Congratulations to Len Brown
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1:30 pm, October 9th, 2010 - 121 comments
Categories: auckland supercity -
Tags: len brown
It’s official, Len Brown is the first ever super city mayor. My congratulations to him and to his team who have worked so hard to get this result. It’s a great victory for the people.
The Right thought they had stitched up Auckland very nicely with their undemocratic supercity but the people have rejected them and their candidate soundly in favour of a man who stands for democracy, community, and inclusiveness.
Update: And congratulations to Bob Parker. With Stuff reporting he has beaten Jim Anderton by about sixteen thousand votes. It’s not the outcome I’d hoped for but you win some and you lose some. I’m sure Jim will be looking forward to a well deserved retirement after the next election – he’s done a hell of a lot for New Zealand.
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- Release: Chris Hipkins’ Speech to Local Government New Zealand
...2 weeks ago
- Release: Regional deals can’t leave ratepayers picking up the bill again
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- Release: Govt in thrall to tobacco lobbyists
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- Transport resilience a priority for Gisborne
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- Prioritising growth and reduced travel times in Canterbury
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- Supporting growth and freight in the Bay of Plenty
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- Getting transport back on track in Auckland
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- Record investment to get transport back on track
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God help Auckland!
Their worst nightmare is being unleashed.
a vengeful National/ACT government?
Yeah, libraries, parks, beaches and pools for all.
The good people of Auckland will be shaking in their books.
Captch: Bank
typo, or very good pun?
Shitty laptop keyboard.
Nothing will change, same old same old.
Excellent result for Mr Brown, and Auckland.
Be interesting to see who joins him on the council though…
DPF is reporting that 11/20 of the seats are held by the “left” and C&R only got 5
Yes, and the punters are not so cheerful over there.
The one blaming the left for increased rates bills seems slightly misguided. And by slightly misguided I mean he’s completely delusional.
Ah a common garden variety RWNJ then.
I hope so, IrishBill. My congratulations, too, for the first of many victories to lead us from the hands of the Tea Party Nact Right. And also my fervent hope and prayer that the victory leads to decent, inclusive, humane, and clean politics in Auckland and by extension outwards to the rest of Aotearoa.
Bloody hell,all the loonies are spewing bile and venom over at Kiwiblog.
Isnt that what they always do?
No, it’s different (and better) now. The world is still going to hell, but this time they aren’t in power, so they can’t fix it.
Actually, there’s this weird sense of relief that their team has been relieved of some responsibility.
I can understand that. Congratulations to Brown, but I wouldn’t want to be in his shoes. It’s like being picked to lead the Daewoo F1 team… you might be the driver, the the vehicle is crap.
I see Redbaiter is still off his meds.
So what can we learn from this? The left-leaning candidate can win, with a smart, energetic, organised campaign, not distracted by smears and personal attacks. And when the media get nasty, and even start writing you off (remember a few months ago?), you hold your nerve, and continue with a smart, energetic, organised campaign.
Give your supporters a reason to vote for you, and they will.
Labour Party take note.
The people writing Len Brown off were fucking stupid.
Well, he’s won but he’s now got a big job ahead of him to right all the misery that previous councils have perpetrated on us. Especially the massive debt that Banks left us.
Why is the elections2010 site so slow to put the results up?
My thoughts exactly.
I have been hitting F5 for hours and not getting much.
i’d just use the NZHerald results
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=10679274
Meanwhile, down in New Plymouth, Harry Duynhoven, Labour’s man tipped out of New Plymouth seat/electorate in 08, has just been elected Mayor.
Good on Harry and I imagine Andrew Little will be pretty happy about it, too.
I doubt it – Harry was the best of a very bad bunch. A good administrator (with luck), he isn’t a patch on Mayor Pete, who we sadly lost. Hopefully Harry will get by without the need for any retrospective law making 😉
Yes – I regard Harry as a safe pair of hands rather than a great visionary, but at least John Rae didnt get in – the guy wanted to cut funding to the library/museum so the council could fund his American car festival.
