Polling shows that Wellington Mayor Tory Whanau has the lowest approval rating of any mayor in the country. Siting at -12 per cent, the proportion of constituents who disapprove of her performance outweighs those who give her the thumbs up. This negative rating is higher than for any other mayor in the country. By contrast, Waimakariri mayor Dan Gordon has an approval rating of +51 per cent, and Matamata-Piako’s Adrienne Wilcock is on +46 per cent.
Not convinced anyone else would have done any better, between the personal hit jobs, the rolling maul of chaos that is the WCC, the Reading land bank and the new Govt throwing Lets get Wellington moving into the austerity grinder it's a hiding to nothing
I'm not sure you can call some of those things neoliberalism. Corporate subsidies, like the reading cinema's is not isolated to any side but tends to come down to who helped you get elected. I'm unsure if this is the same case here. The same thing with privatizing the square. It would be interesting to see who donated to her election campaign.
Higher rates is a sign a left winger has been hard at work in the council. I table Len Brown as the classic example.....lots of money spent and not much to show for it and the same goes for traffic issues in AKL.
I personally believe Whanau is disliked because she made promises and failed at every turn. To be fair, those problems are not new ones however it appears that things have got worse under her watch on some of them. I believe her rating is performance related and would be the same no matter what sex, race or religion she was. I think its all too easy for people to blame misogyny and racism in an attempt to hide their shortcomings.
This is interesting, loved the post Bryce! My two cents, I think she got punished for higher levels of transparency, visibility, moderation and compromise. Which I think reflect more poorly on us as voters, than on her. My impression is that she is trying to give more visibility, which has shown the messiness that are our regional issues. The visibility she has provided has highlighted where she has needed to compromise, and she has paid the price in the polls. For what it's worth.
I really despise these sorts of assassination posts Bryce. And I'm beginning to regret having subscribed to your substack for a year. It serves no purpose to spend a whole article on one person. Why wasn't Mayor Brown also part of this column? Male and white V female and Maori?????
Hi Mike - sorry to disappoint you. Just let me know if you want me to cancel your sub, and you'll get your money back. For what it's worth, I don't think my analysis was based on character assassination, but on policy issues. Wellington City Council has been fast moving to the right (at least economically), and I thought this needed some analysis. I'm not sure that the same could be said about Mayor Brown - although last year I also wrote a whole column about his failings. I'm open to arguments about their respective identities, but you'd have to elaborate some more.
Not convinced anyone else would have done any better, between the personal hit jobs, the rolling maul of chaos that is the WCC, the Reading land bank and the new Govt throwing Lets get Wellington moving into the austerity grinder it's a hiding to nothing
I'm not sure you can call some of those things neoliberalism. Corporate subsidies, like the reading cinema's is not isolated to any side but tends to come down to who helped you get elected. I'm unsure if this is the same case here. The same thing with privatizing the square. It would be interesting to see who donated to her election campaign.
Higher rates is a sign a left winger has been hard at work in the council. I table Len Brown as the classic example.....lots of money spent and not much to show for it and the same goes for traffic issues in AKL.
I personally believe Whanau is disliked because she made promises and failed at every turn. To be fair, those problems are not new ones however it appears that things have got worse under her watch on some of them. I believe her rating is performance related and would be the same no matter what sex, race or religion she was. I think its all too easy for people to blame misogyny and racism in an attempt to hide their shortcomings.
What was the actual question asked in the poll of peoples' opinions of their mayors?
The question was: "How do you rate the job your local Mayor has done since the last election?Has it been very poor, poor, average, good or very good?"
Thanks Bryce
This is interesting, loved the post Bryce! My two cents, I think she got punished for higher levels of transparency, visibility, moderation and compromise. Which I think reflect more poorly on us as voters, than on her. My impression is that she is trying to give more visibility, which has shown the messiness that are our regional issues. The visibility she has provided has highlighted where she has needed to compromise, and she has paid the price in the polls. For what it's worth.
Thanks Bryce.
Food for thought...
I really despise these sorts of assassination posts Bryce. And I'm beginning to regret having subscribed to your substack for a year. It serves no purpose to spend a whole article on one person. Why wasn't Mayor Brown also part of this column? Male and white V female and Maori?????
Hi Mike - sorry to disappoint you. Just let me know if you want me to cancel your sub, and you'll get your money back. For what it's worth, I don't think my analysis was based on character assassination, but on policy issues. Wellington City Council has been fast moving to the right (at least economically), and I thought this needed some analysis. I'm not sure that the same could be said about Mayor Brown - although last year I also wrote a whole column about his failings. I'm open to arguments about their respective identities, but you'd have to elaborate some more.