If I had $1 for every time someone asked me about ‘Benedict Ong’ I would probably have enough to cover the recent re-roofing of my house, or at least my spiralling power bills.

I met Ong early on the campaign trail when he was visiting my office, he introduced himself, and gave me his spiel.

He was born in Dunedin, he had returned after living overseas for most of his life, and he was going to win a seat on the Dunedin City Council.

I didn’t question the first two, but I doubted he would do the latter.

But Ong served-up me up a dish of humble pie when he was elected as the 11th of 14 councillors, in a field of 54 candidates.

That’s when the rumours started.

• He’s AI.

• He lied about his work history.

• He is a spy.

• His work history is bogus.

• He wasn’t born here.

• So on and so on.

I touched on some of these rumours in a light-hearted piece for Stuff titled: Tinker, AI, councillor… spy? Who is Benedict Ong?

That story included fact-checking some of his claims, which resulted in me meeting with the electoral officer who confirmed Ong had produced a New Zealand passport (that also revealed that two city employees of a long established company had signed his form).

I also touched on his banking background. Later, two of those companies would confirm he did indeed work there, but added nothing else.

So far, so good.

But the rumours persisted.

Even this week a prominent citizen was espousing doubt over his employment claims.

But the most persistent rumour appears to be that Ong was indeed a spy/had a fake passport/ was not born here.

That, excuse the pun, gave birth to Dunedin’s own version of the Obama birthing conspiracy.

Remember that?

It started during Obama’s campaign for president in 2008, and apart from a few oddballs it was promoted by a person who would ultimately succeed Obama to the presidency, businessman and television personality Donald Trump.

Obama's released his official Hawaiian birth certificate in 2008, prior to the election.

Now back to Ong.

Earlier this month the Otago Daily Times wrote a story (note, not an editorial/not an opinon piece) under the heading: What is it, home town or birth town?

It noted a Facebook comment Ong had made which seemed to suggest that Dunedin was his hometown, not his birthplace.

If Cr Ong was not born in Dunedin, this would contradict his election advertising and what appears to be a formal legal document he signed in September last year, the article said.

That same article note a previous post by Ong which shows a photo of himself at Queen Mary, with the caption ‘Proud to be born here’.

The article adds: “Within a convoluted sentence, Cr Ong indicated he preferred ‘‘home town’’, apparently quibbling with language he had previously used himself”.

The Otago Daily Times sought clarification from Ong, who did not explain what he meant.

(As an aside, my personal take on dealing with Ong is to call him, rather than email, but it is often difficult to nail him down on details).

That issue is illustrative in this video on this story (it is edited from 9minutes to 3 minutes but you get the point).

But if they were paying attention, Ong gave a very big clue the day before this story was even published.

Check out this post.

That’s it, ‘Today is my birthday’.

So what we know is that Cr Benedict Ong, who says he was born in Dunedin, also says his birthday is June 1 (this happens to my eldest son’s birthday, a fellow Gemini if you are that way inclined).

Ong told me he was 42 during the election campaign, ‘Ong, 42, introduced himself and told me he was running for council and the mayoralty and wanted to rent a room’.

So that gives me a birth date of June 1, 1983, and when coupled with name of Benedict Alvin Ong that is all I needed.

On June 2, I applied for Ong’s birth certificate, as an aside you can online order the certificate for a person born within the last 100 years.

I boldly ticked the box marked ‘This birth occurred in New Zealand’ and put the details in about Ong, paying the $33 for a standard birth certificate.

I also boldy marked the optional ‘Place of birth’ box with Dunedin. Take that birthers!

And then I waited.

On Friday an envelope arrived from Internal Affairs.

Inside was a copy of the birth certificate of Benedict Alvin Ong, which confirmed his birthday as June 1, 1983, and his birthplace as . . .

Dunedin.

Check it out.

The certificate also gave the name of his parents, but that doesn’t need to be published.

He could have just produced this certificate or his passport to quieten some of his doubters, but maybe he just loves the noise.

I have never encountered a politician quite like him, since he was sworn in on October 31 he has generated the following stories on Stuff.

Councillor behind leaks set to be discussed behind closed doors

‘It was bizarre’: Tape face councillor escorted from council building

‘I am a man of many words’: Councillor says he will keep tape over his mouth

Dunedin’s stadium hotel secret is out, thanks to a councillor’s reply-all email chain

Six minutes after receiving confidential email, under-fire councillor leaks it to media

WATCH: Councillor reads from ‘The Trial’ before being censured

‘Revoked’ controversial councillor loses more privileges, immediately leaks email

CCTV shows man at councillor’s home where security cameras pulled down

First-term councillor clocks up (another) Code of Conduct complaint

That’s quite a list.

The sort of stories above inevitably bring people to ask me ‘why do the media give him coverage’.

The anwer is easy.

It is news.

It is news if a councillor puts tape on his face, gets Code of Conduct complaints, leaks confidential information that may/or may not have cost the city tens of millions of dollars?

Yes, and so on, and so on.

But is this coverage good for the council/city?

No, no it is not.

But I can now state catagorically to all the birther theorists on Facebook that Ong was born in Dunedin,

For the last word I would like to draw your attention to a comment Ong made during our first phone interview.

Ong said he was proudly born in Dunedin, a city he had returned to over the years.

“I could choose to be in many places around the world.

“For me, it is very simple, I like it here.”

And if he wasn’t elected?

“That never occurred to me.”

If you want something to do, head to my mate’s Jared coffee shop on Sunday for this:

This record isn’t out yet (July 3) but I’m looking forward to DUN Records releasing 4EPs by Sivle Talk, Sogg, U-No Juno, and Vagina Dry .

The estate of Martin Phillipps donated to cover the upfront costs of mastering.

And Martin’s sisters Rachel & Sara have also given us his original Dunedin

Double vinyl to pass on to someone new. It has Martin’s name written on it by him, the white inner sleeve has some yellowing from age, the vinyl is perfect, it is a beautiful gift.

If you pre-order the 4EPs vinyl, you may also end up with this in your

package. 4EPs

BTW. I’m only doing this newsletter every so often, as I’m too busy with life/work/sport atm, but thanks for reading this far.

If you missed it, here is me making a total twat of myself.

Have a great weekend.

I remember the exact date when I stopped buying Cadbury chocolate.

It was February 16, 2017.

That was when the parent company, the pretentiously named Mondelēz International, announced it was closing the Dunedin factory. bringing to an end decades of production.

And next year I’ll celebrate ten years of not buying their products (I may have eaten some over the last nine years, BUT I HAVE MORALS).

Listen to what Dunedin used to produce: Pineapple Lumps, Jaffas, Buzz Bars, Pinky Bars, chocolate fish, and also choc boxes like Cadbury Roses.

Cadbury used to be one of the most trusted brands in the country, but the palm oil scandal and then the Dunedin closure impacted that brand.

Not that Mondelez would care its 2025 annual net income was reported at US$2.451 billion. It sounds impressive until you read that figure represents which a 46.8% decline from the previous year.

I remember that day of the closure, a handful of reporters were staking-out the entrances/exits to the factory, which were guarded by security guards.

As visibly upset workers left the building they handed us pieces of paper referring any question to corporate comms.

Their PR campaign centred around some of the popular Cadbur brands potentially being produced locally if buyers were found.

Surprise, surprise. That did not happen.

They also reminded us, repeatedly, that the food giant had pumped $80m into the factory in recent years, with the factory exporting the majority of product to Australia.

Just a year after that annoucement the factory shut its doors, despite the valiant efforts of local politicians, unions, and workers.

Production ended with the final bag of Pineapple Lumps rolling off the assembly line.

Prior to that closure I remember walking from my home to meet my wife at her work. On the way you could smell the warm grainy smell of Speight’s, the sweetness coming from the Cadbury factory before the slightly burnt coffee smell from Greg’s ove rthe student quarter.

Fast forward nine years and the factory has long since been pulled down. For the rest of the decade we will see a massive new building rise in its place, the site of the new Dunedin Hospital.

It struck me while walking through Woolworths just near that former factory how few signs we see of Cadbury in Dunedin, apart from their little bars (always) on sale in a shop near you.

As the old saying goes: fuck em.

But I am curious . . .

I flew into a mild rage earlier this week. I got a LGOIMA back from the Invercargill City Council concerning the funeral costs for Sir Tim Shadbolt’s funeral.

What followed was a complete breakdown of what council paid ($29,485.74), and a detailed explanation as to the reasons why.

No issue with this:

But what really pissed me off was at the end of the email, when the comms’ person added:

FYI, this response will be shared with all local media today as well.

Let us know if you need anything else.

And a few minutes later another email arrived (and presumably to those other media outlets, most of whom didn’t bother to request this information)

It kind of reminded me of the Cadbury PR approach, and I emailed them back to say it was poor form, and that in the case of Government agencies they often posted online after the journalist had it for a day or two.

Those same agencies are quick to add that if they don’t like a response we can always go to the Ombudsman (I have one complaint with the Ombudsman over 12 months and counting).

This week I got another knock back from council, this time the DCC.

Following a tip about some poor behaviour from an elected official I filed a LGOIMA request in late November.

Agencies have UP TO 20 days to respond, but they often treat it as a maximum. Not exactly in the spirit of the Act.

This one might have been forgotten about, but when I checked on its progress last week I got an apology before the full email arrived this week.

It wasn’t very helpful.

We have given serious consideration to your request for “all emails/complaints (received by council/senior management) concerning councillors, since the 2025 local body election.” Consideration has been given to public good and if the public good outweighs the ability of elected members to make express opinions about colleagues. We have determined that the public good does not outweigh the ability for the Councillors to express their view.

Having taken into account the above considerations I advise that pursuant section7(2)(c) of LGOIMA to protect information which is subject to an obligation of confidence and

section 7(f)(i) and (ii) of LGOIMA to maintain the effective conduct of public affairs through –

(i) The free and frank expression of opinions by or between or to member so officers or employees of any local authority in the course of their duty and

(ii) The protection of such members, officers, employees and persons from improper pressure or harassment.

Your request for a copy of complaints made by elected members is declined.

As we have declined to provide the information requested you are advised that you have the right to seek a review of this decision by the Office of the Ombudsman.

Sigh.

They could have redacted the names.

IN OTHER NEWS. AND COMPLETELY UNRELATED.

Late on Friday afternoon I got a tip about Cr Benedict Ong being escorted from a council building with tape over his mouth (that’s a good start, some might say).

Sometimes headlines write themselves.

‘It was bizarre’: Tape face councillor escorted from council building

And I thought Jarvis Cocker donating signed undies to a local museum was going to be my weirdest story of the day.

Here are a few others stories from the week if you have a spare five minutes.

Including this yarn where I get to help right a wrong,

Slippery slope: Welsh town still displaying world’s steepest street sign

And this was an interesting from a cop who knows this area better than anyone.

From flatmate drinks to mega-parties: How Flo-Week took over Castle St

I have three more stories coming out in the next few days, so keep an eye out.

One involves a politician and the other a precious metal. Maybe I’ve got that round the wrong way.

Dunedin has a few events on this week, if books are your thing head to the Edgar Centre, if rugby is your thing head to watch the undefeated Highlanders take on the Chiefs at Forsyth Barr Stadium, and if Chinese New Year is yout thing, head to Lan Yuan.

I plan to do all three.

Go the Highlanders.

And lastly, it is shaping-up to be a good weekend. Thank you fortune cookie.

It was the day they announced its Dunedin chocolate factory was closing dow

I remember the exact date when I stopped buying Cadbury chocolate.

It was the day they announced its Dunedin chocolate factory was closing down.

It was

The weather is not shit (usually), while the city gets more youthful as it swells by a fifth of its population during the great student migration.

You know the images. Parents struggling to navigate our one-way systems, our hilly streets before they head to Briscoes to buy items for their child (Pro tip: on the weekend it will be cheaper, there is more than likely a sale on).

They go to restaurants, cafes, stay in nice hotels and motels and even check out the odd real estate listing if the city puts on a good show.

They might even show them the sights of when they were a students. The Gardies (closed), The Bowling Green (closed), The Oriental (also closed), and wax lyrical about the ‘good old days’, as they sip a $7 flat white on a redeveloped George St.

But forget that fancy cafe/restaurant, or shopping trip to Kmart/Briscoes.

Top of your Dunedin list should be The Bacon Buttie Station, quite possibly the best dining experience you will have in this great city (apologies if you don’t eat pork/bacon . . . this might not be the newsletter for you).

While we don’t eat pork at home (no idea either), we love getting a bacon buttie from the Otago Farmers Market, or better yet the cafe.

My most recent visit was late last year. My boys and I had visited Tunnel Beach at low tide (that climb at the end will make you desire calories).

Nothing really prepares you for the menu at the Bacon Buttie Station, which opened its doors in a former motorcycle shop in 2013.

Sure, the clue is in the name, but holy shit!

100% of the meat products on the menu is pork/bacon products. 100%, as people like to say.

Listen to the names of some of the kai: Rise & Swine, Big Boy, Paullie, Wrapped Piggy, Big Dog, Miss Peggy, Porkabello and Porkeeze.

There is even a vegetarian option, the Pig-Less, which helpfully has ‘no meat’ written in brackets.

On my most recent visits I had two bacon butties. They sell one for $8.50, but two are $15. THEY ARE INCENTIVISING YOU TO BUY TWO. I SAVED MONEY.

I should interrupt to announce that if you don’t know what a bacon buttie is, it is essentially a bacon sandwich with onions, relish, mustard and tomato sauce.

Last month I had a chat with owner Tia Winikerei, who put the secret to the cafe’s success as simply this: “What we deliver is good hospitality”.

While hospitality might get customers to return, it was the menu which gets them to come to a cafe slightly off the beaten track.

Nestled in the heart of the city’s industrial area, it offers a view, of sorts, of the back of one on the most famous buildings in the country: the Dunedin Railway Station.

It was near there, at the previously mentioned Otago Farmers Market, where Winikerei encouraged, she says “pestered”, her step-dad Mike Cornelissen to set-up a stall back in 2003.

“We pulled-up in our ute and a couple of gas burners, some pots and a table.”

They retailed bacon butties, Euro dogs and other small meat products, and they were soon, um, bringing home the bacon.

“That first day was amazing, it blew our minds how busy it was.”

A truck had long since replaced the ute, but the queues for a bacon buttie had remained.