Agreed, sheer stupidity. And I cant imagine why Andrew Little would be happy about the result. The right vote was split in two, the rednecks voted for Horse Manure, and as noted, Harry got the “fuck me, I guess I have to” vote.
Thank god its only the mayoralty, and not something that actually matters. 🙂
Little would be happy because as the local MP he’ll have a mate as mayor. Much easier to represent the place nationally if you’ve got a sympatico council leader locally.
You should check out the council before you say that – Harry’s got his hands full 😉 Oh, and as far as I know, Little aint it yet. 🙂
You might be right about the council, Bob, I don’t know the politics there that well. Andrew Little, MP? Well, not yet, but whatever election brings nationally, it’s going to see Little elected in NP. The reason this is such a good result for Labour is that there are 9 Nat held marginal seats that can easily go back to the left if there is any sort of momentum away from the tories. And NP is the most marginal of all. So Harry’s win suggests pretty strongly that Labour can take some, if not all, of those seats back. And that’s the basis of any hope of leading the next Government.
Drawing a very long bow I suggest, but then you might be right. NP is the canary in the coal mine, but right now, the miners are very happy, and Mr Coleman is doing a good and visible job here. Im sure Little will get in on the list, but there will have to be a seismic shift to assume at this stage that Labour will recapture some of the marginals.
Council results dont mean much in the big scheme of things, really.
Congrats to Len Brown and the left, I wish them the very best. Bob Parker knew what to do with a camera, hopefully Jim Anderton will make providing dental care an issue as he knows where the huge gaps are regarding access to dental care.
Parker can thank geology for this victory. That’s all I will say about that.
Brilliant result, which raises questions about the reporting of polls – wasn’t it neck and neck a couple of days ago?
On Close-Up or Campbell Live, they’ll probably have a text poll on Monday, asking “Who did you support in the Mayoral election”?
John Banks will get 70%.
Len Brown will have to settle for being elected Mayor.
Well done Len and team, and all the people that participated in a very long campaign instigated by a very short attempted coporate coup of the city. There is now a second chance depending on final make up of councilors, to at least neutralise the barbarians. Don’t retire just yet Penny Bright.
-couple of thoughts…
• A pleasing result in terms of what Hideney wanted. It is somewhat unfair to compare Rortney with Mussolini because Wodders does not support more public transport let alone making it run on time!
• With the CCOs and ‘Fixit’ Ford, people power will need to be regularly enlisted
• Roll on gen. election 2011, Shonkey can be relegated to a one termer.
• Unions get your act together, 1500 redundancies so far, run a ‘not one more job lost’ campaign
4 C&R, the rest independent and left
…snort……Whaleoil blogger got 1186 votes in Albany against Michael Gouldie’s winning 88538… …
This result is a demonstration of good, well organised and smart campaigning on Len’s behalf. If Labour can learn from this campaign then the 2011 election result will definitely make the NACTers spit bile.
Here’s a result to get excited about (in Auckland, apologies to the rest of you!):
In Waitemata, the centre-left City Vision candidates have won the local board election.
That covers Auckland Central (held by National’s Nikki Kaye) and a big chunk of posh Epsom (Rodney Hide), including Parnell, where John Key lives.
Headlines we’d like to see:
SUPER-LABOUR-CITY: AUCKLAND VEERS LEFT IN CITS & RATS ROUT
Get it right, ak. Should be “SHITS & RATS ROUT”
Anybody heard any Wellington results – can’t find them anywhere.
Apparently not until 6pm.
http://www.stuff.co.nz/dominion-post/politics/local-body-elections/4215508/Local-elections-live-updates
It’s STV in Wellington (should be everywhere, actually). The (only) downside of STV is that it takes longer to count.
Well, there’s more than one downside but my biggest concern is that people cans till treat it as a FPP election by the simple expedient of only putting in one preference.
Which is fine if that’s genuinely how they want to vote.
▲▲ ▲ THIS ▲ ▲ ▲
Cits and Rats won in Franklin, with the local board and the Auckland Council rep. Sad day. No matter how badly Key and Hide have treated these wimps they still vote in the very people who sold them out.
However, good on Len Brown. He’s got a few on-siders to protect his back, but Key and the pondscum around him like Hide and NAct corruptees will be trying to destroy Brown, politically.
