Westie dynasty in power struggle
It’s a quarter-century since Tim Shadbolt skipped Auckland to become Mayor of Invercargill, but now his name is controversially back on a West Auckland ballot paper and his son Reuben Shadbolt isn’t happy about it.
Reuben says he is dismayed that his father has allowed Wayne Davis, who has a conviction for domestic violence, to use the party name ‘‘Shadbolts Independent’’ as he seeks election to the Whau Local Board next month. Davis’s use of the Shadbolt name harks back to the late 1980s, when Davis successfully ran on a ticket alongside Shadbolt
‘‘I can’t have the Shadbolt family to be associated with domestic violence. I ran in the previous election and I feel voters may think I’m endorsing family violence,’’ said Reuben. (He stood for the Auckland supercity mayoralty in 2013, winning just under 1 per cent of the vote.)
Reuben said his father hadn’t even lived in West Auckland since 1993, when he moved to Invercargill, and ‘‘this name doesn’t just belong to my father and Wayne’’.
He said he owed it to his late great-aunt Rene´ Shadbolt, who has a park named after her in Davis’s campaigning area in Green Bay, to let people know Davis is not endorsed by the Auckland part of the Shadbolt family.
In 2003 Davis was sentenced to 100 hours community service after pleading guilty to domestic violence charges. But Tim Shadbolt said though he ‘‘deplored’’ domestic violence, he believed Davis had addressed his past offending, and should be given a second chance.
Davis said that when he received Shadbolt’s blessing to use the name he’d thought Reuben had no objection.
Shadbolt was elected mayor of Waitemata City in 1983, then again in 1986 on a political ticket called ‘‘Tim’s Team’’. He lost the 1989 race, and left for Invercargill in 1993.
Last week, he said Davis was a survivor who had succeeded under the Shadbolts Independent ticket. ‘‘He’s stuck to the same party name.’’ in West Auckland.