What’s in a name? Shadbolt’s ghost haunts West Auckland election
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 given the green light for Wayne Davis, a man with a conviction for domestic violence, to use the party name ‘‘Shadbolts Independent’’ as he runs for election in 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 in West Auckland.
‘‘I can’t have the Shadbolt family to be associated with domestic violence,’’ said Reuben.
‘‘I ran in the previous election and I feel voters may think I’m endorsing family violence.’’ (He stood for the Auckland Supercity mayoralty in 2013, winning just less than 1 per cent of the vote.)
Reuben said his father hadn’t 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 Shadbolt senior said though he ‘‘deplored’’ domestic violence, he believed Davis had addressed his past offending, and should be given a second chance.
Davis said when he received Shadbolt’s blessing to use the name he’d thought Reuben had no objection. He has run under the same name in the past. ‘‘Tim said Reuben was OK with using the name.’’
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 four years later. Last week, he said Davis was a survivor.
‘‘I formed a ticket in 1989 called Shadbolts Independent and he was the only one who succeeded. He’s stuck to the same party name.’’
He said he endorsed Davis’s use of the name Shadbolts Independent in June. ‘‘I challenged him on the domestic violence and he said he had been through Man Alive programmes and was a changed man and I felt he should be given a second chance.’’