Remember Big Norm?
Now we need to see some firm support from Goff and Co for Brown’s ideas, especially in public transport.
At least in the mayoral race the guy who wanted ‘only roads’ built did not do well. Aucklanders have spoken. Now I’ve been dragged into this hell-blown city I’ll be watching the cco’s. Rightwing all of them; Brown will need to be firm. Pace yourself Len and never give up or in. People are counting on you.
But for now – cheers Len, good on ya mate.
With the Right in a minority, the Auckland Council should draft a Local Bill to amend the legislation that governs it to get rid of the worst aspects – including the CCOs. It would be politically difficult for NACT, given the mandate from the Auckland Council election to oppose it – actually, they should ask Nikki Kaye to put it up – that would make it really interesting.
They should also immediately review Rodney Hide’s CCO appointments.
Need to check out the detail on that toadie, CCOs are pretty well legislated for as far as I am aware in favour of the corporatists but with effective communication the new council could do a mini Chavez and apply a spot of Hideney’s beloved TINA (there is no alternative) strike hard and early.
Yes, in my ward, the new, Hide Gerrymandered Whau, delivered my part of New Lynn up to a C&R councillor from Avondale. I voted for the left-favoured Independent Ross Clow, who was defeated by about 400 votes. 🙁
But it doesn’t diminsh my joy at seeing Banks defeated and Brown triumph. Well done Team Brown!
How is it that one of the poorest areas of Auckland, which has been continually treated like crap by C and R, continues to re-elect them? I really feel sorry for New Lynn- which was well treated by Waitakere Council being represented by an absentee councillor who will have zero influence.
Good luck Celia in Wellington
Letter to John Banks
Dear John
you may recall the 1979 election in the UK when Maggie swept to power. One of her lieutenants was Norman Tebbitt. This wonderful caring individual had an endearing bit of advice for those around the UK who had lost their jobs within a few weeks of her governments first budget austerity measures.
Get on your bike.
A good concession speech from John Banks; it’s a measure of a man to see how they handle bitter dissapointment.
As much as most of us vigourously disagree with his politics, Banksie has given a lot of himself to Auckland and we can show him respect for that.
The big loser here has to be the tatters of The Herald’s credibility who just weeks ago kept calling the race ‘too close to call’.
FIFY
Does this mean that under 90 day fire at will Len Brown can make a clean sweep of top CCO appointments? Or has this option been written out of the contracts “do as I say not do as I do…”
Surely each head of each CCO should have to re-apply for their jobs. At the very least.
Congrats to the good people of Christhchurch also, Bob parker has be reelected, I hope some people now know that hate and fear politics wont work.
Indeed, earthquake politics trump all.
Well done Denise Roche on Waiheke.
And well done Greg Presland in Waitakere!
But the rest of the board on Waiheke is a collection of the cashed up, the mashed up and the washed up.
Please remind me again: what has Anderton done for New Zealand other than living at taxpayer’s expense all these years? We’ll be much better off without him.
Can you spell K-I-W-I-B-A-N-K?
. . . Terrorism Supression Act . . .
Kiwibank.
Hoping that, like what he’s done with Kiwibank, Jim Anderton campaigns to bring in one major policy initiative that the new Central Government will implement in 2012.
offered a leftwing alternative to Labour with NewLabour, then the Alliance, which ultimately forced Labour to return to its core values.
Key on the six o’clock news looked sick. He knows he’s lost Auckland, no smiling and really nevously licking his bottom lip, I don’t know a lot about body language but I think that means you’re shitting your pants!
It means he’s lying through his teeth.
You mean John Key was moving his lips?
good quality puppets can do that.
Obviously Cantabrians are still in shock – why else would they vote for Parker.
Because Parker hasn’t been in politics his entire life and been in four political parties and trashed three of them himself and currently pretending to be a leader of a one MP party.
Jim Anderton has done far more for people in Christchurch than Parker will ever do. He has been one of the ablest and most hardworking electorate MPs in Christchurch. More to the point, he has also been one of the strongest advocates for those people in Christchurch least able to help themselves. On a personal note, Anderton has helped several members of my family during some very stressful times. He never forgot what he promised to do and always followed up with them.
