Who are the contenders to fill Tamatha Paul’s council seat?

Thursday, 2 November 2023

The Greens campaign machine is gearing up to find a replacement candidate for Wellington City councillor-turned-MP Tamatha Paul, but other contenders are few and far between.

Paul’s seat in the Pukehīnau/Lambton ward covers the central city and inner suburbs including Kelburn, Thorndon, Oriental Bay and Mt Victoria. There are three councillors in the ward, but with Paul stepping away to become the new MP for Wellington Central, only Nicola Young and Iona Pannett will remain at the council table.

The council said in its press release that a by-election for the vacant seat would be held on February 17 at the earliest. It’s awkward timing ‒ the campaign will be at the tail end of Wellington’s summer months, when the city empties of students and government workers. It’s expected to cost ratepayers about $120,000.

Geordie Rogers, president of Renters United, confirmed he was considering a run at the seat. “I haven’t exactly put my hand up, but I’ve had people approach me,” he said.

He’d spoken to people from the Green Party and Labour, as well as people who encouraged him to run as an independent.

It was important to have a candidate who would unapologetically stand up for housing, but it was a “big decision” to decide to run, he said. Wellington was facing many financial, environmental and housing challenges.

“The city has shown it wants progressive leadership,” Rogers said.

Thomas Nash, a Green Party-aligned regional councillor, said he had talked to a few potential candidates. The party’s selection would ultimately be decided democratically by its internal process.

“We’re gearing up for a big campaign,” he said. Although the timing was not ideal for campaigning, he was confident people would remain motivated to vote. The Greens would give the seat a “strong shot”.

Labour, meanwhile, was still searching for a strong candidate.

Afnan Al-Rubayee, Labour’s candidate from the last city council election, would not run again because of health issues. She said she owed the ward “the energy level I had in the last election, which I just don’t have now”.

Nicola Young, an independent councillor in the Pukehīnau ward, said she hadn’t heard of any possible candidates, but it was hard to get excited about the by-election with the state of the city council and its finances.

“I do think the Greens will run a very hard campaign,” Young said.

Karl Tiefenbacher from Kaffee Eis, a candidate in last year’s local body election, was considering a run but had not made the final call.

Ellen Blake, another candidate from last year and a pedestrian advocate from Living Streets Aotearoa, said she was considering her options.

But other former candidates were not falling over themselves to join the race. Jane O’Loughlin, coordinator of density done well group Live Wellington and a candidate last year, said a number of people had asked her to run for it, but the council “doesn’t look like a fun place to be right now”.

By-elections typically get low turnout, even against the dismal 45% of voters who show up to local body elections.

The most recent by-election for a city council seat was in 2017, when Paul Eagle was elected as MP for Rongotai and vacated his deputy mayor role, as well as his Southern ward council seat.

About 30% of Southern ward voters voted in that by-election ‒ Labour candidate Fleur Fitzsimons was the successful contender, beating independent candidate Laurie Foon (who is now Green Party affiliated, and the deputy mayor).

On election night, Paul said she was confident that the Lambton ward would elect a councillor who would continue the “really great work that’s been led by mayor [Tory] Whanau and our progressive council”.

When asked who would replace her, she said: “That’s up to the people of Wellington, and they’ve made some excellent choices. … I have all confidence in them to continue to make the best choices.”