He later closed the butcher shop to customers, with Cornelissen supplying food products to the Bacon Buttie food truck, which he still fronts with support from Winikerei’s children, as well as supplying a couple of hundred kilograms of pork products to the Bacon Buttie Station.

“We’ve worked so hard to get it where it is.”

Cornelissen, who has the official title of ‘Bacon Buttie Man’, is a butcher as his father was before him. The family link to the butchery trade goes back more than half a century.

Winikerei wasn’t aware of another cafe/diner/restaurant dealing almost exclusively with pork, and was pretty confident it featured the most pork products on a menu in the country.

But did she ever get sick of the smell of bacon?

No, is the short anwer.

She believed that for many customers the cafe had a nicer feel than a fast food store, but not as overwhelming as an upmarket cafe.

But they could also give the ‘fast food’ places a run for their money.

“We serve things fast, really fast.”

Winikerei said she could make a bacon buttie in 30 seconds, that got even faster for people like myself who ordered two, or more.

And she had to know the timing for things like this, as when I spoke to her she was preparing to arrive at work early to cook 90 bacon butties for a work shout.

While bacon butties had remained the most popular item, her personal favourite was a roast pork sandwich on brown bread with a hash brown, cheese and chilli sauce.

Interestingly tradies from the neary industrial area weren’t the biggest customers of the cafe, which was in a former motorcycle store.

Weekends were busy with hungover students, families and those who had just finished Saturday sport (the cafe sponsors player of the day certificates for miniball).

Wait, hungover students?

“Dusty as,” Winikerei says.

So just what does a dusty student eat?

A Rise & Swine burger ( Bacon, egg, hash brown, cheese & hollandaise in a toasted bun) with loaded fries and a Powerade.

Perfect.

I was sad to hear about the recent death of Keith Dickson, a real Dunedin maverick

I wrote a few stories about his exploits over the year, including his near naked skate on a frozen Otago lake, and his unusual approach to Stage 4 cancer

Keith always had multiple projects on the go, a most recent one was a remote controlled hedge trimmer, which terrified the shit out of me.

Vale Keith.

The hot topic in Dunedin is still the Town Belt Trial, I wrote this piece last week.

Yellow bar leaners and squiggly lines: Is street closure a reimagining or ‘ridiculous embarrassment’

As someone who lives in the area (my wife submitted a detail submission to council on the Town Belt), I am not a fan.

But I’m interested in what you think.

I’ve also been disturbed on my morning commute.

It is not my children arguing in the car, or my wife helpfully recommending a faster lane, but it is the back of a bus which has caught my eye.

In particular it is this ad.

No disrespect to the young woman in the ad, but I feel the messaging is off.

What do you think? Yes, it is another poll, sue me.

If you haven’t found anything worth watching on Netflix in recent times, here is a movie that looks worth catching when it comes out in theatres.

This Māori Gothic horror, features several exterior scenes from Dunedin which doubles as 1859 North Yorkshire, England.

Looks amazing (and scary as hell)

If anyone is after some reading recommendations, I’ve just finished

1985 by Dominic Hoey, who looks like he is setting his next book in Port Chalmers of all places

The Axeman’s Carnival, by Catherine Chidgey.

I usually read non-fiction, but I’m glad I put both of these on my summer reading list.

Absolutely recommend this Dunedin band U-No Juno.

Have a listen to this, and play it LOUD.

Enjoy your long weekend.

I remember having a beer with a mate on the roof of a Dunedin flat as we contemplated life after university.

It was on that roof when we decided to head to Spain (I had been reading a lot of Ernest Hemmingway at the time).

I had never travelled overseas before, did not have a password, and was broke.

After a few months I had saved $10k, and we headed to Madrid after stopovers in Sydney and Bangkok.

I’ve travelled to just shy of 50 places, but like most people that travel has slowed down since having children.

I backpacked at a time when mobile phones weren’t a thing, instead you had a guidebook, a phrasebook and a map.

It wasn’t better, it was just different. But it did allow for both pleasant and unpleasant surprises, sometimes you really experience life when you are lost in a foreign country.

Anyway,

Favourite places I’ve been in random order:

India

Egypt

Portugal

Italy

Denmark

Thailand

I’d return to any of these in a heartbeat, but I imagine travelling in some of these places has changed immensely.

On the subject of travelling, I’d heard about some young people, who like myself had left New Zealand to go backpacking overseas. The difference is that they received taxpayer funded support through what appears to be a loophole.

My source for this detailed how he used a loophole to obtain student allowance to fund his travels.

“It is slowly becoming a known exploit,” the man, who I’ve agreed not to name, told me late last year.

While he was not eligible for student allowance when he studied at university due to his parents’ income, eligibility changes once you turn 24.

After hearing how a family member enrolled in a polytechnic course to fund their overseas travels, he decided to follow suit.

He enrolled in an online polytechnic course at the Southern Institute of Technology (SIT) in a subject matter which interested him.

That course had no lectures or tutorials, “nothing apart from assignments every couple of weeks . . . not exactly a high intensity course”.

I’m not naming that course, because it may be an identify for that source.

Turning 24 did not mean he became eligible for Student Allowance, but it was based on an applicant’s income, and that of their partner.

That meant eligible students could receive up to $421 a week to study online courses, which require a commitment of as little as several hours a week, while effectively funding their travel.

When his family member initially told him about their taxpayer funded OE, “I thought there was no way that is a real thing”.

“But I looked into it and it was real.”

Unlike his family member, he decided to remain in New Zealand, travelling around in a van.

Part of those travels took him to a music festival last New Year’s Eve, where he met another person who said they used the same loophole to travel around South America for a year.

“It is becoming a more widely accepted mode of travel, people are cottoning on.

“If I felt that at any point it was clandestine or wrong in any way, I wouldn’t have done it.”

While there were some more intense weeks of study “there were definitely some weeks I had nothing at all”.

He estimated the course took around three hours a week, and it helped fund four months of travel, while his family member had travelled for twice as long.

He alleged his family member was also receiving a Winter Energy Payment, while backpacking through the warm climes of North Africa.

He was surprised the loophole hadn’t been closed, given how many people seemed to know about it.

“I don’t feel particularly bad about exploiting it.”

The man said a person could travel very well in some countries on that amount he received, “it is the best way of earning income while travelling there is”.

“It’s ridiculous how much money you get for how little work you do.”

But just how many people were exploiting this apparent loophole?

Well, that is harder to prove.

Amanda Whitaker, of SIT, said: “We are not aware of the practice of backpackers’ travel being funded by our online programmes”.

She noted that this year the polytechnic had returned to enrolment numbers of previous years in both online and on-campus programmes, “which we consider is due to the return of our Zero Fees Scheme for all domestic students”.

So I approached the Ministry of Social Development asking for the number of students receiving student allowance while studying overseas.

That was referred to an Official Information Act (OIA) request.

That OIA request was released in December, and shows that 2020 the number of students receiving Student Allowance was 288, and reduced to just 165 the following year when the global pandemic impacted travel.

Since 2021 there had been noticeable increases each year, in 2023 there were 411, and 552 for the year ending October 31.

A spokesperson for Minister of Vocational Education and Skills, Penny Simmons, a former chief executive of the Southern Institute of Technology, referred comment to Dr Shane Reti, the Minister for Universities, who didn’t have anything else to add to comments I had earlier received by the Ministry of Social Development (MSD).

Those comments from MSD centralised services general manager Paula Rātahi O’Neill said that in order to be eligible for Student Allowance, students needed to be studying a programme that is recognised by the Tertiary Education Commission (TEC).

Students may be able to access student allowance while overseas if their study was part of a programme in New Zealand approved by TEC – and recognised by NZQA or Universities NZ.

When someone applies for student support for studying overseas, there are also additional checks in place to ensure the application is valid, Rātahi O’Neill said.

All students studying overseas and applying for student allowance would also need to complete an overseas study application form with study details confirmed by their New Zealand education provider.

Data matching agreement allowed New Zealand Customs Service to share information with MSD about clients who had left and/or returned to the country while receiving assistance from MSD, including student allowance.

Where relevant, StudyLink would also check the student meets the student allowance and Student Loan eligibility criteria for being overseas. If they don’t, their payments may be stopped and may result in an overpayment debt.

Green MP Francisco Hernandez said “we have real concerns about how the polytech sector is being run-down, with in-person learning deprioritised in favour of distance-learning courses”.

Not only were there real questions about the academic rigour of some of the distance-learning programmers, “but they also go against the spirit of what vocational education was set up for - which is in-person, practical learning that serves the needs of the students and their communities”.

Let me know what you think.

No doubt you’ve seen this video of Newstalk ZB frontman Mike Hosking waxing lyrical about Dunedin,

https://www.facebook.com/reel/1196600119283150

You can’t beat Dunedin on a good day, or something.

I was interested to read that the cruise ship, The World, will be in Dunedin for three days (Friday to Sunday).

That vessel, which will berth at the Beach Street Terminal, contains 165 custom designed private residences aboard.

According to its website: ‘Each year, a very limited number of private Residences priced from USD$2.5 million to USD$15 million become available for resale’.

‘Sail on to Australia’s most dynamic cities before crossing the Tasman Sea to the wild and wonderful landscapes of New Zealand.

‘Port Chalmers is your last stop before it’s time for the next chapter – a semi-circumnavigation expedition of Antarctica, revealing the rarely seen wonders of this frozen tundra.’

Sounds good, now where did I leave that USD$2.5 million?

If you want some weekend reading, this is a report on Enterprise Dunedin.

It is from my journalism class in April 2005, and features two dozen bright-eyed students (of whom only one remains in the industry two decades later . . .), as well as two special guests.

One of them is Pulitzer Prize winning New Zealand-born journalist, Peter Arnett, who died last month aged 91.

The other is Sir Tim Shadbolt, who died last week aged 78.

The pair were talking to our class around Anzac Day, with poppies visible on their blazers. I remember listening in awe as Arnett talked about his journey from the Southland Times to the battlefields of Vietnam.

It was during that war where he sourced a quote from an unnamed U.S major saying: “It became necessary to destroy the town to save it”.

A very American quote.

Tim also shared some war stories, his father was a pilot who died during a training exercise for the Korean War in 1952.

Arnett also discussed some of the photographers he worked with in Vietnam, with one of those photographers the subject of some revisionist history courtesy of an interesting Netflix doco,

If you haven’t seen this, I recommend it.

Anyway, I recall Arnett being a magnetic personality who loved to yarn. It is a shame that a planned Kiwi doco on him never got off the ground, although I understand some interviews were recorded.

New York Times journalist and fellow Pulitzer Prize winner David Halberstam said Arnett was “The best reporter of the (Vietnam) war”.

Arnett went onto to cover major international conflicts, began working at the fledgling CNN, interviewed Saddam Hussein, Fidel Castro and Osama Bin Laden

Arnett (Ngāi Tahu) was born and Riverton and raised in Bluff, he is as Southland as cheese rolls.

Shadbolt famously said he didn’t care where as long as he was mayor, but he became a legendary mayor of Invercargill, easily the best known mayor in New Zealand.

Like Arnett, Shadbolt had a magnetic personality and could talk the tits off a bull, as we say down south. He wasn’t all smiles and photo ops, I crossed him a couple of time.

But more on that later, first some context.

In 2004 my ten girlfriend (we married a few years later) and I had finished our travels overseas and were working in Auckland. We had good jobs. I was working as an immigration consultant for a former minister who has since died (and we can add the word ‘disgraced in there as well).

Basically, I got visas and residencies for rich people wanting to come here. It wasn’t exactly fulfilling work. My partner and I were looking at houses to buy as we had some money and no debt (as an aside I had overpaid my student loan by 50cents and then demanded my refund from the IRD. Yes. I am that petty).

We decided to roll the dice.

Rather than be in debt for four decades working for jobs we didn’t like, we decided to head south. And I mean really head south. Goodbye Pork Pie south.

We headed to Invercargill (the place where I spent my youth) and I enrolled in the local journalism course, which back then had the grand title of the Peter Arnett School of Journalism.

We also bought a house for a tenth of the price of one we were looking at in Auckland. $65k.

Yes. $65,000, and the best financial decision I’ve ever made.

Back to Tim.

Invercargill was buzzing. 2005 was arguably the height of the Shadbolt era which would include the premier of a movie he featured in: The World’s Fastest Indian.

Meanwhile, numbers at the Southern Institute of Technology were booming, thousands of young people drawn to the city by zero fees and cheap rent.

Everyone had heard of Shadbolt, he was the most famous mayor in the country, and even bigger than that, a celebrity.

That was helped by him starring in the first series of Dancing with the Stars, here are some out takes if you are interested.

The series was massive, and despite Shadbolt having feet of concrete he kept on being voted to the next round (New Zealander love a person willing to embarrass themselves).

My first ever journalism job was a work experience gig for the Southland Times and I had to interview Shadbolt and his dancing partner.

I was nervous as hell. But when it came to delivering memorable quotes, Shadbolt was an absolute master.

Any stories written about him were certified gold, the public couldn’t get enough.

A year later and I had my first job, a gig at the local community newspaper, which featured more ads than editorial content.

And I had to fill-up that paper, which sometimes had 72 pages. That’s right 72 pages.

Shadbolt had a regular column, but also regularly featured in the news’ pages which included opening some buildings, talking to schools, yarning with rest home residents.

I think that was his attraction. Some politicians get into politics but don’t seem to like - or resonate - with people. Shadbolt could yarn with anyone; and did.

Ideas that would seen crazy coming from your average councillor sounded different being uttered by Shadbolt. A vineyard in Bluff? Sure. Auckland Island pig parts used to combat diabetes? Yep. A roof over Esk St? Why not. A monorail to Queenstown? Sign me fucking up.

But behind the grinning mayor was a sometime ruthless politician who easily dealt with opponents during his long tenure. He knew standing orders inside and out.

For journalists, if he ever claimed you misquoted him, you better produce a notebook, transcript or a recording.

As a public figure it seemed he was made of Teflon; everything slid off him.

Even a high profile car crash in 2006 led to an outpouring of support for the mayor. I remember from his hospital bed he started talking about the dangers of distraction, completely owning the narrative.

I fell for it, we all did.

In 2008, I had moved to Dunedin, but was asked to write a feature on him as he had a new book out A Mayor of Two Cities.

That book detailed how he was lured south in 1993 to contest the mayoralty after the death of Eve Poole, claiming the mayoral chains.