Parker, by contrast, mixes with Christchurch’s elite. So far as I can see his only reason for being in politics is to ingratiate himself with the powerful and to enjoy the experience of status and celebrity. He has no vision, no commitment to democracy and has presented himself as an ‘independent’ when he is well and truly aligned with the political right. In my honest opinion, he is morally weightless.
Eh !!!
It galls me to see that side show chump say he can’t speculate on what effect the earthquake had on his re election.
Uhhh dude…without it Jim woulda handed your arse back to you in shreds and you know it, you lying piece of shit !!!
I hereby officially disown Churtown as a choice place on my list of NZ’s most choice places.
The nz herald just can’t let go.
One of these things is not like the others: http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=10679258
😆
They do realise he lost, right? I mean, they’re reporting it!
I had a look at some of the smaller council results – sounds like a lot of slash and burn types were elected.
The Dunedin results are frigging late and mostly disappointing. Slimy Stadium whoring gits Guest and Walls are gone, thankyou Jeebers, but that crazy ‘slash n’ sack’ loon Vandervis voted in and most of the rest of the old guard. Stupid, stupid town…Dave Cull is a nice guy though. Congrats Auckland on voting for Len Brown. A big DOH to Wellington and Christchurch. Seriously people…
The town has been run sideways by the old boys and their families for the last 20 years, they’ve been the only ones getting ahead all that time. No good berating the voters, the Left have to get organised in Dunedin.
Stop whinging, Labour holds most of the urban seats in both Christchurch and Dunedin. It just goes to show that people don’t believe that giving Labour total control of local government as well is a good idea.
Okay, here’s my analysis on the Auckland Council election:
Of the 20 Councilors, there are two Greens, Cathy Casey and Wayne Walker.
Penny Hulse, Sandra Coney and Michael Goudie are Green-friendly, although not party members.
Mike Lee and Richard Northey are both endorsed by City Vision, a Labour-Green-Community Independent coalition.
Alf Filipaina is Labour endorsed, and Ann Hartley is a former Labour MP.
Sir John Walker stood as an independent and has usually taken a progressive social and environmental position as a Manukau City Councilor.
Arthur Anae is a former National MP, but fell out seriously with National after discovering he was somewhat to the left of them. Likewise Christine Fletcher, who is a former National MP and former Auckland City Mayor and a Citizens & Ratepayers endorsed Councilor, but will be good on environmental and human rights issues (if the C&R block vote allows her to, which I suspect they will, given their annihilation in the election, because if they don’t she will likely break ranks).
Sharon Stewart is an independent who is pro-environment and pro-public transport and has defeated ACT-aligned sitting Manukau City Councilor Dick Quax in the Howick ward.
Cameron Brewer is economically right, but socially liberal. Probably the best option you could get from the wealthiest part of Auckland, and as an independent he defeated the sitting Auckland City C&R (ie NACT) Councilor Doug Armstrong.
Calum Penrose is a law and order hard-liner and former Mayor of Papakura, but I don’t know much more about him.
Des Morrison, George Wood, Jami-Lee Ross and Noelene Raffills (all C&R) are hard right, as is former ACT MP Penny Webster, although she may be a bit more socially liberal than these C&R ones.
The numbers stack up for good things to happen in Auckland. The really inspiring thing about this Council is that they are not going to be privatising anything and will endeavour to make progress on public transport (Steven Joyce, take note).
The other inspiring thing is that Rodney Hide is still likely on his haunches in the smallest room talking to Huey and Ralph on the big white telephone.
Thanks for that, Toad, very good analysis.
I haven’t felt this good about an election (in NZ) since 1999.
As for the rightish candidates, there is (as Toad suggests) definitely a sliding scale, and this Council is much better than it could have been.
Christine Rankin, Paul Goldsmith and Dick Quax all lost. Three out of three ain’t bad!
If I could like this, I would! So glad to see Quax down the road.
Captcha: Finished(!)
By the way Toad, a minor correction, Richard Northey is actually on a Labour ticket, rather than city vision.
