Nelson backs another three years for Nick Smith

Saturday, 11 October 2025

Nick Smith has reclaimed Nelson’s mayoral chains for a second term.

The result comes as Nelson voted to stick with the status quo. According to the progress results on Saturday, with 85% of votes counted, every councillor seeking re-election will be back for another three years.

That has extended to the Māori ward referendum, with the city voting yes to keeping it, 8357 votes to 6600.

Shortly before 3pm on Saturday, the incumbent mayor and former MP received a call confirming he would be mayor for another three years, after first stepping into the role in 2022.

Smith was at an election party at Lombardi’s Ristorante when the call came in. He thanked his family and the volunteers who supported his campaign.

His main challenger for the role was incumbent councillor Aaron Stallard, who pitted himself as a “genuine choice for mayor”.

Saturday’s results showed Smith received 9514 votes to Stallard’s 5546.

While Stallard missed out on the chains, he was re-elected as a councillor at-large.

Smith campaigned on an ambitious under-5% rates pledge for the coming term, getting other candidates to sign up. Of those, five were elected to the council ‒ incumbents Tim Skinner, James Hodgson and Mel Courtney, and newcomers Lisa Austin and Nigel Skeggs.

“Some people have thought that it was a measure to try and advance the electoral vote. Actually, it's something I feel quite deeply about,” Smith said.

“I think the council does need to be more prudent with the ratepayers’ money when households are having to carefully budget, so too are businesses, and so council needs to do likewise. It was not an electoral ploy.”

While the six who had signed the pledge would not be a majority on the 13-member council, Smith said others had also campaigned on rates affordability.

Revitalising the city centre and economic recovery were the other cornerstones of Smith’s campaign. One of the decisions facing the new council will be refurbishing the ageing Civic House or opting for a new central city headquarters and library.

Smith said while that would be a big investment he did not want to overstate its importance to a CBD revival. Attracting private investment would be the key to revitalisation, he said, and the council’s job was to lay the groundwork, including the Bridge to Better project and Plan Change 29 allowing higher buildings in the central city.

Smith said he had been worried that economic hits to the city during the election campaign would have a negative impact on the polls.

He was encouraged by positive announcements last week on city redevelopments in the former Morrison Square site and a redeveloped city bar.

“I’m genuinely feeling optimistic that 2026 will be much better.”

Smith said he would spend the next week speaking to each elected member individually to work out priorities, including the new council’s governance structure that would involve looking at the mix of committees and taskforces. He would would also meet re-elected Tasman mayor Tim King to discuss increasing shared services.

The new council would be sworn in on October 30, and hold its first meeting in mid-November.

Stallard said he was happy to have made it back to the council, and was pleased with the mayoral campaign he had run.

“I’m feeling, overall, actually quite good.”

It was always hard to challenge an incumbent, he said. “I knew it would be an uphill battle.”

He had campaigned for a more transparent and democratic council and would be pushing for that as an elected member this term.

The other two mayoral candidates, John Wakelin and Richard Osmaston, received 264 and 209 votes respectively.

Voters back status quo

The re-election of Smith as mayor and Stallard as councillor came as voters backed a largely unchanged council.

Along with Stallard on 4630 votes, Tim Skinner returned as at at-large councillor with 3901 votes, along with newcomer Nigel Skeggs who received 3587.

Skeggs said it was great to see who had been voted in and he was looking forward to working together for the next three years.

“I look forward to doing Nelson proud.”

In the central ward, new councillor Lisa Austin received the most votes with 1514, followed by incumbents Pete Rainey on 1442, Matty Anderson on 1374 and James Hodgson on 1368.

Austin was at Smith’s election party when the call came in. She thanked Nelson for backing her and said she enjoyed the campaign.

“I look forward to the next three years immensely and I cannot wait to start my new job.”

In the Stoke-Tāhunanui ward Mel Courtney was re-elected with 1738 votes, followed closely by council colleague Campbell Rollo on 1712. Labour’s Sarah Kerby filled the vacant ward seat with 1562 votes, followed by Trudie Brand who retained her seat with 1459.

Kerby, who stood as a Labour candidate, said the call telling her she’d been elected went to voicemail, so she learnt the news when MP Rachel Boyack shouted it across the room, which “couldn’t have been more perfect”.

The big challenge for the next three years would be cost of living, she said.

As one of three women councillors, she would have liked to have seen more women elected, but said she was excited to started.

“Thank you so much for electing me, I just cannot wait to hit the ground running.”

Current Māori ward councillor Kahu Paki Paki was re-elected unopposed.

Newcomers Skeggs, Austin and Kerby replaced deputy mayor Rohan O’Neill-Stevens, Rachel Sanson and Matthew Benge who all stood down at this election.