A year later he ran for New Zealand First in the Selwyn by-election, but that was met with disapproval down south and he was defeated in the 1995 mayoral race.

But he stuck around, having another crack at the Invercargill job in 1998, and winning.

In that interview he told me that he had been asked to stand for mayor in other parts of the country, including the proposed Auckland super-city.

But Invercargill was his home.

“I would stay in the South. It is because the city gave me a chance to redeem myself,” he said.

Quite.

A masterful politician, Shadbolt was much smarter than the bullshit and jellybean appearances on shows such as 7Days.

My last conversation with him was during Covid, I rang to get his reaction to something. This was my Tweet.

Apr 29, 2020

Tim Shadbolt just told me about driving into Oreti Beach in an old Ford Fairmont and pulling a crayfish from a glovebox. I don’t even know what question I asked.

I’ll be heading down to cover his funeral today.

It was my first week back this week, and the fire at the vacant Roslyn Scout Hall made for an interesting start.

I’d just like to mention the bravery of this firefighter, who climbed the ladder to battle the blaze from above.

I’m not a huge fan of vlogging content (ask me about a junket to Germany with a bunch of prima donnas at some point), but apart from a screenshot stolen from Dunedin, Florida, this is great.

If you are looking for something a bit different to do this weekend, head to Pearl Diver to watch former Dunedin-based musician, Millie Lovelock on Saturday.

Have a great week.

Earlier this month the ODT ran a story which got me interested. It was about a Dunedin musician behind ‘the first completely synthetic, AI-generated, professionally distributed New Zealand album’, to quote the story.

You can read that story here.

The musician in question was Dylan Lee, and the album was produced by a ‘synthetic’ artist called Tom Shuremann.

This is what he told the paper”

It was interesting reading the feedback, with almost everyone against the concept and some questioning why the paper interviewed him in the first place.

But in the name of journalism I gave the album a listen so you don’t have to.

The blurb on Spotify says:

For the most part it sounds very jazzy and slick. The scary part is that if you heard it on the radio you would have absolutely no idea it was AI created.

While most tracks sounded like a modern crooner, think Bublé et al.

I was kind of expecting to hear autotune, but there was nothing like that.

The standout track (the only one I liked) is the R&B sounding Christmas (All I Want), with Shuremann sounding like a completely different creation.

I guess that is because Shuremann is a completely different creation.

‘All I want for Christmas is you, wrapped in whispers, bathed in blue.

‘No silver bells, no grand parade, just your sweet smile and candle shade,’ Shuremann, um, sings.

If this is the future, I fucking hate it.

If we thought Milli Vanilli was bad in the 1980s, this is waaaaaay worse, it has rendered music into a soulless content driven by algorithms.

The whole point of music is connection, this just feels like an ad for a product nobody asked for.

And I’m also glad Shuremann doesn’t do interviews. I’d tell him to do-up a few more shirt buttons as he looks like a less interesting version of a coked-up Tony Montana.

On the subject of Christmas songs, I’ve compiled a family playlist on Spotify since my boys were young, adding just a few songs in recent years.

There are only a couple of rules.

No Snoopy’s Christmas, or Wonderful Christmastime.

Sir Paul makes around $500k from the song each year, so I’m sure he will cope.

While Snoopy’s Christmas is a stupid novelty song. There, I’ve said it.

Of course the greatest Christmas song is Fairytale of New York (1988).
I know it is not PC but these lyrics are incredible:

You're a bum, you're a punk, you're an old slut on junk
Lying there almost dead on a drip in that bed
You scumbag, you maggot, you cheap, lousy faggot
Happy Christmas, your arse, I pray God it's our last.

It gets better.

"I could have been someone", well, so could anyone
You took my dreams from me when I first found you
I kept them with me, babe, I put them with my own
Can't make it all alone, I've built my dreams around you

I read recently that Shane MacGowan of The Pogues had never visited New York before writing this song. It centres around a downtrodden couple who had tried their luck in the Big Apple, but had bitten more than they could chew.

I love everything about this song, but how cool is the B&W video, featuring a bottle of booze and cigarette smoke billowing from ashtrays.

But I’ve never noticed the famous actor at the start of the video. A very young looking Matt Dillon plays a policeman arresting MacGowan.

Dillon had appeared in a couple of other music videos, Madonna and Dinosaur Jr.

The latter of those artists once included Lou Barlow, who was kicked out of the indie group in 1989. He went onto from Sebadoh, a frequent visitor to New Zealand over the years and a fan of many Flying Nun bands.

Anyway, Barlow has performed as a solo artists for a numbers and is the singer/songwriter behind arguably the best Christmas song you’ve never heard of. It is simply called ‘Mary’.

Check these lyrics out:

Mary, Mary under veil of stars
You changed the world, you broke my heart
Thank you Mary, you saved me too
They'd stone us both if they ever knew

Mary kissed me, we lost control
The oldest story never told
Crazy Mary, forever divine
They'll never know the baby's mine

I’m a sucker for some of the classic Christmas songs by the likes of Sinatra (Yes, even Baby it’s Cold Outside), Eartha Kitt and Bing Crosby, but only if the latter includes the duet with David Bowie singing Peace on Earth/Little Drummer Boy.

Rocking Around the Christmas Tree, by Brenda Lee is another classic, hard to believe she was just 13 when she recorded it, just how much rocking around the Xmas tree did she do?

She recorded the song in 1958, but it didn’t chart until two years later and only hit #1 in the U.S in 2023 - 65 years after its release.

My family loves the Elvis cover of Blue Christmas, which captures the loneliness of Christmas, but particularly the ‘woo-we-woo’ backing vocals of The Jordanaires.

In my opinion most of the great Christmas songs were delivered between the late 1960s and late 1980s.

Sleigh Ride by The Ronettes, Father Christmas by The Kinks, Feliz Navidad by Jose Feliciano, Little Saint Nick by the Beach Boys, Someday at Christmas Stevie Wonder, Santa Claus Go Straight to the Ghetto by James Brown.

Santa Claus, go straight to the ghetto
Never thought I'd realize
I'd be singing a song with water in my eyes
Santa Claus, go straight to the ghetto
Don't leave nothing for me
I've had my chance, you see?
Santa Claus, go straight to the ghetto
Santa Claus, the soul brother need you so
Santa Clause, tell 'em James Brown sent you

Tell em James.

And if you ever wanted to listen to Feliz Navidad mixed with Nirvana’s grunge classic, Smells like Teen Spirit, here you go

@jimlapbap_music#feliznavidad #smellsliketeenspirit #josefeliciano #nirvana #mashup #christmas #christmasmusic #ChristmasSong #ChristmasSongs #MusicTheory #MusicTheoryTikTok

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Special mention for Happy Xmas (War is Over), and particularly the Harlem Community Choir, which largely overshadows the sound of all things Yoko.

Having been a child in the 1980s, and probably the last time I listened to commercial radio, these tracks are the ones that I’ve heard the most. That is why I hate Snoopy’s Christmas, but yet I still love Last Christmas

George Michael wrote, sung and played every single instrument on the track. He also rocked a cool Princess Diane haircut for the video.

So next time you are trying to duck the song for Whamageddon, show some respect: embrace it.

Ignore the colonial snobbery of Do they Know It’s Christmas, it is still a great tune.

Shame Paul McCartney and David Bowie didn’t record on the main track, but I love how Boy George caught a Concorde flight to record their part.

Another guilty pleasure is Run DMC, Christmas in Hollis, where Jam Master Jay samples Christmas classics like Frosty the Snowman, Jingle Bells and Joy to the World.

I also love one artist’s Christmas take, despite him being largely cancelled, Kanye West’s Christmas in Harlem.

My only question is, "Where my presents?"
she said, "Shhh, " she got a gift for me that ain't for the kids to see
well, I like the way you think, mami
now pour some more eggnog in you drink, mami
got a surprise for you that ain't on your Christmas list-es
gave her the hot chocolate, she said "It's D-ricious"

D-ricious, indeed.

My most recent discovery was the long-forgotten song by Outkast, Player’s Ball, which was their first ever release.

On the local front there can be only one, Billy T’s Māori Christmas

This is a thing of beauty.

Of course it wouldn’t be Christmas without one of the greatest ever.

No AI was used in this.

Merry Christmas and happy earworm. If you want to listen to my playlist, here you go.

Please let me know about your favourite Christmas song, if you dare.

You tend to reflect on your life (i.e become a curmudgeon) whenever you have a significant birthday, and these are some of mine:

• Why doesn’t anybody say ‘Merry Christmas’ anymore?

• Where do my pens actually go?

• Should glass recycling increase to weekly collection during summer holidays (if you know, you know)

• Why do I get personally offended when I spot cruise ship passengers waiting for a bus HOURS before their ship departs?

• Why when you take your car to some businesses do they remove some of your window stickers?

• I miss those sugary biscuits inside Sampler boxes, why did they cull those but retain those pink wafer abominations?

• Does Stranger Things just feel like a giant episode of Scooby Doo, but with worse acting? YOINKS!

• In all the times I have been to Tunnel Beach, why was the most recent visit the first time I had been there at low tide? GAME CHANGER: caves, large expansive beach, and some frisky sea lions. Kudos to council and DOC for the development.

• School holidays are too long. My partner and I have ten weeks of holidays combined. A primary school pupil gets 12. Makes planning difficult when you don’t have family living in the same city.

• On the subject of schools, if a beautifully covered school book comes back empty should I be pleased I can reuse it, or be concerned it wasn’t used?

• Newly elected councillors need to learn the election is over: start campaigning in 2028.

• If you still haven’t got a Xmas tree, go to Moana House and get one. It hasn’t been an easy time for their annual fundraiser as High St is getting resurfaced.

  I will judge you if you have a fake tree.

• Puff Daddy was deffo behind the death of Tupac and Biggie (Yes, I watched the documentary). But why was he so popular? He spoils every track he is on.

• My family of four goes through 12 litres of milk a week. My wife barely drinks it, I have it in a morning coffee as well as my cereal. Solve this mystery and save me thousands of dollars a year.

It was sad to hear of the death of Bailter Space drummer Brent McLachlan.

I’ve been relistening to a lot of Bailter Space in recent months, particularly Robot World.

But because no-one asked, here is my list of ten great Bailter Space songs.

1. Begin

2. Argonaut

3. Splat

4. Fish Eye

5. EIP

6. Galaxy

7. Things That We Found

8. Aim

9. Glass

10. X

The latter is one of my favourite songs. I remember hearing it on a compilation and immediately buying the CD.

I saw Bailter Space several times. At one Orientation gig they were so loud I started at the front of the stage and ended-up near the back.

I could still hear that noise ringing in my ears the next days.

Appalling events in Bondi Beach overnight. Today I spoke to a Dunedin woman, who was on the beach when the shooting happened.

The woman and her 18-year-old daughter were visiting Sydney to attend Friday’s Lady Gaga concert.

As they were staying with relatives, they decided to head to Bondi early on Sunday afternoon.

“We were having a lovely day.”

She told me how she heard the sound of fireworks, then “people started screaming and running”.

“I didn’t know what was going on, we started running.”

It was during that bedlam she heard people yell that there was an ‘active shooter’.

“I feel quite traumatised . . . I have been crying all night.”

Her daughter, who had her earpods in as the shooting unfolded, was left deeply upset.

The pair had “just come back from getting a water”, from Bondi Pavillion, near where the father and son shooters began opening fire.

“While we weren’t caught-up in the chaos . . . that was too close to call.”

These horrific events make ripples across entire communities for years, from those grieving loved ones, to those preaching tolerance/intolerance.

Here are some words from Mustafa Boztas, a survivor of the Christchurch terror attack, who is based in Dunedin.

https://www.facebook.com/stories/101731545058136/UzpfSVNDOjg2MDM1MDI3Njc5MzYzMw==/?view_single=1

“My thoughts remain with the victims, their families, and everyone affected by this tragedy.

“No one should ever have to live through such tragedies.”

For some reason unbeknownst to even myself, I like to keep my email inbox under 500 emails.

I remember seeing a screenshot from a colleague showing they had thousands of UNOPENED emails in their inbox.

I still haven’t got over that deeply triggering event.

Like many of you I get dozens and dozens of emails a day, it seems to have stepped-up recently with clearly A.I written press releases.

I normally read the first few and if I get a sense it is dull, I hit delete.

I went checking through the ones I deleted the other day. Here is a random taste so you get an idea:

The Commission is continuing to consider NZBA’s application for full authorisation and the decision on interim authorisation in this case should not be taken to indicate that the Commission will or will not grant the full requested authorisation.

Um, okay.

And:

This is not a reinvention. The refresh represents a continuation of what Rātā has always stood for: warm hospitality and a deep respect for the land, people and culture of Aotearoa. The updated space and menu express that spirit with greater clarity and ease.

Sure.

Anyway, I’m disciplined with my 500, and every so often when the inbox hovers in the late 400s I go through them, assign them to folders with catchy names such as ‘court lists’, ‘parole’, ‘council’, ‘contacts’ etc etc. Riveting stuff. But after a recent I.T upgrade which I won’t bore you with, I woke up to find my inbox had 2500 emails.

2500 EMAILS.

Rather than shame myself with another call to I.T, I spent an hour deleting the buggers.

But it happened again this week.

3000 EMAILS!

I know there must be a shortcut, but I felt duty-bound, COMPELLED even, to delete them one by one.

Every so often I stopped on the odd tip that was caught up among the junk.

I found one from almost a decade ago, which referenced a story I had written.

As an aside, in my 20 years as a reporter there are certain issues which will get people contacting you: anything Māori, Covid/vaccines and parking infringements to name just a few.

Anyway, I found this 2016 tip from a person who read this.

William Larnach and the unclaimed Dunedin land.

Essentially I had spotted a public notice in the ODT about some unclaimed land, with Public Trust stating they had carried out some work and believed him to be dead

As my teen would say: “No shit, Sherlock”.

I love stories like this.

That very story led to a person emailing me telling me about a ye olde Dunedite, who had something similar.

That person was John Hyde Harris.

Harris is one of those people you probably hated at school, when you hear that he became a mayor, a judge, first-class cricketer and property magnate.

But like all good tales, there is a touch of darkness, with Hyde Harris becoming a bankrupt and prisoner.

He was also one of the last owners of a curious piece of land.

