Auckland mayoralty: Simon Wilson - a laughable poll, but a big winner anyway

OPINION:

At first blush, the Curia poll on the Auckland mayoral election released last week is laughable.

They polled 500 people, of whom 53 per cent said they weren't sure how they'd vote. Those who were sure split their preferences almost identically among four candidates: Viv Beck, Wayne Brown, Fa'anana Efeso Collins and Leo Molloy. A fifth, Craig Lord, came in a little behind the bunch.

The numbers are tiny. Collins and Molloy gained 10.2 per cent of the response each, Beck 9.6 and Brown 9.4. Just four responses separated first from fourth. That's utterly insignificant.

When Curia removed the undecideds, the result was essentially to double the score for each candidate. There were still only eight respondents standing between first and fourth.

Curia has the nerve to suggest the margin of error is plus or minus 2.8 per cent. That's some fancy talk with numbers. It would almost be better to say the poll is meaningless.

Almost but not quite. For one of the candidates, it was enormously significant.

Viv Beck has been routinely sneered at by Brown and Molloy. Brown questions her professional competence and Molloy calls her a poodle. Despite that, she did as well as them in the poll.

Actually, it's not "despite that" at all. Brown and Molloy's attacks will have been read by many as patronising and sexist; Beck's popularity has probably been boosted because of them.

Leo Molloy has been getting most of the media attention, but it hasn't made him the frontrunner. Photo / Brett Phibbs

Efeso Collins might have expected to do better: with endorsements from Labour and the Greens, he's the only major centre-left candidate in the race. Molloy would have expected more as well. He's commanded most of the media attention, and both he and Brown have been spending money.

But Beck's position in the race was unknown. The poll, however flawed, confirms her as a credible candidate and she should now gain momentum. She's only just started campaigning full time, having stepped aside last week from her job running the business association Heart of the City. And she's expecting the endorsement of the National Party's front organisation in Auckland, Communities and Residents, in a few weeks' time.

Perhaps more importantly, there are some high-net-worth individuals in town waiting to see which way the wind blows among the centre-right candidates. That poll will have reassured them Beck has a chance.

What would Viv Beck do as mayor? On May 19 she presented her case to the business associations that ring the inner city: Newmarket, Parnell, Ponsonby and Uptown. She was, she told them, a "collaborative" person and "focused on results".

She was asked what she would do about Queen St? It should be an easy question for her: she's probably spent most of her waking hours thinking about it for years now. But she criticised what's been done and wouldn't or couldn't say what should be done instead.

Her most recent media statement was in response to the petition to close Queen St to ordinary traffic, launched by the Greens' MP for Auckland Central, Chloe Swarbrick.

"Not now," she said. In fact, Beck has always said this. Well before Covid, Beck was instrumental in slowing progress to reduce the number of cars in the central city. Maintaining the fantasy that shoppers must be able to park outside Smith and Caughey or Gucci or they won't come into town has been a mainstay of Heart of the City's work for many years.

Beck presents herself as a decent, reasonable person with the negotiating experience to achieve good outcomes at council and with the wider world. But despite being in a position of considerable influence, is there much evidence she's done that?

All the leading Auckland mayoral candidates appear to be neck and neck, which is good news for Viv Beck. Photo / Brett Phibbs

Mark Knoff-Thomas, CEO of the Newmarket Business Association, has this to say. "If I was a new mayor coming in, I would make this the top priority above all else: reclaim Queen St for all Aucklanders. A symbolic move that would set the tone for the mayor's term. A mayor of action, and delivery. Explain the change, sell the change and be the change."

I agree with that. It's not the only issue, by any means, but it's a big one and the symbolic importance is enormous.

Knoff-Thomas' challenge is to all the candidates, not just to Beck. Still, it should resonate strongly with her, because she's right there in the middle of it.

Now she's one of the frontrunners, we need to know: What's her plan for Queen St?

In her defence, Beck, like all the candidates, has policy to come. They're all planning staggered announcements over the next couple of months. The election is not till October.

How did that Curia poll end so badly?

The most obvious problem is the sample size. Asking only 500 people might work if you're polling a relatively homogeneous group, but Auckland voters are an enormously diverse bunch.

The best evidence the sample wasn't broad enough is the result for Efeso Collins.

The Auckland mayoralty has been won four times in a row by a Labour-aligned candidate with an extremely consistent 47-49 per cent of the vote. Collins is that candidate this time.

He doesn't have the name recognition of Len Brown or Phil Goff, the previous mayors, and it's clear he won't automatically repeat their results. He might not win. But this is the city with the country's first Green Party electorate MP in over 20 years. There's a well-expressed desire for more diversity among our political leaders than is provided by older, Pākehā, career-politician men. It's nonsense to suggest there's only limited support for Efeso Collins.

Far more credibly, Curia wasn't able to reach those supporters. And why? One reason may be that at this early stage of the election race, the signal-to-noise ratio is all wrong.

In politics it's always hard to distinguish between signal and noise. This is especially true in Auckland local body politics, where the public discourse is dominated by angry people who believe everything has been completely ruined by Governments and councils of the centre left.

These prophets of doom have their say on Facebook, in letters to this paper and online comments on various articles, and in a host of other social media commentaries. As the election gathers steam, they'll be prominent in many candidate meetings.

This is the noise. Contacted by a pollster, they're ready and willing to speak their mind.

Fa'anana Efeso Collins is endorsed by Labour and the Greens for the Auckland mayoralty, but last week's poll didn't reflect that support. Photo / Brett Phibbs

But voting is the signal. Despite 12 years of noise loudly insisting that first Brown and then Goff have destroyed the city, both of them were easily elected, twice each. In my view Goff would easily win again if he was standing.

Almost more telling, in the 2019 election there was a vigorous campaign in the North Shore ward against the two sitting councillors, Chris Darby and Richard Hills, both of whom championed the council's urban regeneration and public transport initiatives. But despite all the noise, both increased their share of the vote.

What the noisy prophets of doom – and, it seems, the Curia pollsters – often don't perceive is just how many voters there are who do not think like them at all.

• Coming soon: What the other candidates have been saying.