Thank you. That’s a great tune! The theme from the original Rocky movie. The movie … it’s a classic … it made Sylvester Stallone a star.
The movie is about a boxer … a boxer who’s the underdog … If you read or listen to the mainstream news media, they’ll have you believe that this mayoral election is already over!
That it’s Andrew Little’s to lose. NewstalkZB Wellington host Nick Mills has said those exact words.
The media believes that the path is clear for Andrew Little now that Tory Whanau has stood down. Don’t believe it for a minute.
We may be the underdogs in this election. But unlike Rocky in that movie, we’re actually going to win.
The late Bob Jones kicked off his New Zealand Party’s campaign with this theme in the 1984 general election. Bob disrupted the political environment. He brought about a change of government and consequently changed the course of this country. It was a historic moment.
Sir Bob passed away at the beginning of May. He was a great New Zealander and a great Wellingtonian, and he took an interest in local politics as well as central – who can forget his 1977 Carmen for Mayor campaign. I want to pay tribute to him tonight.
Ladies and Gentlemen, the 2025 local government election is extremely important for the future of wellington city. The choice is stark.
Our city can continue along the same lines that it has been for the last 10 years – of excessive spending and borrowing, of implementing ideological projects the result of which has been detrimental to the city’s economy, of vanity projects that cost hundreds of millions of dollars in cost overruns and bad project management.
Or you can vote for real change and bring sense back to the city.
As the saying goes, madness is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result. A vote for the Labour Party’s Andrew Little will be a vote for the same policies as the current council – increased costs and an expanding bureaucracy.
A vote for Andrew Little will be a vote for more cycle lanes, carving up the city streets, to the detriment of local businesses and against the will of the people.
A vote for Andrew Little will be a vote for higher residential and commercial rates. Property owners will continue to stare down the barrel of double-digit increases, eventually making the city unaffordable for many people.
Andrew Little decries the over-spending by this council, that is majority controlled by Labour and Green parties, but in reality, is unlikely to do anything about it. If elected mayor, it is conceivable that Andrew Little will preside over a continuation of similar policies espoused by the current mayor. The same policies that have kept the council in a continual debt spiral.
When Tory Whanau decided to withdraw running for mayor, she endorsed Andrew Little because in her words he stood for the same things that she did. The election will be a decision between tax and spend policies of the party-political candidates versus commonsense financial management that I bring.
A VOTE FOR RAY CHUNG WILL BE A VOTE TO BRING COUNCIL SPENDING UNDER CONTROL TO RELIEVE THE FINANCIAL BURDEN OUR RATEPAYERS ARE SUFFERING.
INDEPENDENT TOGETHER
Ladies and Gentlemen, as well as the mayoralty, I am campaigning alongside a group of like-minded candidates who want to achieve the same things. These people are hard-working, successful, smart, Wellingtonians who want to give back to the city.
They have run businesses, raised families, paid off mortgages, worked for community and sports groups, and now feel they are at a stage in their lives where they can bring that experience to governing the city.
These are good people who know the value of something is not dictated by the price charged by an expensive consultant. They are independent candidates who have coalesced together, around agreed value statements that will drive their decision-making around the council table.
Value statements such as striving for zero rates increases, getting the council back to basics, and ending party politics around in local government.
We are not a political party as our opponents have tried to paint us. It is a brand that has no constitution. There is no whip to keep the candidates under control. there is no political party machine. and there are no steadfast agendas held firm by party officials.
While some wellington city Councillors go out of their way to try and convince voters that our candidates are just another political party … well, it reminds me of that Shakespeare line … “The lady doth protest too much, methinks!”
In council, i have steadfastly fought against what I consider wasteful spending.
I opposed the $30 million safety fence around the waterfront – to stop that one person a year falling in a drowning, while taking away the enjoyment for everyone else as well as obstructing the harbour view. You can’t fence off personal responsibility.
I disagreed with spending the tens of millions of dollars on an organic waste plant north of Levin and which will ultimately cost a lot more because, ironically, every household in Wellington will receive a plastic organic wheelie bin. Not to mention the ongoing annual costs of operational expenditure trucking waste north.
Then, of course, the $212 million so-called Golden Mile and streets project that businesses and residents don’t want.
When talking about wasteful spending, I can’t omit the $553,000 bike park off the Terrace that has a capacity for 24 bikes but on a good day is used by five.
Our policy on zero rates increases has attracted considerable objection. Some say it’s impossible to achieve. It’s as if uttering these very words is heresy. Thos who don’t want the spending to end are the ones who are most vocal and say it’s impossible.
If you’re unhappy with a zero rates increase as a policy, then I ask, “what is an acceptable rise to you?” 18 percent? what about 15 percent?
Who would have thought that striving towards such an ideal would be rejected, without any deliberation or objective consideration. I put it to every city Councillor and candidate: what do you consider your role to be at the council table? It is to accept that ratepayers should pay more each year for the services they receive?
It’s an interesting concept that protecting ratepayers from the unreasonable excesses of bureaucracy should elicit such vehement rejection. Many, if not most, of the Councillors who have been sitting around the table for two more terms should themselves be thinking it’s time to stand down. These people have presided over successive council terms and the demands on ratepayers have only ever increased. Year after year, ratepayers have been treated like an endless A.T.M.
I recently received an email from a prominent wellington businessman who said our group was perceived as being right-wing and was losing support as a result.
When did it become a “right wing” policy to say that ratepayers should receive value for money? Should we accept that double digit rates increases is the norm? I challenge that point of view.
In a poll released by Curia Market Research in February this year, 87 percent of Wellington residents believe the council should be getting back to the basics. So if getting the council to focus on core priorities is considered a “right wing” agenda, what does that say about the 87 percent of people who want that very thing?
The fact is that the Wellington City Council has been taken off-track by party political candidates, some of whom have no experience in governance and want the council to deal with issues that have no relevance to its business.
I opposed the council binding Wellington City to a political position on the government’s Treaty Principles Bill because I believed it fell outside of our core business. For that, I get called a racist by another Councillor.
Identity and race politics are the division bells.
A council under my leadership as mayor will focus on the core business of providing a functioning city, with infrastructure that works and the traditional services provided to its citizens. This includes the pools, parks, libraries, community facilities and keeping the streets safe and clean.
Wellington city needs to stop its excessive spending on large projects. The Golden Mile is not wanted and not needed. It is a blight on our city’s budget. We cannot keep borrowing money and raising the debt ceiling so city leaders can build their legacy on vanity projects. The city council is already close to $2 billion in debt and that is set to rise well above that in the coming months from the spending programme proposed by this council. The cost of servicing this loan is already between $1.4 million and $2 million a week!
A lot of people don’t want to hear what we are proposing because they’re afraid that council will have to cut services. it’s just not true. Getting back to basics does not mean cutting essential services. that is what we mean when we say getting back to basics to stop the debt spiral.
We are offering our city a path to a soft landing.
If the city continues to elect egotistical political party candidates, their offerings may sound sweet, but the eventual landing will be a lot harder, and our city’s residents will ultimately suffer. Our city will suffer.
I am not a seasoned politician. I am certainly not a politician seeking redemption at the end of my Parliamentary career. I consider myself a servant of the city. I want your vote so we can ensure the city doesn’t keep spending itself into an abyss of debt that strangles our local economy.
I would lead a council that uses commonsense in its decision making, not ideology and race politics.
Thank you
