Deborah Hill Cone: Fusty C&R club a bumbling mess

The upside of the C&R meltdown has been the emergence of several non-cryogenically frozen independent candidates. Photo / Natalie Slade

The right-leaning faction standing for the Super City election seem to be, quite frankly, pants. It is a mess.

The main political ticket is called Citizens & Ratepayers, although why it doesn't just call itself the National Party's local arm I have no idea. Perhaps because the National Party machine in Wellington would be embarrassed at the bumbling ineptitude of the C&R.

C&R is a fusty club of warmed-over Tories presided over by the godfather-like former Nats president John Slater.

Let's get real. You don't expect the blue-blazer brigade to be dynamic whiz-bang sort of fellows - typical candidate: 69-year-old Doug Armstrong - but this election it seems to have managed to be both moribund and chaotic.

It's also been jurassically slow to adapt to the way in which the city is changing.

In evidence at C&R has been a string of spats and balls-ups and secret deals to choose candidates. Not in evidence has been any kind of smart strategy to stay relevant in the new political landscape.

In the Waitemata ward C&R has not stood a candidate but "endorsed" Alex Swney who admits he doesn't see eye to eye with C&R anyway. How does that work?

In another example of stuff-uppery, C&R Waitemata board candidate Hinurewa te Hau jumped ship and decided to run as an independent because as a Maori woman she didn't feel at home with the C&R brand. I hear ya, girlfriend.

The upside of the C&R meltdown has been the emergence of several non-cryogenically frozen independent candidates. Energizer Bunny-like Cameron Brewer, who is standing in Orakei, seems to have put all the other candidates to shame with his Tigger-ish campaigning.

Tenby Powell has commercial cred and a tireless campaign manager in Carrick Graham, son of former National Party Cabinet minister Sir Douglas Graham.

But in a week where it seems an entire right-wing political party - Act - has emphatically self-destructed, it does occur to me there is a paradox about right-leaning people who run for public office.

It's easy to see why idealistic lefties do it. They have that bossyboots do-gooder hunger to change the world, they're used to running cake stalls for worthy causes, they're all unionists and teachers and never going to make money any other way. Misguided frequently, but sincere.

But if you are tigerishly pro-business surely you can make your own dosh without having to give boring speeches in draughty school halls. And if you are right-leaning you tend to believe in less government and a smaller public sector so it seems downright odd to want to go and swell the ranks at City Hall.

Even more mystifying, though, is why the Nats in Wellington haven't stepped in to help their frankly hopeless northern counterparts to get a place in Auckland's new power structure.

Do they not realise how much influence the 20 councillors sitting around the Super City board table are going to have?

You've got to bet Labour is giving Len Brown's team shiatsu massages and pep talks every night.

The left is looking good in this election. Does John Key rally John Slater's troops? If he does, he's not doing a very good job of it. As I said, pants.