A piece of land, I’ll wager, that you have driven past hundreds of times in Dunedin.

You see when John Hyde Harris died, a year after he was released from prison no less, he left behind an estate of just £100.

He was 59 when he died in Dunedin on July 24, 1886. If you are interested he is buried in the city’s Northern Cemetery, not far from the towering Larnach’s Tomb.

Harris’ demise contrasted sharply to his initial status in the city.

When he left England for New Zealand in 1850, he became only the second lawyer here.

A year later he married Annie Cargill, the daughter of Captain William Cargill, one of the city’s most prominent citizens.

Old mate Hyde Harris seemed to have it all before him.

It began a meteoric rise in political and business circles for Harris, who also served as the local judge. In 1867 he became the second mayor of Dunedin and that same year was also appointed to Solicitor-General.

He speculated in land, but lost £28,000 with a failed development near Lake Waihola,

With his political career in tatters and his finances gone to crap, Harris was sent to jail over his debts in 1885.

What was left in his estate was a small plot of land on Frederick St.

Years earlier, Harris had gifted another parcel on the corner of Great King St and Frederick St, which became the site of the original Knox Church.

Decades of Otago students would remember that site as the former Bowling Green Tavern, affectionately known as The Bowler, which is now used as an office space by the University of Otago.

But Harris was still listed as the last registered owner of a small narrow strip of land near that building.

That matter came to a head in January 1999, when the University of Otago bought a nearby property for a future development.

That strip was deemed to be “abandoned land” administered by the Dunedin City Council. While the university was granted a right of way, it was unable to build a structure on it until the ownership was settled.

That was originally anticipated to take 12 months, but an Official Information Act request to the University of Otago showed the process took a lot longer.

A year after that initial inquiry, the university indicated it wanted “to pursue the acquisition of the strip of land in Frederick Street that is understood to be abandoned land and is held in the name of John Hyde Harris”.

A follow-up letter indicated that the land in question “forms a critical element of a project currently being undertaken by the university, there is some urgency now knowing whether or not the land can be purchased”.

The matter dragged on and, in 2007, the university indicated it was proceeding with the construction of the nearby Hunter Centre, which opened in 2008.

Around this time, a property services staff member wrote: “It appears from the documentation that the tender documents point to the university being the only or the successful tenderer.”

Another document stated that the right of way in question is “abandoned land” administered by the council.

That right of way was used by some building owners for access and, while some of the car parking has been marked as private parking with tow away warnings, “the university solicitor does not think that this is enforceable”.

While some of the documents have dollar amounts redacted, one noted that if the tender was successful then the university would initially pay a 10% deposit and an amount of $3375 later paid.

A 2023 rating valuation showed that the 0.0503ha property once owned by John Hyde Harris, now has a capital value of $71k.

This story doesn’t really have an ending. Sometimes we just end up as a forgotten email in an overflowing inbox of life.

If anyone is looking for a book recommendation, I can’t recommend this highly enough.

Island of the Lost (2007) by Joan Druett, is a fantastic read of something which unfolded close to home.

There is a small passage in the book which describes the shipwrecked sailors using a plant, similar to wild celery, which in addition to helping them ward of scurvy, made their teeth brilliantly white.

This plant, colloquially known as Macquarie Island cabbage, is also known by its scientific name, Stilbocarpa polaris, and is native to the Subantarctic islands.

I’m sensing a million dollar idea for the bleached teeth set. Who is in?

I’m something of a financial guru on the basis of one stock on my Sharesies account doing well . . .

Yesterday I went to an announcement by Tourism Minister Louise Upston near the 462m Chain Hills Tunnel, which still off limits until its soft opening in a few weeks’ time.

Upston, who plans to ride the trail once opened, announced the Government was contributing $2m into the next two stages of the project, which would extend the trail to the next tunnel, the larger Caversham Tunnel, which is 865m.

That was expected to be completed by the middle of 2027, before attention turned to the final two stages, which would span the 15kms between Mosgiel and Dunedin.

I went through it a couple of years ago, it is incredible. Hard to believe that the future trail would largely be flat, given how hilly it is for motorists. Surely it makes sense to fast track, so to speak, work at the Caversham Tunnel so it can open even quicker.

What are your thoughts?

One of the unintentionally funny things which happened was the arrival of the Minister. I thought it was a Crown limo arriving but it was Cr Benedict Ong in a late model BMW. The Minister, in a Jaguar, arrived just behind him.

Speaking of Cr Ong, who has the placard with the unintentional cannabis reference ‘B.Ong’ on the council table, has been dominating local Facebook pages, similar to fellow councillor Cr Lee Vandervis.

I think some of the language directed at the new mayor has been appalling, and I hope this term is more about what is best for the city, rather than pointless politicking and litigious threats from thin-skinned representatives.

News bites

Couple of small local stories you may have missed.

Tunnel Beach reopened on Friday, having been closed since October 2024, after a heavy weather event caused multiple large slips which covered the track and made several sections unstable.

Here is an OIA story I got regarding that closure.

Good to see that the Ministry of Social Development is supporting Catholic Social Services to connect homeless people in Dunedin with housing support.

MSD is funding Catholic Social Services to employ a full-time Housing Navigator to work with rough sleepers and the wider homeless community between November 1 and June 2026, as part of a targeted initiative.

Watch this space.

Also, Otago Regional Council (ORC) is providing free buses for people heading to and from the Dunedin Santa Parade on Sunday, 30 November.

People travelling into the city centre to watch the parade and back home again can catch a free ride on all Dunedin bus routes from 1pm to 6pm.

Councils get a lot of shit, but this is a nice touch.

Just on the Santa Parade, I’m always fascinated if kids get some of the floats from years ago, Peanuts, Flintstones etc etc. Locally, I love the giant albatross, the seals, the Cosplay team, the Otago Dancers, and the Highlanders when they take to the streets. It is a great event.

Here are a few stories I filed over the last week.

The (near) end of a two million ounce gold mine

Wine start-up faces liquidation over $400k government loan

and,

‘Slave labour’: teen paid $8 to deliver 42kgs of phone books around Dunedin

This one hit home. My eldest son used to deliver pamphlets around our area when he was at intermediate, this was around the Covid era.

I remember him walking the route and we calculated the number of letter boxes, and the number of those same letter boxes which did not want any circulars.

It was exactly 50%.

I remember ringing the company to see whether they wanted the other ones dropped back off so they could redistribute them

‘Bin em’, was the reply.

After my son stopped those deliveries our property never received a single circular again, or The Star for that matter.

This is an utterly charming story by Nadia Reid, who will be playing at the Regent Theatre next month, as part of her Enter Now Brightness Tour on Friday December 19.

https://www.regenttheatre.co.nz/.../nadia-reid-enter-now.../

See you again!

I won’t relitigate the argument, I’ve touched on it here. That story mentions I had contacted his former employers after some quiet (and not so quiet) doubts were raised over his C.V.

Benedict Ong and Cr Lee Vandervis have been at it this week.

Continuously.

Sometimes people can’t see the wood for the (downed) trees

Anyway, the pair will be sworn in on Friday, October 31. Grab your popcorn.

Below is a copy of The Dunedin City Council Annual Report for the year ended 30 June 2025, which was circulated separately.

Cnl 20251031 Att 3124 Excluded

13.2MB ∙ PDF file

Download

Download

The report gives a good insight into the current state of the city, and its future. Have a read.

This week, apart from chasing weather (I still have never done a live cross) I’ve written stories about three people of prominence resigning.

That included the principal of Columba College, a Government employee found guilty of possessing the Mosque shooting video, and another high profile person: the former deputy CEO of council. You can read that here.

Must be the season.

I also spoke to Regent Theatre director Sarah Anderson this week after more than 400 people applied for a part-time role at the iconic theatre’s box office.

I’ve been scanning the odd job listing as my teen son is on the hunt for a job, it makes for sobering (read: depressing) reading.

Good luck to all those looking for work. I often think what I will do if the news’ media eventually eats itself. I read a story in the New York Times this week about some old school journos buying a small community newspaper in Maine.

https://www.nytimes.com/2025/10/20/style/midcoast-villager-newspaper-maine.html

As a journalist I’ve always been interested in the various vices that people get involved with, including gambling and booze.

I don’t really gamble (apart from the odd family sweepstake), but I still drink although that has declined with each passing decade.

I can’t remember the last time I went out to a bar, preferring to drink a vodka, lime and soda at home while cooking dinner

Would it surprise you to know that the Dunedin City Council (DCC) runs its own social club, a few hundred metres from many of the city’s bars, where members can get cheap booze.

The Dunedin District Licensing Committee has confirmed it will hear an application for renewal of the DCC Social Club licence, after an objection was received.

The reporting agencies, including police, did not oppose the application.

The social club was for staff of the council and was located inside the city’s Civic Centre, near the Octagon, with no access to the public.

A public objector raised several concerns over the renewal of the licence, including the low price of alcohol, and a lack of access to the venue for police and other reporting agencies.

Now lets be clear, no issues have been identified with the operation since its first licensed in 1991.

A menu supplied by the social club as part of its application shows that a beer was available for $4, a craft beer for $5, a glass of wine for $5, and an RTD for $4.50.

Pretty decent.

The social club, which has maximum capacity of 145 people, also supplies a selection of non alcohol beverages, and food.

Even better.

Its application shows that its purpose was for staff to socialise as well as events, with its licence running from 4pm to 10pm, Monday to Thursday, 4pm to midnight on Friday, 11am to midnight on Saturday and 11am-8.30pm on Sunday.

A DCC spokesperson said “we’re not in a position to comment ahead of the hearing”.

I understand there has been some murmurings about this social club for a while, and while the licence could have been rubber stamped, a hearing is likely to lead to somethings being voiced in the open.

It is very easy (and tempting) to be a wowser over stuff like this, or worse, go full Taxpayer Union, but a hearing is needed.

Meanwhile, the application noted that social club members had reciprocal rights with their counterpart social club in Christchurch.

A quick look on the incorporated society register show some councils have moved away from social clubs.

A spokesperson for the Wellington City Council confirmed it did not operate a social club.

That was the same for Auckland, although its café in the main council building opens for a few additional hours for ‘After Work Connections’, on a Thursday, a spokesperson said.

Great Wellington, which is their regional council for those playing at home, operates a social club as do Tasman District Council, according to a search of incorporated societies.

The hearing will be held next month.

I think I might go.

For those keen on a taste of some new Dunedin music, I recommend IVY.

Let me know where the below photo was taken.

And lastly,

Otaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaggggggggggggggggooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo

The elections for the Dunedin City Council resembled the Red Wedding episode of Game of Thrones.

Five current councillors failed to make the cut (not including long-standing councillor, Benson-Pope who retired).

Those five are: Bill Acklin, Kevin Gilbert, Carmen Houlahan, Jim O’Malley and Andrew Whiley.

It was the latter who I picked as likely to get back on, based on high previous polling, while the others could potentially miss out.

If I was surprised by that, I was absolutely stunned by who made it on.

Not John Chambers, Russell Lund or the high-polling Andrew Simms, but Benedict Ong, arguably the city’s second most famous paperboy, Bruce Ranga (the only other Future Dunedin candidate to make it), and Doug Hall (the junior one).

Updated: About 30 minutes after filing this bugger, I got word that Barker had won the mayoralty (by 726 votes), while Ranga had lost his spot to Mickey Treadwell. Details here.

‘Whilst the release of the preliminary results has taken longer than anticipated due to the number of last day voting, I’m incredibly pleased with the voter turnout and would like to thank everyone who exercised their right to vote,’ Deputy Electoral Officer Robyn Dillon said.

Final results expected Thursday. That was a good battle between Barker and Simms, while Vandervis was third and the vote for one-term mayor Radich completely collapsed (as expected). Apart from Simms, the highest polling councillor, not a great day for Future Dunedin, who are now in the past.

Anyway, back to what I wrote last night.

Chambers, Lund and Simms are well known in the community. Chambers for his work in the health sector, Lund for his various projects including the country’s first social housing project in a heritage building, while Simms is a successful businessman who owns multiple car dealerships in Auckland and Dunedin.

All of their campaigns were different, and the real proof of that will be in the spending returns. Chambers probably spent next to nothing, Lund clocked-up a few ads in the ODT, while Simms was everywhere.

Advertising spend doesn’t always equate for bang for your buck though, as it didn’t work for the other Future Dunedin ticket, particularly those who were front and centre of a campaign, which went far too early imho, Twemlow, Stedman, and the former ticket member, Jo Galer.

Apart from the expected Simms surge (more on that later) Ranga was clearly the break through star of that ticket.

Ong’s spending will be interesting, but I think it was his use of the three big local FB pages which was clever. He maintained his shtick throughout: one minute he is skateboarding, the next minute he is delivering papers.

If you want to nerd out at the various iterations, check it out here.

The collapse of votes for Crs Gilbert and O’Malley is really something.

So what does their collapse, coupled with that of Houlahan, Acklin and Whiley tell us?

Well, I think those we have elected tell us more than those we did not vote for.

The electorate sought to dump what they perceive as poor performing councillors, and have elected those who advocated to be smarter with ratepayer cash.

Doug Hall:

My priorities

1. Get up to date with maintenance on essential services to ensure reliability and safety.

2. Upgrade ageing infrastructure to meet the needs of a growing and changing city.

3. Improve road maintenance to reduce hazards and keep transport networks safe and reliable.

Bruce Ranga

My priorities

1. Live within our means as rates are rising faster than many people can afford and so should the DCC.

2. Reduce debt and grow the local economy.

3. Be transparent and accountable restoring trust back in the community.

Russell Lund

My priorities

1. Ensure no further debt and keep rates increases at or below inflation.

2. Instruct the CEO to deliver a 2026 operating budget at least 5% below the 2025 budget.

3. Review and reduce planned 2025–2034 capital spending

The council lost one female councillor, but became more ethnically diverse with Ranga and Ong, and younger, Hall is 42 (I am unsure how old Ong is).

The last council’s youngest elected member was Kevin Gilbert at 52.

It is also hard to say if the council has really swung left or right. Acklin, Houlahan and Whiley were right leaning.

Lund’s politics are similar to that of his mate, Lee Vandervis, yet he outflanks some of those on the left through his work on social housing. People see Simms as a John Key type character, but I was struck when interviewing how left-leaning he was on most issues.

