Dunedin Council Chamber. PHOTO: ODT FILES
Analysis
The next three years will be rather different at the Dunedin City Council from its recent history, and not just because of a new mayor.
Successful mayoralty candidate Jules Radich will be joined at the council table by two new councillors from his Team Dunedin ticket, and Andrew Whiley was comfortably re-elected.
The fact Mr Radich won the mayoralty contest so comfortably is revealing of the mood of Dunedin voters.
As top-polling councillor Sophie Barker put it, change was in the wind.
Mr Radich said residents felt the past council did not listen to them enough.
The council had been on notice about public sentiment ever since a residents’ opinion survey showed a low level of satisfaction with the performance of councillors and the now-defeated mayor, Aaron Hawkins.
The survey was carried out between July 2020 and June last year and the results, published in December, showed a 15-point drop in satisfaction on a year earlier, down to just 25%.
Mr Hawkins was rather too dismissive of the survey.
He was on the winning end of votes in the chamber about issues that ranged from what should be done in George St to reversing a decision by the council to join a Three Waters protest collective, but this may well have reinforced perceptions he paid insufficient attention to community sentiment.
Mr Hawkins had a broadly similar political outlook to his three-term predecessor, the late Dave Cull, but may have pushed a progressive ideology further than the community was comfortable with.
One of the most telling elements of the council election was who was voted on to the council who was not there before.
Mandy Mayhem-Bullock is the only new councillor who can be reliably categorised as leaning to the political left.
Kevin Gilbert seems to be quite centrist but is also on the business-friendly Team Dunedin ticket, Brent Weatherall is part of Team Dunedin and Cherry Lucas was not on the ticket, but could easily have fitted there with some comfort.
Bill Acklin, returning to the council after leaving it in 2013, ran on a platform of concern about the council getting too bogged down in ideology. He had a strong showing in the councillor vote.
Dunedin voters had little appetite for centrist candidates for the council for the next term.
Several viable centre-left candidates missed out, as well as two-term councillor Rachel Elder, whose voting record was mostly centrist or similar to that of Cr Radich.
The rough split of councillors who lean to the left, against those who lean to the right, is now 7-7.
The centre-left bloc is no longer ascendant.
However, Mr Radich will not want many votes to be won 8-7.
He will almost certainly be eager to work with Crs Sophie Barker and Jim O’Malley, who lean to the left, among others. That is also where a fair degree of the council’s experience lies.
One thing to watch in the next term is how constructive senior councillor Lee Vandervis chooses to be, from the right.
There is some common ground between Mr Radich and Cr Vandervis, but Mr Radich is often more moderate.
Mr Radich has a strong mandate and he has one interesting path to navigate for the next three years.
