Comment: Wellington mayor struggling to spread his wings

Wellington mayor Andy Foster is confident he has shown effective leadership over the city's water woes. Photo / Georgina Campbell.

COMMENT By Georgina Campbell

Wellington's new mayor is fighting fires as the honeymoon period following the October 2019 local body election draws to a close.

While Andy Foster is confident he has proven to be an effective leader through the city's water infrastructure crisis, others around his council table aren't so convinced.

Foster was a councillor of 27 years before winning the mayoralty, so he has to undergo somewhat of a transformation, similar to that of caterpillar to butterfly.

But his time in the chrysalis has been cut short by significant failures on major water pipelines, not to mention the Shelly Bay circus this week.

Over the years Foster has earned a reputation for being a details man and there's nothing wrong with that.

But now he's the mayor there's not always time to understand the nitty gritty before making public statements.

When the Herald asked Foster whether the council was quick enough to publicly respond to the issue, he said they had been responding all the way through.

"I was down there day one talking with the staff, trying to understand what the situation was, what the options were.

"I've been down several times since and that's talking not only with management, but also with the guys who are actually doing the work on the ground, so we've been responding all the way through and paying a lot of attention to this", he said.

Foster cited similar reasons to back up what he considered effective leadership by him as the mayor over the past two months of water woes.

Undoubtedly Foster has been talking to workers, getting the details, asking questions, but that's not the same as communicating with the public.

That's the problem.

Water infrastructure, which has typically been labelled "not sexy", has been thrown into the spotlight by both significant pipe failures and small ones.

It has caught people's attention and they want answers.

Even if Foster didn't have all the answers, fair enough too, he could have proactively communicated with the public he was on the job.

He might have used his social media accounts to post pictures of him on site with small updates.

But there's next to nothing on his Twitter and Facebook pages from the time between the first pipe failing and when he went into damage control last week.

It's important to note the responsibility for water in Wellington is shared.

Wellington City Council owns the infrastructure and gives money to Wellington Water to manage the services on its behalf.

Wellington Water has been proactive on issuing updates, which Wellington City Council has been reposting through its channels.

But when things go wrong, the public nearly always turn to their elected officials for answers because councillors are the ones they've voted to represent their voices after all.

They want a leader, but Foster has felt absent until recently when he called an urgent meeting, issued a press release and moved on a mayoral taskforce all in a matter of days.

He was probably busy, as he puts it, on the ground and getting a handle on the issues.

As they say- "better late than never" but it's not the first time Foster has been late to the party.

Like the time his office issued a press release titled "Wellington Mayor backs Radio NZ Concert" more than a week after the story broke about plans to cut back the classical music station.

Foster needs to spread his wings and fly out in front, he needs to orchestrate, not try and play every instrument in the symphony.