This may be out-dated by the time you read this but the mayoralty is too close to call.

Provisionally the DCC had to release a statement on Saturday, particularly as most councils had already reported their results (Christchurch was super fast).

Here is the interesting bit in the DCC update:

As at 4.05pm on Saturday (11 October 2025), Councillor Sophie Barker (12,782 votes) is the Mayor-elect with a margin of 105 votes over second placed candidate Andrew Simms (12,677 votes).

“The results – both for the Mayoralty and Councillors – are very tight. Dunedin, in its traditional way, left it until the last minute, but we received more than 9400 voting papers this morning.”

9400! That’s larger than the population of Greymouth. You would think they should favour incumbents.

However, Simms high-polling council run means he is not out of the race to be Dunedin next mayor.

And incumbent Mandy Mayhem is far from safe. Mickey Treadwell (Green Party), who is if he is elected, at 33, will be our youngest councillor since the likes of Aaron Hawkins and Jinty MacTavish.

Updates are expected on Monday.

But I’m interested in what you are picking.

Cherry Lucas, who polled well, is the likely pick for deputy mayor

On the bright side it was pleasing to see the vampire, Ruthven Allimrac perform better than Pamela Taylor.

I’ve already spotted a few people who missed out on a spot be less than courteous.

Good on you for putting your hand-up, but don’t start moaning about the council before they’ve even assembled, you’ve got more than 1000 days to do that . . .

It was the beginning of the end of the Helen Clark government, and the economy had flat lined thanks to a global financial crisis.

I remember being in the ODT newsroom when we heard that Fisher & Paykel’s Mosgiel factory was closing.

Earlier that same year we had bought a wooden house on the hill for $289k. It had little insulation, we never used the heatpump, and in that first winter it snowed half a dozen times.

But we loved the view: Otago Harbour, and across to the Pacific Ocean.

Our baby boy arrived that June, and we named him after a tree we later planted in a pair by the front of our old villa.

Later that year John Key came to office, with the talk all about cycle ways, tourist numbers and dairy.

Our young family explored the city, pushing a pram through the Botanic Gardens, or with our baby in a front-pack we walked around Tunnel Beach, Lovers Leap and city beaches.

We pushed that same pram up (my wife) and down (usually me) High St when we swapped baby care duties.

While the economy was contracting, Dunedin had gone on somewhat of a council spend-up, earmarking funds for the restoration of the Otago Settlers Museum, opening the Chinese Garden later that year, and of course voting to build Forysth Barr Stadium.

It wasn’t uncommon to drive on a Dunedin street (no cycle lanes insight), and see vehicles with a ‘Stop the Stadium’ sticker, or the equally catchy ‘Just Built It’.

I still see a Suzuki Swift with the former emblazoned on its rear bumper.

I see parallels between 2025 and 2008.

A stagnant economy, factory closures, concerns over the brain drain, and Kiwis concerned about the cost of living.

You just have to remember that these downturns are cyclical, and it is up to those who wield the levers (central Government and to a lesser extent: councils) to lessen the impact.

I’m not seeing that in 2025.

Those politicians will get replaced by another set of politicians, while the trees we planted at the front of our house seventeen years ago continue to reach towards the sun.

I’ve been thinking about the council election (again). I reckon the candidates can be divided into several distinct categories.

These are the absolute locks for council:

Cr Sophie Barker

Cr Lee Vandervis

Cr Jules Radich

These are likely to get back on:

Cr Cherry Lucas

Cr Steve Walker

Cr Andrew Whiley

Cr Marie Laufiso

These councillors may make it/may miss out:

Cr Jim O’Malley

Cr Bill Acklin

Cr Mandy Mayhem

Cr Kevin Gilbert

Cr Christine Garey

Cr Brent Weatherall

Cr Carmen Houlahan

These are the eight candidates who, I think, could potentially poll higher than the above candidates.

Andrew Simms

John Chambers

Russell Lund

Rebecca Twemlow

Jo Galer

Conrad Stedman

Mickey Treadwell

Jett Groshinski

I’m very much looking forward to the day when local Facebook pages return to posting about a dog running down a street, was that the sound of gunshots (or less ominously) a car backfiring, and a picture of a small portion of takeaways bought at some local store.

Aspiring politicians have ruined it. And the Letters to the Editor page. Please, let me wave my hands at the cloud in peace.

So while I’m on my soapbox: here are some things I would recommend to make for a better city (warning: most of these are very selfish).

Short term

• Fix all turning arrows. Some aren’t even activated.

• Get DVML to spend up big on a few headlining acts for the next two years, just to deprive Christchurch (yes, I’m that petty).

• While they are at it, whatever happened to that hotel?

• Forget the playground plan, instead build the greatest playground in New Zealand at a central city site, preferably at Market Reserve. Add a free bus service to the bus hub.

• Financially support the Dunedin Street Art Trust to support artists into creating more murals.

Medium term (these are very ambitious)

• Do a modern version of the Star Fountain, shut the central carriageway of the Octagon and make it less like Stalingrad.

• Seek support for small commuter rail cars to Mosgiel and Waitati, reduce development fees in those areas.

• Offer a year-long rates rebate to any family from outside Dunedin/Otago who buy a new home in the city.

• Sell the Fortune, develop Sammy’s.

• Put the cable car up High St.

It was fantastic to see the Otago Rugby team triumph over Canterbury and win the coveted Ranfurly Shield.

This try by Lucas Casey (he bagged a double) was a sensation, combining great footwork and sheer speed from a number seven.

This is the sort of player who would have league clubs lining up for his signature back in the day.

Expect great things.

And now for something a bit different. TBH, I thought it was going to sound like something else . . .

Great gig at The Crown on Friday for Shayne P Carter. An early show: that’s what I’m talking about.

Carter was in fine voice, playing deep cuts rather than the more obvious hits.

For those who missed out, there is an all ages gig at Iona Church, Port Chalmers next month. Details here.

That gig was a reminder of what a brilliant city Dunedin can be. While this is a reminder that there are some absolute tools who also live here.

Here are some stories I’ve written over the last week, you are more than welcome to click on them (ASSUMING YOU HAVEN’T ALREADY!!)

Partygoer's final hours: Coroner rules on death after man pinned to bed

In New Zealand media can request coronial decisions, if there wasn’t a public inquest.

English is her first language – so why can’t she work as a nurse in New Zealand?

After I wrote this story I got a follow-up from an English tutor offering to help her pass the test. Result!

Supermarket charged over rat infestation

Only two media outlets requested this report: ODT and Stuff, so we got an hour head start on other media rivals.

Speeding tourists, unrestrained toddlers: The chaos one highway cop faces daily

I was planning on writing more on this team, and got this done a couple of weeks ago.

Monster Trucks the wheel deal after sellout shows

It was very cool to see these up close and personal, but particularly the transformation of the stadium.

The aggressively worded card someone left on a mobility park holder’s windscreen

Whoever did this is a dickhead.

Lastly, let me know in the comments if you know where the below is?

Have a great week.

Before I ask Dunedin Mayor Jules Radich a question, he is talking/campaigning about Smooth Hill.

To be honest, it wasn’t even one of my questions. I sit for 20 minutes as he demonstrates just as much on the topic, but a polar opposite, to last week’s interview subject, Andrew Simms.

Here are some of the main points from Radich before we get down to the (proper)interview.

• The Smooth Hill landfill would be cheaper than the alternatives espoused by the Future Dunedin ticket.

• All of that money stays in Dunedin, and those 35 jobs stay here.

• A supporter of Future Dunedin and a detractor of Smooth Hill was a neighbour of the future landfill, and “she doesn't want to live next to the dump, yeah . . . and fair enough, I mean, nobody wants to live next to the dump”.

I mention that Smooth Hill seems tied with the remediation of Kettle Park, and there seems a bit of urgency.

I think what should happen with Kettle Park is that we build the groynes in front of it.

Radich is clearly passionate about groynes, and demonstrates - on a sweeping map of the coastal Dunedin defences - how they could help build up sand.

The dunes protect the city.

I don't want Kettle Park. The short version is really simple, in front of Kettle Park, where it is right now, we need to build the groynes. And I think we should build three, and that will build up sand in front of them.

This is what you campaigned with last election, and it helped get you in?

Yes. Some people in council oppose it, because it's me, not for any commonsense or logic.

You’re basically saying, what's the harm in trying?

Absolutely. And now I'm saying I campaigned on this build one groyne.

Let's do three groynes for $500,000 and do a much bigger, better job as a trial and force, you know, five year trial, and the cost is minimal compared to $37 million for excavation of the landfill.

The first thing to do is to build the groynes, and that will prove one way or the other.

Would you like see those sand sausages removed?

They could stay . . . as soon as you build those groynes, they'll be buried and gone. You'll never see them.

Interview starts proper

So voting papers have arrived. How are you feeling about your chances?

Well, who knows, there's a lot of competition. I have to stand on my record. Last election I said I'll bring in practical plans for waste, water, transport and debt, and I've delivered on all of those.

So I've delivered everything that I said I would.

Is it annoying people focus on the seesaw?

I voted against it, as you know. It's a pretty emotional subject, half a million dollars so it's quite a lot of money and a controversial, emotive thing.

I'm focused on the infrastructure, the seesaw is a sideshow.

The really important issues for Dunedin has been infrastructure.

If you compare us to other cities, say Wellington, our infrastructure seems in a better place?

It's much better. It's still not as good as it could be.

So the focus has been on infrastructure, and that's largely mandated by the Government.

So you will have seen Lee's debt graph?

I've seen it many times.

The latest version has remarkably changed, because council debt now flattens off after five years.

I've only had one nine-year plan, only one long term plan. I was thwarted at the end on debt by people on council throwing in an extra $100 million dollars of debt, which is not helpful.

Radich talks about his 150 word statement in the candidate booklet, and singles out the word ‘growth’. He wants to grow the ratepayer base, attract investment, jobs, businesses, and grow our income per capita,

He tells me how low our per capita income is.

Isn’t this low because of the students, though?

Traditionally, and old people. Retirees and students, and that's because we've got a demographic deficit in the engine room of the economy.

You are talking about 30-50 year olds?

So you've read something.

Yes, I read. But how do you get them to come here?

We start with the 20 year olds. We retain the brains we train.

He cites the example of CODE, Centre of Digital Excellence, which has led to dozens of jobs.

A couple of those companies are doing extremely well, with high income jobs. The number one level of income production per person of any industry in the world is gaming.

This can change pretty quickly, though, right? Sometimes Governments, just like councils, try to pick winners. A.I, for example, could change everything overnight.

Human creativity is the essence of gaming.

On the subject of creativity, do you like how the city is marketed? We’ve always had a laconic, sort of dry, approach

No.

We talk about the ‘It’s Just Dunedin’ campaign, and Radich is quick to add his thoughts.

I hate that.

You hate that?!

I hated that.

He tells me it would be better if the marketing people just inserted the word ‘classic’ making it, ‘It's just classic Dunedin’.

It hits on heritage, it hits on music, it hits on landscape, it hits on everything. Classic Dunedin days like this . . . it is cold, just out of winter day, but the sun is shiny. It's beautiful. You've got the harbour, the blue sky. It is really picturesque.

The city’s population is predicted to grow to around 150k . . .

Which is an amazing increase, we're on the way, we're going to have smart growth which will produce real results That's another slogan for me, ‘Smart Growth Real Results’.

He talks about tapping into the students who are involved in the likes of gaming, biotech, mechanical tech, data tech . . .

I hope to have an octagon of eight different areas of technology.

But some of those students spend three years in cold, shitty flats, and as you would appreciate we put it down to ‘the student experience’. They maybe unaware that there are warm dry houses in the city, because that's not their experience, and may not want to stay.

Totally disagree with that, because at the moment I think that would be less than 20% of student survey shows that. So most students are in warm and dry houses. Most students are in healthy homes.

Legally, they should be . . .

Unfortunately it's one of those negative narratives that gets taken up. Now we're hammering away, and MBIE is certainly investigating.

Have you ever owned a student property?

Yes.

Do you still own one?

Yes . . . I don’t really want to get into it but they are all healthy home compliant. And my tenants stay for years.

There are a couple of advantages of being an incumbent when you're running again, do you feel that this this time? You've got name recognition, you've got the top job.

I'm on the quieter side, so I'm not very good at self promotion, I have to confess to that. I do take the point that members of the public say to me ‘we don't hear much from you’.

We've done a heck of a lot, but they don't consider that.

I was struck in the South Dunedin floods walking around Forbury Park while up to my knees in flood water and I just saw you on a random corner talking to people, you weren't hiding in the (Civil Defence) bunker, that was good to see.

I've seen politicians, I'm not gonna to say who, arrive and fill up a sandbag get their photo taken and leave.

I was there for hours, and went back the next day.

He references how he takes the odd video and posts it online.

But you’re not big on social media?
I haven’t got the time. I made a post on the weekend, and I thought ‘Oh, I hadn't been on there for months and months’.

There were a whole lot of questions on there.

We talk about some of the abuse experienced by elected officials.

I'm prepared to front-up and talk to people. I'm more than happy to come along and talk to any group of people. The trouble with online it takes time to write and compose. Everything I say has to be correct, because if you put a word wrong . . . it's the end of the world.

Radich talks about attending Wednesday’s unveiling of the Tohu whenua (cultural markers) which tell Kāi Tahu narratives and histories and have been installed at 10 locations along Te Aka Ōtākou, the walking and cycling path that follows Otago Harbour’s edge from Portobello to Port Chalmers.

I'm a keen proponent of the mana whenua motifs that we see around town.

We talk about some of the Aukaha driven work around the city.

What's the number one issue people raise with you on the streets?

Rates rises. But you know we've got Government mandates. The prime reason for rates rises in councils throughout New Zealand, the imposition of Government regulations. One of my catch cries is that mandates should come with money.

We later talk about the sale of the lines company Aurora, and I ask Radich:

You were a bit of an advocate of its sale initially, right?

No, I was open minded. I looked at it from both sides, I was happy to sell it, I was happy to keep it. I was pretty neutral on it, but I absolutely voted for taking it to the public for consultation.

And they clearly spoke, didn't they?

Oh, they did. We heard them loud and clear.

It features on your video too, your video campaign. Yes, because I listen to the public, just like I've listened to the public on Albany St, because the majority of people don't want to be losing those 50 car parks outside the University Link. I reckon that they will be used by more people in a day than what there are cyclists in a day.

