She aims to focus on working with mana whenua and fighting for what she believes.
Wellington Mayor Tory Whanau has decided not to seek a second term, reversing her previous decision to run again for the mayoralty at the local body elections in October.
Speaking to the Herald, Whanau said two events helped change her mind.
On Monday, she turned the first sod on the Courtenay Place section of the redevelopment of the city’s “Golden Mile” – a project that has been kicking around since 2016. The second event was the decision of former Labour leader Andrew Little to throw his hat in the ring earlier this month.
“With that [the Golden Mile] aside, and now having Andrew Little in the race, I’ve decided I’d like to step aside to give him a clear runway to win the mayoralty,” Whanau said.
“I think this is actually a better outcome for everyone involved, certainly for the city. I can keep fighting for what I believe in for the city, but most importantly, I can work with mana whenua. I can serve my people,” she said.
Little paid tribute to Whanau saying, “I want to acknowledge Tory Whanau for her service to Wellington. Tory took on the mayoralty during a tough time for Wellington and regardless of our differences in approach I want to recognise her hard work and her dedication to the city”.
Tory Whanau pictured shortly after winning the mayoralty. Photo / Mark Mitchell
Whanau, who is the city’s first mayor of Māori descent, publicly hinted she might not seek a second term at the end of last year, telling Newstalk ZB she’d be having “conversations with family and friends” about her next steps.
“I don’t want this mayoral campaign to be about Labour versus Green, progressive versus progressive. That’s not what it should be about. In fact, we ought to be coming together and working as a team to deliver the best outcomes for our city, and I know that we can do that."
Whanau told Little about her plans last week.
“He was very gracious, very friendly,” Whanau said.
Little told Newstalk ZB’s Ryan Bridge this morning that that conversation with Whanau was a brief one.
“I wished her all the best and that was really it,” Little said.
Little said Whanau took on the mayoralty at a “challenging time” but she had made some positive changes.
The former Labour leader said one of the main reasons he stepped up to be a candidate was so he could restore the faith in the council.
“There, there’s not, it is simply not acceptable for rates to increase, by my calculation, about 30% in the last two years,” Little said.
“A lot of that is, I think, council not getting a grip on their own finances.”
It has built 27km of new cycleways and bus priority lanes have doubled from 4km to 8km.
“I’m really proud of that ... that is exactly what I was elected to deliver and now with the Golden Mile project starting officially I feel very proud. We’re, we’re in the middle of transformation,” Whanau said.
When asked how her mayoralty might be remembered, Whanau admitted there was “a lot of negativity” around her now, but she believed Wellingtonians will look back fondly on the transformation the city has undergone.
“I like to try and remind people that if you see road cones, if you see construction happening, that is progress. That means something is going to be delivered.”
Tory Whanau pictured last year. Photo / Mark Mitchell
“Our city in 20 years’ time, even in five years’ time, it’s going to be quite different. We’ll be on top of our leaks, we’ll have Courtenay Place finished – it’ll be the best entertainment precinct, the [central] library will be open, the Town Hall will be open, Civic Square will be open, and we’ll have a new waste minimisation plant," she said.
“I can understand the frustration that people have, but this is what change is.”
Council officers recommended diversifying the council’s investments, rather than having them concentrated in the airport (which would itself be vulnerable to Wellington earthquakes).
But the debate turned sour, pitting Whanau against her Labour allies around the council table and even some Greens.
“It got quite ugly, and I think we weren’t being the best versions of ourselves,” Whanau said.
“In hindsight, when I look at that particular project and maybe Reading [Whanau backed a deal to revitalise the privately-owned cinema complex], I may not have been quite as supportive if I trusted my instincts.”
Whanau said after those twin challenges – both proposals eventually fell through – she learned to trust her instincts.
“It was actually directly after the airport decision where I really started to trust myself more,” she said.
While she pledged not to support a sale of the airport shares in future, she says the problem the sale was trying to address still exists.
The council is up against the wall financially and it has an under-insurance risk – a risk that has a good chance of turning into a real problem; the latest modelling reckons there is a one-in-10 chance of Wellington being hit by a significant earthquake in the next 50 years.
“We did have a very serious challenge, and we still do, of under-insurance ... it seemed like a logical way to address that, but it’s not what the people wanted,” Whanau said.
A proposal to sell the council's stake in Wellington airport ultimately failed. Photo / Mark Mitchell
The sale put severe strain on the council’s relationship with mana whenua, which Whanau “absolutely” hoped to repair if elected as the Māori ward councillor.
“Politics is dramatic and it’s hard and sometimes relationships become a bit fractured, but that’s because the decisions that we’re making are really hard and people care about them.
“It’s okay to have those disagreements, the rebuild, however, is much more important.”
Whanau said her generation of politicians was “more open” about challenges than generations that had gone before.
“I suppose the personal challenges that I’ve faced are probably not dissimilar to what many people have faced, whether it’s needing to reduce drinking or getting an ADHD assessment or just wanting to be a bit more private,” she said.
“These are the issues that my generation are facing – Millennials, Gen Z, we’re all very open.”
Reflecting on 10 years in politics (she began working for the Green Party as a staffer a decade ago), Whanau noticed an increase in abuse copped by local and central government politicians.
She thought the turning point was the pandemic and the subsequent restrictions.
“I think it was the Covid lockdown that really accelerated that behaviour,” Whanau said.
She thought that while politicians copped abuse before Covid, the rhetoric has become far more violent since.
“Violence has definitely increased post-Covid ... decorum has been lost. People, mainly men, are very happy to say the most hideous things about women in politics, which have nothing to do with their character,” Whanau said.
She said she was “looking forward to being less of a target” of that kind of behaviour, but it was not enough to make her quit politics altogether – in fact, Whanau said one day she would consider running for Parliament.
“I love people, so it’s a natural pathway for me to go to Parliament and become a minister, but that’s a long way away,” Whanau said.
“I still want to keep going, I still have plenty in me to keep going,” she said.
Thomas Coughlan is the NZ Herald political editor and covers politics from Parliament. He has worked for the Herald since 2021 and has worked in the Press Gallery since 2018.
