New mayor, new look council

Oct 08, 2022

What. A. Day.

A push for change had delivering exactly that for councils across the country, including Dunedin.

I wasn’t surprised by Jules Radich winning, he had a highly visible and organised campaign, but I was surprised by how comprehensive it was.

It was interesting to hear from the Green Party backed Aaron Hawkins that they didn’t have the budget to go for “a saturation strategy” like Radich.

The final absolute majority of votes (final quota) as determined at the last iteration was 18,761.

We will learn more in the coming days, including more about Radich himself.

But here are some things you may not know.

He, like the last two mayors, originally hails from Southland.
He is the city’s 59th mayor.
He is believed to be 67, as was 64 at the last election when he became a first term councillor.
His middle name is ‘Vincent’.

You can watch a lengthy pre-election interview with the mayor-elect here.

His Team Dunedin ticket has done very well. Brent Weatherall was the 3rd highest polling councillor, while Andrew Whiley was fourth, and they have also brought Kevin Gilbert with them.

So Team Dunedin now has a four-strong voting block. That is important when you look at the make-up of the council itself.

There appears to be a 7-7 split between right/left leaning councillors, which makes future votes potentially right-leaning when you count the mayor’s vote.

That is all hypothetical, of course. It’ll be interesting to see how it transpires.

Other talking points include.

The return of three term veteran Bill Acklin
The loss of Aaron Hawkins as he wasn’t standing as a councillor
Aaron Hawkins @A_G_Hawkins
Alas it wasn’t to be. Thanks everyone for their support over my last nine years at the Dunedin City Council, and through this campaign. I’m proud of what we achieved in my 3 years as Mayor, even if we had plenty more work to do. To Cr Radich and his council all the very best
1:47 AM ∙ Oct 8, 2022
743Likes17Retweets
Vandervis is no longer the highest-polling councillor, and came fourth in the race for the mayoralty.
On the morning of the election Vandervis posted a rant about the ODT.
Barker, the highest polling councillor, is well poised for a future tilt at the mayoralty.
Sitting councillor Rachel Elder lost her spot on council.
Cherry Lucas becomes a first-term councillor.
Mandy Mayhem-Bullock also made it in, she has a fascinating background including spending time in the circus.
Labour only got one councillor, Steve Walker, in a Labour stronghold like Dunedin.
The progress results were based on about 90% of ordinary votes being counted, with the remainder in transit.

As for the Otago Regional Council, the big surprise there was how well postgraduate ecology student Elliot Weir performed, the fourth ranked (out of six) successful candidates for the Dunedin constituency.