I think that would be more than likely, yes, but if there was a dedicated cycle route there, there may be more cycles, right? That's what you need to compare it with, because, at the moment, it’s too dangerous.

*long pause* we've got cycle lanes in the city wrong.

What would you like to see change? I remember when I was at ODT and the council and NZTA put them through the one way system and there was huge debate about that. People get very triggered when they don't see a cyclist while waiting for a turning arrow.

It always annoys me.

But it's not their fault, is it? It is the infrastructure that we built for them.

I mean it was a key feature why people voted Aaron (Hawkins) out, and there were certain councillors that are still on council now . . . at this point . . . that voted for turning the one-way into two ways, which would have gridlocked the city.

We get captured by ideological issues. Minority pressure groups trying to push some ideological line, which has caused problems.

I think those one way cycle lanes are a debacle.

Would you like to see them ripped-up?

They can stay there till we've built the better alternative. I don't focus on the negative, I focus on the positive, where I want to go.

It's always about what's the solution, not relitigating the problems, moaning about the problems. And it's the same with people. And I get lots of you know, people that attack me, including councillors, but I don't go on about them. I don't go attacking them in the media.

Do you get on with everyone on council?Are you cordial with councillors.

I am cordial with all councillors.

It's clear that you can see factions.

Absolutely there are, but it may change next triennium.

Time for my favorite question: are there any current councillors you would like to see re-elected?

Absolutely.

Will you name them?

Happy to name them, I'm very happy to name the core group of councillors who have supported me through thick and thin.

I'd say deputy mayor Cherry Lucas, Brent Weatherall and Bill Acklin . . . they're also very sensible. How many is that?

Three

Lee Vandervis, he's really thrived with being given a job. His voice is there, he's a bit extreme but that gets moderated with the influence of everyone on council

He tends to push an extreme position with the point of view that it will get moderated down to a better position than where we're at.

And that’s your five? Would you rank any of the others? Under STV would you just rank those five?

There other people on council who are very useful, and they provide great insights. You've got Carmen, who is just out there in her own way, but she's actually provides a lot of insights on topics from a particular perspective. You've got Sophie, who reads the papers and delves into the detail and probably brings more questions than some people would like.

Jim O'Malley, we’ve been at loggerheads over Albany St.

You get over things like that, don't you? You have a working relationship?

That's right, Jim brings an intellectual rigour, and ultimately he's a scientist. And then you've got Andrew.

A former supporter of yours

He still supports lots of initiatives, he's ultimately looking for fiscal sustainability, as is Kevin.

Cr Mayhem has her own unique style, but her heart is absolutely in the community.

Cr Laufiso, she has always acted with integrity, Cr Garey has always advocated strongly for her communities, Cr Walker is a passionate enthusiast for the live music scene, while Cr Benson Pope is a storehouse of wisdom.

Did you know that today actually marks exactly two years since Cr Barker resigned as you deputy Do you have any regrets from that period?

Did that set her on the path to running against you in some ways, although I have a feeling it was always going to happen.

It was always going to happen.

We talk about the catalyst for the resignation, which stemmed over his comments concerning the Barry Williams matter.

I'm not going to criticize someone for swearing, when I'm not a swear-free person.

There's a difference between swearing and making a racist comment?

It was absolutely racist. What I said was that was a minor thing that happened in a pub . . .

One of the things that we see in council is quite a bit of sanctimonious behavior, I’m always trying to act with congruence.

We see the political party lines come through sometimes, is there a particular thing that annoys you more than other things in terms of behavior around Council? I mean, Andrew Simms has spoken about the eye-rolling and we do see a lot of that on council, don't we?

There's some. I've moved to extinguish that. I have moved quite determinedly and reasonably successfully in extinguishing the inflammatory adjectives.

Because there were certain parties in council that were very keen on inflammatory adjectives, which they put into their narrative to try and inflame other parties.

Also some are reading pre-prepared speeches and they're making a quote . . . not because they are talking to you or their fellow councillors, but its because they want to get a headline or a quote in the paper the next day. You can clearly see that, can't you?

But you're not that sort of politician, are you? You're not a sound bite sort of guy.

I like having a theme or a slogan or a catch cry that will resonate, if it resonates for me, then I have a better chance of remembering it.

So retaining the ‘brains we train’ is a key plan, because the starting point for economic development, I tend to try and come up with something like that.

‘Cycleways won't save the planet’, that was something that I've been thinking about as far as Albany St goes. That might resonate with some people, but it does encapsulate the meaning and where I'm coming from.

Radich maintains he is not against cycleways, and loves Te Aka Ōtākou around the harbour

It's phenomenal. And thank goodness the Government paid for most of it.

Have you ridden it?

No.

Will you ride it?

Yes. I just haven't had time.

How busy is this job?

Oh, it's very busy.

I talk about his campaign video where he rides a motorbike and points out some of the achievements.

But there is a wee bit there about your wedding in Las Vegas, you kept that really quiet, is that because its private life? Anyway, what song was the Elvis impersonator singing?

Love Me Tender and Viva Las Vegas. He was very good. The thing I loved most about it, he put on a great show, he was very slick and had a beautiful voice and guitar.

He asked where we were from, and when we said New Zealand, he went straight into Split Enz I See Red?

Oh, that's nice.

And then he played Crowded House.

Let me guess, Don't Dream It's Over.

Yes.I thought it was really cool.

Sounds cool. And I’ve got some quick fire questions here. What's the meanest thing that you've read about yourself this last term?

Someone said I had a toupee.

Oh, I would take that personally. Did you respond to that?

No, someone else did.

So answer this truthfully. Is it uncomfortable driving that bloody Smart car?

No.

Come on! Your head looks like it touches the roof of it.

I have the seat three notches forward. It is comfortable, very comfortable.

What's the longest journey you've ever done in it.

Taieri Mouth and back, that the limit of its range.

I've heard you're famous for a lolly jar in your office, but I’m disappointed there are only banana Fruit Bursts in there.

A lot of people probably share your opinion. It's for guests, but I do eat them occasionally, and lately I've just been eating some banana ones.

Lastly, what's your favorite Dunedin song?

Down in Splendour.

Oh, that's a great choice.

I’ve already voted. I ranked 12 candidates for council before deciding I was done.

If you like the above song, please read this story by the always excellent Michael Wright. It is a subscriber story in The Press.

Late this month the pubic is invited to attend the opening of Te Whata o Kaituna.

The new $22m South Dunedin Community Library at 148 King Edward Street will be officially opened to the public on Saturday, 27 September at 11am.

I remember when that same space looked like this.

Very pleasing to see another possible place getting a makeover: Glamis Hospital, this video makes it look like something out of Trainspotting.

Have a great weekend.

I arrive at Andrew Simms Mitsubishi where I met, um, Andrew Simms.

Simms, if you haven’t read the Facebook posts, spotted the billboards, read the full page adverts, or driven past the multiple hoardings, is running for the mayoralty and council of the Dunedin City Council. He also leads the Future Dunedin ticket.

He is very passionate about the city. Here is an edited version of our chat.

Why the hell did you start your campaign so early? It's been bugging me. Was it to get name recognition?

Yes, it was. So I really like the STV system, because I think you should get the candidates with the broadest appeal coming through. I think it's the preferable system over first past the post.

The weakness with it is that it confers a great deal of advantage to sitting councillors because of the name recognition factor.

We talk about the STV system, and I ask Simms.

So how would you vote?

So vote for your favorite candidate as number one, and then rank anybody else you could live with but stop when you get to the end of that list.

So of the current councilors, who would you rank?

I think there are some good councilors.

Give me a number if that's more comfortable for you?

I think there are five or six good councillors.

Five or six!

That's the people that I think actually do the work, do the reading, turn-up and ask good questions . . . and actually participate.

We talk about how some councillors appear slightly unprepared, while others read pre-prepared speeches straight from their laptops, regardless of what has just been said by fellow councillors.

It's doing us a disservice. And if I could liken it to the Smooth Hill decision (this is the new Dunedin landfill to those playing away from home), It was absolutely apparent to me, as having done an enormous amount of homework myself while I visited other places to see what the alternatives were, that very few councilors had read the documents, and even less of them that understood what was in there. And the questions, the absolute, glaring questions that needed to be asked, were never asked.

The biggest problem with that is that a lot of those council papers, are delivered at 8.30pm on a Friday night, they have to read 600 pages the following Tuesday morning. People have busy lives.

I think it's about media attention too. Sometimes they don't want to hit Saturday's ODT. So on Smooth Hill, you’ve cited Winton as an alternative place to dump Dunedin’s waste, well, that’s my hometown. Please sell it to me why we should ship rubbish to my hometown.

I get a history lesson on landfills. It is very interesting, he clearly knows his stuff. I’ve had edit that chat.

We get captured into today's technology, which doesn't age well with landfills. Everything we've done in the past has always aged badly, and we've ended up having to go back and clean them up. I think we're about to make the same mistake again. There's massive advances coming in technology. Under the council waste minimisation plan, it predicts a 30% decrease in rubbish going to landfill. And they're on target to achieve that. So the need for a landfill is dropping, and that's the reason that it's bonkers to spend this sort of money. Smooth Hill has gone from $50 million in 2019 to $92 million in 2024. But Winton has some completely unique advantages. Firstly, it's already there, so the money has been invested. It is a world best practice landfill.

We talk about other landfills in Canterbury, and the option of transporting Dunedin waste by rail.

But I’m curious, if you don't get the mayoralty but you get on council, would you push for a full review?

Yes, a full review.

Simms says other options were cheaper and safer, citing the risk of bird strike at Dunedin Airport.

People are legitimately worried.

People tell me council doesn't run like a business, but there are a lot of things that councils do that are completely like running a business. And this is one of them.

They're not looking at it and saying, ‘this is probably not a good thing to do, we simply don't have the money’.

We're going to have to borrow the whole lot, and that's gonna push all the cost onto our kids.

They look at it and say, ‘this is a good thing to do, and we'll worry about it later’.

There are many people worried that the debt level in the city is unsustainable.

People should be a lot more concerned about it than what they are. And one of the problems that I have is that everybody has stopped listening to Lee (Vandervis) because of his temperament.

Existing councilors have gone out of their way to say about 85% of the budget is cast in stone. So we've only got that last bit at the end that we're sitting here arguing about - do we give the money to the symphony orchestra, or do we do the park up? At the end of this nine year plan, all of that discretionary income at the end will be being paid in interest.

If you're looking at the core Council debt, you're looking at a million dollars a week and $50 million a year in interest. That's $50 million every year that we can't put into social housing, we can't put into parks, that we can't put into the symphony orchestra,

So I get accused of looking like a business, but that's the perspective that I bring. If you were buying this as a business, if you were buying Dunedin Inc as a business, you would immediately have to save money.

So you would immediately have to cut out the wastage, but we're not going to save our way out of trouble, we also need to grow our way out of trouble. We're not just going to have to get where we want to go by saving and becoming a lot more efficient, but we have to grow the ratepayer base.

I know your team has been pushing that, but the city’s population is meant to grow to about 150,000 isn't it?

The problem with Dunedin is we're currently growing at half the rate of the rest of New Zealand. But we've still got relatively affordable housing here. There is a drift south, so people are trying to get out of Auckland now.

I know that from my own experience with staff.

We've got a world class university, a tertiary sector, we've got a new hospital coming, we've got a deep water port, we've got beautiful nature, great built heritage.

We’ve got a hell of a lot here . . . and we’ve got affordable housing. So I think we've got a real opportunity to grow at a much faster rate than what we are doing.

We talk about incentives for converting more of the city’s buildings into apartments, which would bring vibrancy to the inner city.

Were you conscious of voter fatigue when you when you went early on this campaign?

We're conscious of the risk.

Long Facebook posts that's another one. I get why you do it, but I'm not sure if everybody reads to the end.

I agree with you. If somebody asks me about Smooth Hill, we're good for three hours. I'm not very good at actually getting down to the sound bites, because I think a lot of these issues are complex issues that need some explanation,

We are living in the age of the bullet point.

I can render it down once I've got my background stuff out there. So yes, getting back to your original question, ‘why did you go so early’ name recognition was a big part of it.

This is going to sound counter-intuitive, but I'm absolutely thrilled at the number of candidates that have come forward to run this time.

Compared to other cities, it is quite impressive.

I think there's an element of people saying ‘I can do a better job’, but also the winds of change is blowing.

But if you read what people say online, you'll read that they call Council ‘clowns’, and that can mean staff or elected officials, and if you get elected, well, it's going to happen to you, because that's politics in this city. Do you have thick skin for that? So, I've done 40 years in the car industry . . . that was flippant, but I lie in bed at night worrying about what I've seen on Facebook, not just aimed at me, but aimed at other people. That's part of the reason we open the (Future Dunedin) shop in George St. Social media is a great tool for politicians, and it's a great tool for business to communicate to a large number of people at relatively low cost. But it brings that danger.

We talk about the dangers of social media, and the penchant for some to pen open letters at a previous PM.

What I'm encouraged by is that I think there will be change, and I'll name them . . . John Chambers is a fantastic candidate, and people should sit up and take notice. His advocacy for this city, and his ability to advocate for the hospital . . .

You're plugging someone outside your ticket!

Absolutely. But he's really impressed me. I would also be inclined to think there's a space for Russell Lund, I wouldn't align myself with the way he thinks on a lot of things. Get that clear. Russell's championing Lee for mayor.

But he's got that learned experience. While I wouldn't align with his political leanings, I absolutely think that he will be an asset.

And who in your ticket would you like to see come in?

Oh, that's not fair. That's not a fair question. People expect Future Dunedin to be full of 60-year-old white businessmen that think they know better than everybody else. And it's not. There was a diversity of candidates.

You got rid of one of them! Sorry, that was a bad joke . . .

No, you can be with that joke, because I'll explain that in a moment. What we wanted to do was go, here are intelligent, thoughtful people that care about the future of Dunedin, that will be on different ends of the seesaw. You have a choice now to support one of us, three of us, or none of us, but you've got a choice now.

And I would like to think that we had a role in getting more people to come forward, to run for for council.

I think that the most important point that I would make is that if you look at those 56 people running for council, it is entirely possible to assemble a really good council There's a really good opportunity for people to get a really good council this time. Now this is going to sound, it's not intended to sound like it's probably going to sound, but I looked and thought, ‘how do some of these people get elected’.