Considering the C&R outgoing Council in Auckland City endorsed a plan to spend $13-20 million on a ‘herd of elephants’, I think we can lay to rest the idea that they were fiscally responsible.
As their record in increasing borrowing on the last 3 years from $300 million to $850 million also shows.
And if they have no credibility on fiscal matters whats left?
Not to mention effectively writing a blank check to shift a school that doesn’t need to be shifted so that they can park cars closer to a new art gallery.
Oh dear. Cameron Slater thinks he beat Andrew Williams. http://whaleoil.gotcha.co.nz/2010/10/09/the-whale-1-0-the-clown/
Yep, that’s what it’s all about. Lose an entire city, but focus on the failure of one candidate from the left to get up and that’ll make it all better. Despite his z grade fame, this year is Cameron’s annus horriblus.
Would you say Williams is from the left? Really?
He would have been fine in the Nat cabinet 20 or 30 years ago but the country is now monopolised by PPTA witches.
RobertM, watch out your nose doesn’t go either wooden or warty, or both. Witches indeed. Wot abaht the warlock!
So it’s not about policies, then, just smears and dirty tricks to bring down the opposition?
FFS, why did you have to mention Slater on an evening we are all feeling elated, felix.
This part of his post you linked to scares me a little (or a lot):
Not sure if that reveals he is a rapist, or a homophobe, or both. Anyway, it’s scary language. And, for the record, Whale
poopoil got 1186 votes, compared with 8,538 for the highest polling candidate Michael Goudie.Beat him into 10th place and out of local government, good riddance
That they ever let Cameron in the picture shows how cynical and contemptuous the Nat poll crunchers and Michelle Boag are. Hey we like candidates who just might have had a hetrosexual chance. The public aren’t totally senseless and they can see Camerons libertarianism is bullshit when he alligns himself with Judith Collins and the fundametalists. To me what Reagan and Hayek were about has nothing to do with anti sex and anti party, rather the opposite.
Latest election results:
ACT (2008) 85,496 … and obviously just a fraction of those were in Auckland.
Len Brown (2010) 220, 000 … and rising.
Pretty clear who has the mandate. Adios, Rodney.
2008 election, Act 85496, Len Brown 0 as he did not stand for Parliament
Well done to Len Brown. 🙂
Look who’s top dog now. I smell victory 🙂
Ah but now that Brown has validated the Supercity by standing and winning the mayoralty he has three years to prove he can make it work.
Thanks to Rodney Hide this will be difficult. He has pushed for local boards that have almost no authority to act unilaterally on anything within their boundaries. He said he would resign if there was proper Maori representation at the top table. He tried to set up “Council Controlled Organisations” to run the functions of the Council but set them up so that the council has minimal control over their operation and direction. The unaccountable directors have been appointed without consultation with the new mayor that they are supposed to occasionally answer to.
Len Brown will be up against it. He stands for inclusiveness and consultation with others (Maori and others Rodney doesn’t think deserve a fair say), local control over local matters, and has a vision that requires the cooperation of people who should answer to him but don’t really have to.
I don’t see Rodney Hide letting this go either. Brown isn’t who he wanted. I can see him meddling because he didn’t get things his way. We have seen what happened to ECAN when they didn’t make decisions that the government preferred.
Brown will know that the only way he can be the true Mayor of AKL is if NAT are OUT.
Congrats Lennie, you won by a considerable margin. Took me a while to deiced who to vote for and I voted 20mins before it closed. Im hoping you can pull things together as youve already been chosen (so we cant go back) but please just make it work region wide.
Have a horrible feeling Thatcherite, developer-friendly Prenders will just squeak back in down here in Wellington. I’d be happier if the current margin was 4 rather than 40.
It’s true that Wade-Brown isn’t quite ‘centre-left’, but a centrist Green is better than right-wing Prenders any day of the week. Just wish a few of Yan or Pepperell’s supporters had swung in behind W-B. Or, more to the point, that some of those lazy/apathetic/dis-enchanted 60 % of non-voters had got off their arse and taken 2 minutes to fill in a friggin voting form and posted it. Most, I suspect, would have been Labour supporters (which not only explains why, in a Centre-Left city like Wellington, we’ve had Prenders for so bloody long but also why it looks like the city council will still be, at best, evenly-divided – if not slightly leaning to the Right).
