Fostering in a new era for council
A stunning upset in the capital’s mayoral race has been confirmed: Andy Foster is Wellington’s new mayor by 503 votes.
Wellington’s voters haven’t denied a first-time incumbent a return to office since 1986.
The mayor-elect was sitting in his living room when he received a call from council chief executive Kevin Lavery to say that enough of the votes had been counted to call the election.
Foster’s victory yesterday afternoon was a shock to many but the counting of special and lastminute votes made that result official with 2000 votes left to be counted.
Foster’s final tally was 26,707 votes to Lester’s 26,204.
It is an upset for incumbent Justin Lester but also confirmation of an anti-incumbent feeling that took hold during the campaign and was reflected in the city’s political results.
Lester gets the call
Lester took the phone call from Lavery at Loretta cafe in Wellington, surrounded by friends, family and supporters, including his deputy mayor, Jill Day.
Lester told Stuff he was ‘‘disappointed with the result’’ but hoped Foster and the new council did a ‘‘great job on behalf of Wellington’’. He congratulated Foster and wished him ‘‘all the best’’ .
Lester said he had run a ‘‘positive’’ campaign, focusing on issues he thought were important: transport, housing, eradicating homelessness and making the city more resilient.
He would ‘‘go back to having a nice life’’ with his family and had a ‘‘few ideas’’ about the future, including setting up ‘‘another business’’. He had previously cofounded a food store chain, Kapai.
The new business would likely centre around ‘‘financial literacy and helping people save money’’.
He also wanted to set up an affordable housing charity with his wife, Liz.
He had no regrets about his tenure or the campaign, and was
most proud of the vigil held at Wellington’s Basin Reserve after the March 15 terrorist attack on Christchurch.
A vote for change
Three existing councillors have been booted out of office: Brian Dawson, Peter Gilberd and Chris Calvi-Freeman.
The new council will tilt a gender balance from a majority male council to one that has 11 women and four men. The capital’s voting system of single transferable vote (STV) allows people to rank mayoral candidates by preference rather than a single vote. As candidates with the lowest number of first preference votes are eliminated from the vote count, their votes are allocated to the people their voters ranked the next best.
This is done in stages called ‘‘iterations’’. Lester was ahead on all iterations until the final one when Diane Calvert was eliminated from the count and her votes went to Foster.
Foster’s platform
His campaign included a large number of billboards around the city, thanks in part to funding from film-maker Sir Peter Jackson.
The approach from Jackson came three or four months ago when Foster was invited to sit down with him and Dame Fran Walsh. ‘‘They wanted to talk Shelly Bay because I have been very prominent about my opposition to Shelly Bay for 41⁄2-years now, so it is not as if I am changing anything to suit their agenda,’’ Foster said.
Apart from Shelly Bay, the impact of the Wellington region’s $6.4 billion transport plan Let’s Get Wellington Moving proved a major talking point during the mayoral campaign, as have issues around housing and the fate of the city’s civic precinct – including its Ian Athfield-designed central library.