Mayor surprised by ‘landslide’ victory
‘‘To be fair, I wasn’t expecting such a landslide.’’
Anita Baker
There’s no doubt Anita Baker has received her fair share of vitriol during her time in office, most of it dealt out by keystroke.
But if there was one big lesson Baker would take into her second consecutive term asmayor, it was this: ‘‘Ignore the Facebook people – because there’s actually so few of them, the haters – and actually realise you are doing a good job instead of listening to that minority,’’ Baker said.
In fact, the majority of voters delivered Baker an unequivocal mandate, with her finishing the preliminary count 8773 votes clear of her closest challenger, beauty salon owner Tapu Elia on 1838 votes.
However, Baker conceded things may have been different if the other candidates had more council experience. ‘‘I’mnever certain until the end. People said ‘you’re going to win, you’re going to win’, but I never thought that, so I did the work right to the end.
‘‘To be fair, I wasn’t expecting such a landslide,’’ Baker said.
That landslide victory wasn’t cause for a bender. Baker hosted fellow councillors for low-key celebrations at the Whitby Bowling Club on Saturday evening, with her husband Phil manning the barbecue. ‘‘We were home in bed by 10pm,’’ Baker said.
She was one of the few sitting mayors who earned re-election, despite voter turnout in the region falling by 10% since 2019.
During her previous term, Baker prioritised the need for a unified council, a far cry from the dysfunction that plagued Wellington City Council under former mayor Andy Foster’s leadership.
‘‘We don’t always agree, but we stay positive in the media, we stay positive as a group, we go out to lunch every week, and we stay tight.
‘‘It’s really important to have all your councillors on board, even if you have different platforms.
‘‘To me, my council is the most
important thing. If I don’t have a steady ship, and councillors aren’t supporting me and [I’m] not supporting them, then it doesn’t work properly – and I think that’s what happened in Wellington,’’ Baker said.
While Porirua City Council worked constructively under Baker’s leadership, the region still faced challenges, including high rates and some of the most expensive rental costs in the country.
‘‘In the Long-Term Plan [consultation], we’ll be asking people what do they want to cut, because the only way to bring rates down is to cut things. And not little things.
‘‘Cutting the hours of the library, that’s not going to achieve anything, so I would like to hear from the community about what it is they want council to do,’’ Baker said.