Race begins: Businessman declares bid for mayoralty
A first-term city councillor, who shot to prominence after digging an unpermitted trench to alleviate flooding, has announced his bid to be Christchurch’s mayor. Phil Mauger claims money is ‘‘squandered’’ by the council. ‘‘We could do things a lot better
Phil Mauger wants to be Christchurch’s next mayor. The 63-year-old was to officially confirm today his bid for the mayoralty at the October 2022 local body election. He has been pondering a tilt at the top job for a while now, but it was a comment made by outgoing mayor Lianne Dalziel that cemented his plans.
‘‘After the general election when Jacinda [Ardern] won, Lianne came into a council meeting and said ‘yes, we’ve got a Labour-led country and a Labour-led council’. I thought ‘right, something has to be done’.’’
Mauger will run as an independent and will not contest his Burwood seat next year, opting to put his full attention into the mayoralty instead.
He believes he can make ‘‘one hell of a difference’’ as mayor.
‘‘I just want to do things a different way than they’ve already been done. I want to throw a different lens on things.’’
He says the council needs more of a business focus. ‘‘I see money getting squandered and wasted. We could do things a lot better and save money.’’
Mauger will campaign on keeping rates increases down, and says he wants the council to get the basics right, including fixing roads, maintaining parks and looking after vulnerable people in the city.
He will push to make sure the council provided the right budget to fix roads, footpaths, sewers and water mains.
‘‘We’ve got to attack the things people care about the most.’’
Mauger was elected to the council in 2019 after winning the Burwood seat over incumbent Glenn Livingstone by 1262 votes.
He was elected as an independent but has aligned himself with the so-called ‘‘frugal five’’, which includes three councillors from the Right-leaning Independent Citizens grouping.
The group has called for the council to defer non-Governmentfunded cycleways and was pushing hard for a 30,000-seat stadium rather than the smaller 25,000-seat option favoured by the majority of the council.
Mauger says he has also voted alongside Left-leaning People’s Choice on several occasions, which is the benefit of being an independent. ‘‘Just because someone is Left or People’s Choice does not mean they are not going to come up with a good idea.’’
Mauger describes himself as in the middle of the political spectrum, with a lean to the Right.
He admits the idea of leading a council stacked with People’s Choice members does not fill him with joy.
‘‘It would be a very lonely three years.’’
Seven out of 16 councillors represent People’s Choice around the council table, but that could increase to eight if People’s Choice candidate Kelly Barber wins the upcoming Coastal ward byelection.
Part of the rationale for announcing his mayoral intentions
14 months before the election is to get more ‘‘like-minded’’ people to put their names forward to run for council. Mauger reckons four more on council would make life a bit easier.
‘‘My way of doing things might bring more people along for the ride.’’
Mauger admits being a councillor has been a steep learning curve.
‘‘When I first moved in there I felt like a possum in the headlights.’’
He has been quick to make a name for himself as a councillor who is not afraid to get his hands dirty to resolve issues, even if it means breaking the rules.
If he sees a problem, his first reaction has been to fix it and ask permission later, but this approach has landed him in trouble with council staff more than once.
The most notable time was when he dug a trench across residential red-zone land in Bexley to resolve a long-running flooding issue on Pages Rd.
Locals had been trying to get the council to resolve the flooding for
10 years.
Mauger turned up, took one look at the land and decided he could fix the problem by digging a 70-metrelong trench, between Bexley Rd and Anzac Drive. He commandeered a digger from his company, Mauger’s Contracting, and the water was gone overnight.
But the council questioned the effectiveness of the trench, labelled it a danger, plugged both ends and surrounded it with a fence.
He ended up receiving a formal warning from Environment Canterbury and, following a ninemonth investigation, the city council fined him $300.
It was also agreed that he repair a walkway and cycleway under the northern side of New Brighton’s Anzac Bridge. He repaired the southern side about a year earlier without permission and was champing at the bit to do the northern side as well.
Mauger has also taken to the New Brighton shopping area with a water blaster and helped repair potholes outside residents’ homes.
These sorts of actions have seen him garner huge support across New Brighton and Burwood. Billboards have even been erected by locals supporting him and people have called for him to stand for mayor.
Mauger says he is learning to channel his enthusiasm in the ‘‘right direction’’.
‘‘It’s all very well going out and digging trenches and things like that. I’ve got to lift myself a bit more into governance rather than be so operational.
‘‘That’s not to say I won’t always be looking at ways to do things better.’’
Mauger grew up in North New Brighton, where his dad, Warner, ran a service station and mechanics business before setting up Mauger’s Contracting, which is where Mauger started working as an 18-year-old after leaving St Andrew’s College.
Over the years he worked his way up to managing director and owner, but has been stepping away from the company in recent times.
Mauger is now relinquishing his directorship and ownership of the contracting business and Mauger’s Mining, which has applied for permission to develop a 13-hectare quarry on Roberts Rd in Islington.
‘‘One day I’m not going to be here, so it’s really just doing some tidying up anyway.’’
Succession planning is something Mauger started to think about after he almost died in a car crash in Australia in 2015.
He suffered 21 broken bones, including six in his pelvis, and a collapsed lung when the car he was in was rear-ended by a fully laden truck-and-trailer unit.
Afterwards he realised his business would have been in big trouble if he had ‘‘snuffed it’’ that day.
He made a full recovery, but to relieve some pain in his pelvis he had weight-loss surgery and lost 28 kilograms in three months.
Mauger is a car enthusiast and has been racing vehicles most of his life. At one point he owned Denny Hulme’s Formula One McLaren and raced it all over the world. Inside his garage is a 1929 Sunbeam and a 1923 Fiat.
He also owns an eclectic mix of other stuff. He has a tank, a Hercules engine, a Chrysler airraid siren and a beach cleaner.
‘‘One of my bad habits is when I can’t sleep at night I go on Ebay.’’
Mauger lives in Avonhead with his wife, Chrissy, and they have five children between them, all aged in their 30s.
Public documents show he owns six properties, including his family home in Avonhead, but Mauger says he has just sold a property in Islington and is about to sell another in Wainoni.
He also owns property in Akaroa and Kaiteriteri, and is a trustee of his son’s property in Auckland.
Mauger is the first candidate to confirm a bid for the mayoralty after Dalziel announced in July she would not stand for a fourth term. Others, including deputy mayor Andrew Turner, have said they are seriously considering the move.
A business owner and city councillor who has survived a near-death car crash, lost 28kg following weight-loss surgery, and owns a tank, vintage cars and a beach-cleaning machine, now plans to run for mayor of Christchurch. Phil Mauger speaks to Tina Law about his ambition.
‘‘I just want to do things a different way than they’ve already been done. I want to throw a different lens on things.’’ Phil Mauger City councillor and mayoral hopeful