deputy leader of his party.
National candidate Nicola Willis has skyrocketed in her party’s rankings this term. In 2017, she was removed from Parliament thanks to special votes that robbed National of her seat on the list, now she is the party’s education spokesperson, after entering Parliament thanks to some national resignations.
She is also a fearsome polemicist, standing in for Jacinda Ardern in preparing Judith Collins for televised leaders’ debates.
Monique Ford / Stuff
Wellington’s many problems were litigated in the city’s first election debate organized under Tier 1 conditions.
This debate was one of the most vigorous of the elections so far. It took place across the street from Parliament, in front of a lecture hall packed with students, businessmen, professors, and politically-minded people, which in this part of town basically means everyone.
Thanks to Covid alert levels, this was one of the first discussions to be held before a crowd of people.
And what a difference it made; Crowds applauded estate taxes and public transportation (Wellington is Wellington, even Chamber of Commerce debates skew Labor-Green and the stunned public was on edge by Shaw’s explanation of the estate tax, a reaction that it is unlikely to be repeated in other parts of the country).
The problem of having a pool of candidates who have a national profile (Robertson and Shaw had been in Queenstown the night before for a financial debate; van Velden has been helping ACT across the country; and Willis has been on tour as a spokesperson for education) is that local issues tend to get lost in political debates at the national level.
STUFF
Grant Robertson from Labor, Nicola Willis from National, Brooke van Velden from Act, James Shaw from the Green Party and Tracey Martin from NZ First share their views on how Wellington can and should grow, considering the city’s major water problems.
On the city’s earthquake problems, for example, candidates generally agreed that resilience was an issue and questioned insurance prices, but concrete solutions were hard to find.
Where the parties showed a real difference was in transportation, and Willis urged work on the second mount. Victoria Tunnel immediately rather than later in the decade, as the current Government prefers.
The candidates also used transportation to talk about the other big problems facing the city: water infrastructure and troubled housing. Shaw said his party’s idea of a light rail through Newtown to the airport would encourage densification and affordable housing in the city. Shaw has backed that plan since he ran for a city council seat in 1992.
Willis wanted to talk about the splitting of funds for Let’s Get Wellington Moving, currently 40 percent funded by the city and regional councils, he said that removing the city council’s funding burden by having the central government cover the cost of the roads. state would be free to get more funds for things like fixing Wellington’s sewage.
“The pipes are rotting under our feet,” he said.
The audience responded well to the taunts launched by van Velden and Willis, but there is still enough discontent with the previous government’s record to fill the sails of the candidates of the three ruling parties and give Robertson and Shaw in particular the victory in the night.
Willis brought his best game, but Robertson, Shaw and Martin’s disgrace directed at the previous administration’s record was met with warm applause from the audience.
For Willis, it’s a tough hill to climb, but climbing is something of a specialty for candidates in this electorate.