Brown in Auckland – Brilliant !!!; Chch – Anderton actually did better than I was expecting given the circs (about 51000 to Parker’s 67000 or so); Dndn – same problem as Wellington – Labour voters staying home ? (Dndn is a Labour/Centre-Left stronghold at General Elections).
And finally, why no mention of my own city, Porirua, on RNZ local election results coverage ? They managed to mention results from nearly every small town in the Country – Matamata, Otorohanga, Westport – but not a city of 60000 !!! (nor Upper Hutt for that matter).
Yeah it looks like Celia will get in,
At last nights announcement Kerry looked shocked and disappeared v quickly. we on the other hand partied, I don’t think if we were honest, thought that Celia would get that close
great for Wellington great for the Greens ,watch us build the party vote in Wellington central
Go James Shaw in Welly Central
Oops ! Maybe I should take the Prenders analysis back. I’ve just seen Graeme Edgeler’s expert comments (ToryKiwiBlog) regarding first preferences in the Wellington Mayoral election 2007. He argues that Prenders received far fewer first preferences on the Specials in 07. Could be Wade-Brown afterall. Apart from Chch, almost a clean-sweep, then. Absolutely bloody Brilliaaaant !!!
Len, all 54 of us living at this address celebrate your win. The 72 next door and the amazing 250 in the one bed room flat next door to them also celebrate. The three of us will be enjoying KFC for weeks – thanks Mike, love ya XR8 !
He won by 65K- even George W would have difficulty rigging that amount of votes.
I voted for Len Brown, so im pleased! but I will still be voting for National in the next election
why?
Phil Goff.
Right, just so long as it’s a good reason then. Don’t want to get too confused about issues and policies after all.
Congratulations not to Len but to all you who worked for this major victory. Make no mistake – it’s a rout alright, a major watershed in opinion-change reaching even to the provinces and the icing on the cake is the annihilation of scum and their filthy, hatemongering ways: Garrett, Henry and Laws, hopefully Hide to follow.
Learn big from this, Labour: you just thrashed the big money players that crucified Helen. They’ll be hurting. And they’ll be back. Be ready and running.
And they did by being inclusive, not resorting to pandering and being respectful of Maori and minority groups. And they were happy to openly discuss left ideas like public transport and the environment. Do you think the political apparachiks can learn from that?
Did anyone notice the irony of Len and the tribal chiefs assembling on top of One Tree Hill yesterday?
No. It was no contest. Its hopeless for the right when their so cynical to put up simpelton idiot candidates like Banks and Prentergast. The C&R ticket was also unsupportable for those like me who believe in a free unlimited largely hetrosexual society where people make their own decisions. A National party that selects the likes of Muldoon, Banks and Peters is beyond redempetion. Muldoon was like Lantham, Rudd and Goff a one generational freak from the low orders.At first Muldoon made useful changes like censorship and drinking liberalisation and opening up the economy to world in the partial l967 revolution but after that he reverted to type. The death wish of National and Muldoon in selecting candidates like Peters, Banks and Waring is beyond reason. They are people who are the mortal enemy of everything Hayek, Freidman., Thatcher and Reagan ever fought for.
I just can not concieve how National and C&R ever saw any value in banks, he is the semi retarded son or criminals, a brain damaged son of monumental alcoholics. The polices intital assessments of banks that he was too much shit and stupidity to ever be the slightest value to a free society was right. I am being quite honest in saying that I simply can not concieve of why they ever saw value in people like Banks. New Zealanders aren’t stupid- Banks cretinous support for motorway development and his bone headed dismisal of civilised rail and light rail development was so stupid and clumsy always guaranteed he would lose against any rival other than someone who belongs in Albania like Dick Hubbard.
And hey National and Ann Tolley should learn that only the quarter of the population that are intellignet belong in parliament or local government. People with one IQ point more than Jenny Shipley or Jim Bolger and much better looking