We had one councillor, after three months of deliberation on the sale of Aurora Energy, who said in summing up, ‘I don't need to buy my power from you. I can buy my power from whoever I like’.

After three months of sitting through workshops and things, they thought it was a power generator. People say how do these people get elected?

But when you look at the 2022, election . . . it's not like we were spoiled for choice.

But that was a Covid election, wasn't it? When we look back at that people weren't out in front of the community, they were in Zoom meetings and the feeling of resentment in the city was over things like dots on the road.

Yes, it was, but I feel this time there is a much broader group of really good candidates.

That's the one of the shortcomings of the STV system, it's much harder for good people to get elected on than it is for bad people to get elected off.

Look, there are good people, new people . . .

I don’t know how many enemies I need to make in one interview.

All of them.

I think there should be a term limit on councils. Because what I've seen is no different to what I see in business, because how many good ideas have you got, and how much time do you need to deliver on those good ideas.

What happens when you get to that point where you have become cynical, bitter and twisted?

I would put Jett Groshinski in ahead of Steve Walker.

Explain.

I've seen his demeanor around the council table, he's got cynical, he's got angry. That's what I think Dunedin needs. Yes, there might be some naivety around Jett but the enthusiasm of youth is far preferable to the complacency of old age.

I think the youngest at the moment is Kevin Gilbert at 50 or something (close: Gilbert and Mandy Mayhem are both 52 - ED)

I just think it's time for new ideas and a fresh approach, people that actually want to get stuff done.

Do you think council should be a full time job?

Well, I'm budgeting 60 hours a week for the mayor. I'm chairman of the board of this company now and I do an hour a day. And that's a bad day. So I'm budgeting for 60.

You've got this very successful company how many people do you employ?

350.

And you're quite removed from the day-to-day running of the business?

Completely. The biggest advantage that Covid delivered for me was I couldn't travel back to Auckland, so I had a great team of younger people running the business, but I was going backwards and forwards, making a nuisance of myself second guessing everybody, overturning decisions.

Were you worried during that period?

I thought it was the end of the world. That's what really annoys me about the way that Grant Robertson and Jacinda Ardern have been pilloried now for their response to Covid.

I remember sitting there with Claire (Simms’ partner) watching people dropping dead in the street of China . . . we didn't know what we were facing.

For people to revisit it now and say we overreacted . . . bullshit.

I absolutely think we did the right thing.

Anyway, I couldn't travel back to Auckland, and we thought the business, we were told we would be able to maintain about half of our business. But we reopened to 125% of our business.

Nobody had anticipated what would happen. First, there was a whole lot of cheap money flying around. Secondly, there was a celebration going on, people just buying stuff because they were celebrating.

There was all this pent-up demand from during the period that we were closed.

I read you helped your workers by giving them $1,000 a week or something.

Yeah. So that scheme appealed to my socialist leanings, if you like. So what we did during Covid was . . .

You had me at ‘socialist leanings’. I was going to ask you about your politics.

This is just an example of it, I'm all over the place politically . . . and that makes it very hard for people to judge.

People want to see me as David Seymour . . .

But you're definitely not a libertarian, you’ve already said that

No. We had 350 staff and big commitments to buildings and premises and things like that. For some of it we were able to negotiate our way out to pay no rent and things. Landlords were very good to us, Mitsubishi were very good to us.

So we just said we're just going to pay everybody $1,000 a week.

So if you're on $2,000 a week, I'm sorry but you're going to be on $1,000 a week.

But if you're on $600 a week, you're going to get $1,000. It still meant that we had $350,000 a week in wages going out the door, with absolutely no income.

We could calculate our income to the last dollar. It was zero.

At what point, how many weeks or months before your business might tip?

We figured we could hang in for about six months. But the massive saviour was Grant Robinson coming out and giving $550 per person under the wage subsidy scheme during Covid. That meant we could hang in for 12 months as we had enough cash reserves.

We had enough money in the tin to hang in for that period of time. But we didn't know what was going to be the end of that either.

We just said, go home and look after your family. You're going to get a $1,000 a week in the hand. That was a pay rise for some people, and it was a pay decrease for others, but I liked that feeling that we're all in this together.

And I didn't get a single push back.

What about the staff churn after that? Did you that create more loyalty than you would normally expect?

People re-evaluated their life during Covid, we were able to restore our team but we lost people at the end of it, that was the impact that Covid had. And we still feel that today as a society, we're still dealing with the impacts.

We talk about how people are online, while driving, and even the people out there willing to put their hands up and coach kids’ sport etc etc.

So what were you like as a kid?

I had a very normal working class upbringing in Dunedin, so we started in the state house, moved to Waverley, and I went to Bayfield.

Very, very standard. I did well at school. I started with Moller Motors. I was part time university and part time washing cars. At Moller Motors, they sort of allowed me to sell a few cars.

Do you love cars?

No, and I still don't. I love old houses. Cars are just a commodity, the thing I enjoy about the business is people.

I figure I can't lose anything out of this campaign. The number of people I've met, good people of Dunedin who want something different to what they're getting at the moment. I would never regret anything even if I don't get a single vote.

Come October, I’ll still be here.

You'll vote for yourself, right?

I might not, I might vote for John Chambers?

That's outrageous! You would rank yourself though, wouldn't you?

I would, yeah, of course.

So how would you describe your politics? It seems like you're very socially minded, and they would indicate that you are sort of left leaning, but maybe economically, you're more on the right? Or is that too simplistic?

No, that would pretty much have it. I have voted for both National and Labour in the past, I've voted for John Key, I might live to regret that, but I did.

Why would you say you might live to regret that?

My national politics are fairly easily summed up. I know that I can look after myself under any circumstances, but I get very concerned about what's going on in the country. I'll generally vote for who I think will do the best job long term for New Zealand.

I think the Helen Clark government, when Sir Michael Cullen was the Finance Minister, was the most successful government in the history of this country.

But that third term, the wheels fell off a bit

Absolutely. But when you look at the results they produced financially, absolute superstars. I personally think Michael Cullen was a genius.

The politicians that I like the most are the ones that could be in either party. So the Katherine Rich’s of this world, Simon Powers, Michael Cullen I would put in that category.

We talk a bit about the management of council, and I ask him about the chief executive Sandy Graham

So you're saying you could work with Sandy given she has a one year contract?

Yes.

Is there anyone on the current council you couldn't work with?

No, there's people I'd prefer not to work with.

Who are they?

No, I think that's a bit unfair.

You mentioned if you were mayor you would allocate 60 hours a week, didn't you?What about for a councillor?

I think it's 40. Just the sheer volume of reading.

We get in a long and detailed conversation about reading council papers, and some councillors just reading the staff summary, and cited the Aurora sale as a classic example.

I definitely wouldn't sell Aurora, they're setting us up now to revisit that by conflating the debt. It reminds me of commercial property, you do the hard yards and you don't get a lot of money coming in, but one day the returns will be there.

At the end of this 9-year plan, Aurora will be worth $2.5 billion and be generating over $100 million in profit every year.

And that's completely predictable, and that's why it's so valuable.

You’ve been quiet on the Taieri Gorge in recent months, was that deliberate because you realise it is an emotive topic you don't want to get into?

Taieri Gorge is a very small company with a massive infrastructure commitment for a single use. One train runs up and down there, the only use for 62 kms of Victorian era railway running through some of the most difficult territory in the country.

So it has a massive commitment to try and maintain that, which you could never do from the revenue from a tourist train.

Simms supported the work of Dunedin Railways management in negotiating for three years to effectively erase the operating losses before making any future decision.

And after that three years?

I'd go for public consultation on that because I get there's a passion for it, but I have concerns over the financial performance of it, and concerns over the ability for us to keep it safe.

But I think there's a future for Dunedin Railways, and I think it's different to what it is at the moment.

Quick fire.

Thoughts on the new Christchurch stadium?

They're going to end up in exactly the same place we're in with an incredibly expensive facility to try and operate with nowhere near enough income.

Who is your Dunedin hero?

Sir Michael Cullen. For for his skill, and the result that he produced for New Zealand, we've still got the Cullen Fund. His foresight and for his ability to deliver on a result shows me that it's possible.

The thing with the Clark/Cullen government or the Key/English government, you could throw a blanket over them in terms of the way they treated New Zealanders.

Now, we're seeing much more radical, divisive behavior, possibly even from both sides. That bothers the hell out of me.

It’s the Trump effect isn’t it?

I think he's empowered people to think that it's okay to behave like that.

I think the government, the council, and even the community have got to understand that everybody has got a responsibility to look after people that are not as fortunate as we are.

I think governments have got a role, and councils to a degree, in balancing the playing field.

I think a lot of people realise it's not the right thing to do to have homeless people in the Oval, and and that a lot of us have got to play a much bigger role.

Simms said his motivation was not to move them out of sight, but he felt guilty about their position compared to his own. When I point out he grew up in a state home, with a back story similar to what John Key used to say, he didn’t accept that.

I'd hate to wear that thing as a badge of honor, I thought John Key overplayed it driving around in a Bentley giving an interview saying, ‘I grew up in a statehouse’, it wasn’t unusual in those days, that was a fairly usual path.

But I'll tell you what disturbs me is that often the people providing the help to the people on the bottom rung of the ladder are only on the third rung themselves.

What's your favorite Dunedin song?

Pink Frost.

Good tune.

For the drama lovers out there, please check out Every Brilliant Thing, by the people who brought you Prima Facie.

Written as a one person play, this production will be directed by Lara Macgregor and feature Dunedin comedians Harriet Moir and Gregory Cooper performing in rotation throughout the season.

Tickets here https://www.trybooking.com/nz/events/landing/16453

And if you want to know more about the elections, check out the videos here.

This one is certainly my favourite.

The videos cost council $6153 to produce, excluding GST, with all candidates taking part. I know people love to moan about the expense of everything, but I think these are informative, well worth the watch, and better than anything on Netflix.

Here is my video of the week.

@jordan.ko.nzCoppa choon droppa #dunedin #castlestreet #cumplex #breather

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If you are in the mood for some different music, check out Melbourne garage punk band Drunk Mums, who will play with Slim Krusty at The Crown on October 7.

And then a day later we have visiting Scottish act Lord Rochester, who are playing a nationwide tour from Stewart Island to Helensville, at Pearl Diver

“We play simple infectious rock n roll, with songs are about monkeys, chicken salt, murder, oysters / pearls, ageing and maraschino cherry pie.”

It was lovely to attend the opening of Sara Cohen Specialist School on Thursday morning.

It is one of the oldest specialist schools in the country, and now it is one of the newest.

“We are absolutely the newest, as of last week,” principal Matthew Tofia told me.

Those facilities already had an impact on the school’s 70 students, particularly the large playground purpose-built for their needs.

That playground would be available to the wider disability community of Dunedin, with after hours swipe access giving them access to the playground and toilet block.

Surrounded by a non-climbable fencing, parents and caregivers could “completely relax, have a coffee and not worry about their child”.

“It is stuff our families cannot even do at home, and certainly not in other playgrounds.”

On a personal note, my brother attended a specialist school in Invercargill when he first attended school, and I appreciate the hard work that staff put in at these schools.

And as Tofia said: “It feels now our students and community have a facility that is worthy of them”.

Brilliant.

Here is a nice video for Father’s Day.

This week I thought I would try something a little bit different. I had a sit down chat with Cr Sophie Barker who is running for the Dunedin mayoralty.

I didn’t really have time to write a proper story (work/family/life and all that), so I’ve kept this as a Q & A format.

It has been lightly edited to keep under word limit.

If my last post was accurate, Cr Barker is the favourite to win the mayoralty. That deeply unscientific poll of 220 people recorded 55% of people predicting she would win, ahead of Andrew Simms (27%) and Jules Radich (6%).

We often hear a particular backstory with politicians, they grew up in a certain environment etc, but you grew up in a castle. What was that life like?

When my parents bought the castle they were pregnant with me and the castle was was a doer-upper.

It was in a really bad state of disrepair and we worked absolutely hard for decades.

It was very run down and all of the money always went back into the business.

What was your earliest memory of living in that castle?

Carrying buckets when it rained, we would just go around and put buckets on everything. I remember hosting dinners, and one time being asked why I wasn’t at the head of the table. It was because I had to sit where the leak was. You fake it till you make it.

Obviously an MP lived at the castle, but any mayors?

No. I moved out of there in my twenties and finished working there when I was about 40, I would stay there a few nights a week when I was on duty . . . someone would ring up in the middle of the night wanting something.

It is hard to be nice all the time, but I think.

I think it's a superpower because you have to work with people all the time and you have to focus on customer satisfaction because if you don't have happy customers, you don't have a business.

It seems to me that tourism is all about picking winners, whether it is Japanese tourists, European tourists, Chinese, it's always changing.

It is a very stressful environment and you don't know whether they're even going to come. You had to change your product all the time, you had to learn new customs and cultures. I just love dealing with different cultures and that was what was really great about the business that we did.

You don't speak another language, do you?

Only a little bit, a little bit of everything, I guess. I know all the greetings.

(She demonstrates several greetings complete with gestures)

Did that time growing up in Larnach Castle, shape you politically at all?

Not really.

Were your parents political?

No, not at all. We just got stuff done we didn't really talk about politics or think about politics, not that sort of family.

Sophie said she didn’t become political until university where some of her friends were presidents and Critic editor

You didn't pen an old Critic article back in the day?

Oh, I did write something . . . I can't remember.

This could be a scandal!

Oh no, I actually can't remember. I was honorary gentleman of the year. There was a gentlemen's club, but women were allowed and then they were honorary gentlemen.

I have not put that on LinkedIn.

I think that could be a new slogan if you're struggling.

OK, yeah it was the late 80s.

That that was a great time in Dunedin though, wasn't it?

I was at Uni, so it was all of the Dunedin bands . . . we went to all of that stuff.

Did you have a favourite?

Oh yeah, The Chills and Straitjacket Fits you know, I just remember going to very dark place, not dark places, but dark venues.

So you didn't have an easy ride during adulthood, you’ve had the castle fallout, which everyone was aware of, you were a single mom, and then later diagnosed with congenital brain. I mean that tough.

Sometimes people have an attitude about single mothers, but I'm just a hard worker. Look at my daughter now. She's lovely.

You're very proud of her, right?

