She pitched herself as someone who could reach across the political spectrum and build consensus after her experience negotiating with New Zealand First and Winston Peters during her time as Green Party chief of staff.
Local body elections ended up delivering both a convincing win for Whanau as mayor and a left-leaning council.
This gave her the confidence to appoint Labour and Green councillors to chair the council’s three key committees. Green Party councillor Laurie Foon was appointed as deputy mayor.
But when the council met to make a decision on the draft annual plan in February, committee chairwoman and Labour councillor Rebecca Matthews had to use her casting vote to reject an onslaught of proposed amendments from a group of independent councillors.
Councillor Nicola Young went as far as calling this group a “considerable bloc”.
The use of a casting vote shows how narrow Whanau’s majority is in some instances.
A group of independent councillors spent the weekend trawling through Excel spreadsheets. This shows there is some discontent brewing - potentially with their colleagues, but certainly with the inner workings of the council.
Councillor Tim Brown was frustrated with council processes not allowing what he saw as enough time to sit down with Labour and Green councillors to persuade them of the merits of the amendments.
Councillor Nicola Young went as far as calling the group of independents a "considerable bloc". Photo / Mark Mitchell
Meanwhile, councillor Ray Chung has complained about getting cut off when he is speaking around the council table.
“I don’t interrupt anyone when they’re speaking. I may not agree with things that they say, in fact, I don’t agree with a lot of things they say but I never interrupt them,” he told Newstalk ZB.
Wellington Mornings host Nick Mills asked Whanau if she was worried about having a working majority.
“I’m not worried. I have a majority but I want to move away from that and work much more collaboratively with other councillors.”
Regardless of how reliable her majority is, it is clear reaching across the aisle is necessary if she wants to avoid bloc voting from now on.
“I’ll help facilitate this and kind of negotiate, meet halfway. In the same way that parliamentary parties do at Parliament,” Whanau said.
This “didn’t quite happen” with the annual plan meeting because of time limitations, she acknowledged.
The political make-up of the council is complex this term, adding to the challenge for the mayor.
Councillors Sarah Free and Iona Pannett are not reliably part of a left-voting bloc.
They have both previously been elected as Green-endorsed councillors - until the local party had a shake-up of their candidates.
Free made a graceful exit, but Pannett put up a fight and was given the boot during a meeting some local party members described as “deeply uncomfortable”.
Both were re-elected as independent councillors. They are no longer required to toe the party line, giving them more flexibility with their voting.
For example, Free was named in the group of councillors who had penned the proposed amendments to the annual plan.
She voted in favour of the amendment to review spending on a new city-wide cycling network to refocus on key routes.
Had this been successful, such a review could have reduced the number of cycleways being built in the city or at the very least slowed their progress. A move the Greens would never stand for.
Free is a strong cycling advocate, but has a steady-as-she-goes approach after dealing with the wrath of residents over the likes of the Island Bay cycleway.
This is also the first full term that two mana whenua representatives have voting rights on the council’s key committees.
However, they do not have voting rights at council meetings which could shift the majority on an issue when it reaches this level of decision-making.
So, could Whanau become the next Andy Foster and preside over a divided and dysfunctional council? I doubt it.
She is a better political operator than Foster and has the advantage of at least starting with a majority, even if it does appear wobbly at times.
As Whanau will well know, a mayor can’t afford to take this majority for granted.
Councillors only become more confident and probably vocal as they settle into the labyrinth that is Wellington City Council.
