Tough day at the office

Saturday's election saw a convincing win to Citizens & ratepayers, who will take control of the Council with 11 of 20 seats. City Vision lost several Council seats and a number Community Board seats.

While there is still a lot of analysis to do, the result suggests that there was an old fashioned swing towards C&R in Auckland that was fairly uniform across the city. C&R picked up one seat in each of Tamaki-Maungakiekie, Western Bays, and Avondale-Roskill, while both Action Hobson incumbents were tipped out of Hobson to be replaced by C&R challengers. In Eden-Albert former C&R Councillor Mark Donnelly came back under the "Focus Eden-Albert" ticket to tip out City Vision Councillor Neil Abel by just 12 votes.

This was clearly a tough election for City Vision, and a good result for C&R. Congratulations and best wishes go all all those who were elected.

The mood at the City Vision E-Day function, and over the rest of the weekend has been interesting. After some intial sadness, particularly for several incumbents who lost their positions, the mood was energetic and determined. Councillor Glenda Fryer pointed out that City Vision was in a similar position in 2001, but with hard campaigning and good candidates came back to win in 2004.

Furthermore, there is a determination that we do not simply wait for the next election to campaign again, but that the work starts now. The Banks/C&R Council has an agenda of cutting services, transferring wealth from poor and middle household to the rich through the Uniform Annual Charge, and privatisation. While we wish the new Council all the best for their term in office they should also know that we will be there every step of the way to keep them honest and to campaign for a fair and green city.

City Vision Talk will be sticking around to keep you informed about all of this.