Yeah, I am, because when we talk about the brain surgery she was eight years old . . . and . . .

You didn’t know whether you're going to live either, do you?

No. It was terrible because the third lot of surgery, they sort of said I could die. I went to Australia to get the third operation because my daughter needed her mum so I spent a lot of money . . . and that actually adds to stress.

I remember seeing the photo of the stitches from the from the neck of your neck halfway up your skull, and you did that ODT campaign for neurosurgery.

Basically they're doing locums and I had two locums operate on me and the nurses who I knew said ‘don't let them near you’.

If I had to have the operations in Christchurch, it would have been even more devastating for my mum, my daughter, those people who care about me.

I remember my daughter's face when I had meningitis and she came to the hospital. I didn't recognize her.

It sounds like that's a defining moment of your life, isn't it?

I think I became more grounded, and I don't worry about the small stuff quite so much. I just think, I'm lucky to be alive.

I had a really long road to recovery and it was literally one foot in front of the other, I remember the doctor saying to me it was about attitude.

Those experiences must make politics seem quite easy?

No, I don't think so because I'm not a political person. I'm like a practical kind of person who likes to get stuff done.

In politics, when I talk about strategies peoples eyes kind of glaze over, but it's like the promises that we've made with people and we work in collaboration to create the strategies.

Are you about to say the word cycleways?

Well, that is one of them.

So you entered politics in 2019 and that was a term obviously impacted by COVID. How was that experience?

Gosh, I was on the Zoom the other day and thinking how much I hate Zoom. I missed the connection with other councillors as well.

I didn't think you'd say that.

I have really good connections with quite a number of councillors, so I did miss them. At the time I was working fulltime for the Peninsula Trust. During that COVID period I had a lot of people in my house on my sofa crying because of what COVID had done. My mother was severely impacted by it, they had a $150,000 insurance bill with no money coming in, the had to let so many of the staff go because there's no tourists, there's no money, no jobs . . . and these are family.

The tourism operators who are all my friends were devastated.

But locally people got triggered by dots on the road.

Oh yeah, I know . . . not a great idea, you know. There are so many myths out there that it cost the the council $200,000 and it was in the end it was like was it $19k.

It’s like the seesaw isn't it?

Yes. But I think that that's why I'm often very careful about asking about some of those decisions that we're making, asking how would this look, how are people going to think about it, how are we communicating?

Like, say we're doing something like Bath Street (redevelopment) and the (rainbow) crossings there, how are we taking people with us, rather than surprise them?

We've got to do proper consultation and proper communication.

But if you run a business and have survived COVID and then a flat economy, the removal of car parking might be triggering.

I mean George Street was a perfect example, as you're trying to rebuild the city and make it a place where people want to live and want to visit. You need to do those upgrades and now you look at how many are enjoying those upgrades.

We have a chat about the George St seesaw

If you consult and communicate with people along the way, than you're not going to get surprises, you're not going to get uproars. You take people on that journey.

I call it the C word ‘communication’’.

Oh my God, please don't don't use that. There's my headline: ‘I call it the C word’.

We talk about news coverage, and the heavy council focused coverage from the ODT.

We need better good news stories about the city, and we need to raise the city's profile. I think it's almost a Scottish Presbyterian thing, we're not at good at promoting ourselves.

We need people that go out and promote the city, and it's one of the things I'm thinking about, is lifting the city's profile.

I tell Barker to return the cable car to High St (which will boost my house price), but she replies.

Monorail.

Gulp! So in 2022 you were the highest polling candidate, when did you decide to have a shot at the mayoralty.

It had been a really, really tough three years for all sorts of reasons, but I felt politics is horrible and harsh, and I was not going to come back.

Oh, you just going to one term, is that what you mean?

Yeah, life beckoned, and it was, it was really hard. I think I've talked about some of the things that I got called, ‘that was good for a blonde’, for example, and ‘We needed a Sheila’, it was really hard to work in that environment.

So I wasn't going to come back and then my daughter said to me, ‘if you don't do it, I'll be doing it in 20 years’. I'm like, I have to do it for her, you just have to do it because you know you can make the city better.

So I put (my nomination) in at the last minute. I wish I put it in earlier because I was totally surprised, you know, the ODT gave me the top rated councillor and I was the top polling councillor and I realised people appreciate what I've been doing.

So did you take the negative comments to heart, its a terrible expression, but do you have thin skin on this type of thing?

No, not anymore, I guess it was just the working environment within council that was quite hard, but I think I'm pretty tough. I’ve spent my whole life working in customer service and that is a tough environment.

For people who haven't watched the council meeting, there's a lot of eye rolling, there's a lot of whispering, there's a lot of messages being sent to other people. For a candidate, it's a worthwhile thing to sit in and see how people behave.

I think the public gallery is pretty much empty the entire time, people who are thinking of standing should come and watch meetings, or watch online.

Do you see yourself as a bit of a centrist?

I'm in the center . . . I'm a liberal thinker. I have a young 22-year-old daughter and then I have an 83-year-old mother. I want my daughter to be able to live in the city, to have a good job in the city, to love the city, and hopefully one day raise a family. But as for my mom she's trying to get a park and deal with the hospital system.

On those two people, your daughter and your mum, what's the thing that you disagree with the most?

My mum was yelling at me about parking, because she is older and, and mobility is a bit of an issue. I tell here we are giving other options, bus, cycle, walking, so there are still parks for the people that need them.

And your daughter?

I think she gives me that real insight into what she loves about the city, what she thinks could be better . . . a cat cafe for example, I'm all in.

Do you have a working relationship with two of your mayoralty rivals, Lee Vandervis and Jules Radich?

I have a good working relationship with Lee because I sit next to him.Lee and I think similarly about a lot of stuff. It's about the finances in the end, and it's about transparency, accountability.

I mean, we certainly don't agree on everything, but I think that we have good working relationships.

What about Jules?

Well, we had that deputy mayor thing, the resignation, but I still think we have a cordial relationship.

What about Carmen Houlahan?

I still talk to her.

You still talk to her?

I mean, we're not going out for wine . . . I think my strongest relationships would be with councillor Whiley and I work quite closely with deputy mayor Cherry, Kevin Gilbert, and Jim O’Malley.

They're probably the councillors that are perceived as being a bit more centrist too, aren’t they?

Yeah, I think all we want is sensible solutions. I'm not there on a political bandwagon or anything like that. I just want what's best for the city, and that's why we work strongly with other councillors.

Have you been asked to stand for a political party or maybe sounded out?

No, I'm not interested in politics.

Do you regret any of what unfolded regarding the Code of Conduct complaints you laid this term, or do think it was important?

It was important.

It was important to stand up for what I felt was not okay at the time. I could not stand there and let that stuff happen. It is really hard for a liberal democracy nowadays to get people to respecting their politicians, trust their politicians and have faith in the system.

Just on that (Code of Conduct, they're a bit toothless though.

I was trying to explain to people what a wet bus ticket is because no one has bus tickets anymore. There were no consequences, and that's the challenge with the code.

You have to live with yourself and you have to be able to sleep at night and it was really hard. I took a lot of abuse at the time, I still get some abuse from members of the public. I stood up and I did what was right and after that I had people come up and hugging me in the street, people that had had racist crap in their lives.

I guess we tell our kids to call out bullies, but we should do it as adults.

Oh my gosh, yes. What sort of example are we setting if we don't.

What are three immediate big issues for Dunedin that you can name?

The number one is the hospital and getting that built, that's our immediate priority.

Then its the cost of living, we have to sort our finances out. I run a spreadsheet for my household and I account for every single dollar.

Because I am a single income family, I did it when I was in business. At the castle we borrowed $150,000 to build accommodation, but I had done all the numbers. We paid that loan off ahead of time, that was good practical experience.

And your third thing for Dunedin?

A new vision and master plan for the city because we are lacking the leadership to take us forward. People say to me is that they feel that the city is floundering.

We need a town hall meeting, get everyone in the room, and decide together about where our future is going,

We’ve spoken for 40 minutes, and now it it quick fire time, you ready?

What is the best advice you've ever received?

Be true to yourself.

Nice.

What's the worst gossip you've ever heard about yourself?

I'm not gonna say it was offensive . . . totally offensive, totally untrue.

Do we get good value for our rates?

We can do better.

Oh, you're a politician now.

I’m just telling the truth.

How much is a 2litre bottle of milk?

I don't buy 2litres.

I buy 1litre because I live in a small household. I buy at Pak n Save and it is $3.45 because it went up from $3.05.

I figured you for a Woolworths shopper who ordered online.

Oh my God, no. I got to Pak n Save at 8 a.m every Saturday before the Farmers Market. I go then because there is hardly anyone there and you can get through really fast.

This is your Dunedin hack, is it?

I hate shopping.

So how do you how do you relax?

I read and I play with my kittens, nonfiction, fiction, but I’m into biographies.

What's your favorite place in Dunedin?

That's a really tough one for me . . . I would say the Octagon, having a drink in the sunshine, it is amazing. It's just one of those things that makes me happy.

Lastly, what's your favorite Dunedin song?

In case you missed it, here are a few yarns I wrote this week for Stuff.

Man who fired arrow into victim’s belly jailed

Candidate goes googly eyed before local elections

Dunedin cans plan to put cycleway through student quarter

1-year-old in car among kids left unattended at casinos

Partying off-duty police officer investigated after causing bar’s evacuation

And in honour of one of the city’s greatest band (which is set to tour again) here is one of the best songs you will ever hear.

But before I bore you with pipes! rubbish! seesaws! Long term readers will note this is my first newsletter in over a year, while newer readers won’t give a shit.

This campaign for the Dunedin City Council feels like it has been running for months after the early launch of the unironically named Future Dunedin ticket, led by Andrew Simms.

Simms, a successful car dealer, raced to the front of the pack (get used to these puns if he wins) by virtue of declaring his hand first.

It was expected that his main challengers would be Dunedin Mayor Jules Radich and his former deputy, and current councillor, Sophie Barker, who was the highest polling council candidate in 2022.

I was anticipating that mayor Radich would go all in on the mayoralty to differentiate from Barker and Simms, but all are all standing for the mayoralty and council.

That has led to a genuine three-horse race (I need to get back to car puns) for the city’s top job (spoiler alert: probably not the top job).

But we also need to remember that Dunedin uses STV (single transferable vote) where voters rank candidates in order of preference and may rank as many, or as few candidates as they wish for each election.

Here is the 2022 STV report, if you are that way inclined.

Under STV, Cr Vandervis performed well in the 2019 mayoral election, where he lost to Hawkins, and has repeatedly polled well in council elections.

So while it may appear to be a three horse race, we surely can’t count Vandervis, who is surely the Dunedin answer to Winston Peters. While Peters is a notorious grump with reporters, at least he will answer questions with the word ‘sunshine’ tacked on the end.

Vandervis hasn’t engaged with me since he wrote my future Tinder bio: ‘You lying fiction writing creep’.

Cheers.

I still mention him in the occasional council story, usually along the lines of, ‘only Cr Vandervis voted against’.

We also have three other sitting councillors among the 16 vying for the mayoral chains: Crs Laufiso, Mayhem and Houlahan, and I suspect this is more a profile raising push for council than a legitimate quest for the mayoralty.

The remaining candidates have as much chance of winning as Dunedin being named the country’s sunniest city, but that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t rank them.

Under STV you want to rank all the candidates you like, but if you strongly dislike a candidate you can fill out all the numbers and rank that person last, or just don’t rank them at all.

Regarding the mayoralty you might think you recognize the name Doug Hall, a former councillor, but that is his son, Doug Hall Jr, who has left the ‘Jr’ off the final nomination.

Confusing? Well, yes.

It gets more confusing when we look at those running for council, as it is a massive list.

While it is great to see that level of interest, local Facebook pages have become over run by those running and the little dramas they find themselves in.

A few fractures have appeared in the Future Dunedin ticket, we’ve had a couple of candidates drop out while another has distanced themselves from comments made by another.

I don’t read too much into this, the ticket will probably get two councillors at the most and this will be dependent if Simms gets the mayoralty.

The above will come down to whether residents see his lack of council experience as an advantage, or disadvantage. At the very least he seems almost a lock for council due to a high profile campaign.

I’m sure Future Dunedin would like to have another candidate, possibly Bex Twemlow or Conrad Stedman being the most high profile.

Part of that interest is driven by the extensive coverage that the DCC gets compared to councils elsewhere in the country. This is a hat tip to the ODT.

Of interest this year is that all but one councillor is returning, with long-serving politician David Benson-Pope calling it a day.

Last election we had one sitting councillor lose their place, Rachel Elder, and five new councillors elected in Mayhem, Lucas, Gilbert, Acklin and Weatherall.

Another name to watch on the ballot paper is Dr John Chambers, who is running under the banner ‘Your Health Candidate’, and has a high profile since his DHB days and recent protests over the Dunedin Hospital.

The hospital has been one of the bigger issues in Dunedin in recent times, and Mayor Radich has partly hung his mayoral chains on the hospital with his latest video.

https://www.facebook.com/julesradichmayor/videos/1253798199552348

That video has the mayor talking about infrastructure spend (key core message alert), and includes him standing by the Water of Leith (that’s the ORC work), and a nod to Hillside being rebuilt (NZ First and Labour would like a word!).

Radich, who ended up voting with most councillors against the sale of Aurora, also notes in the video that the council has retained those strategic assets.

But my favourite part of the video shows the Mayor walking down the aisle with his partner Pam after getting married in Vegas last year before an Elvis impersonator.

That’s awesome.

That’s a better pitch to the electorate than groynes.

It appears that some of the online topics of interest this election campaign range from the George St seesaw, to homelessness.

With the latter I’ve read lots of well intentioned takes online, but these individual cases are invariably extremely complex.

Some are dealing with long-term drug and alcohol dependencies coupled with mental health issues. Living in a tent through a Dunedin winter sounds as bleak as it can get, and these people do not need rubberneckers or politicians seeking media attention in their lives.

I was reminded of that recently when a politician asked me if I wanted to cover them giving pizza to those at Tent City.

I’ll pass thanks.

Remember after the closure of some boarding houses in the city, how we felt good about ourselves.

Feel better now?

As for the debate over Smooth Hill landfill, all I would like to say is that my hometown is Winton. Exporting our rubbish to another province seems like a backward move for a difficult issue. Just as I write this I’ve had a cursory read of a report into the issues of the former landfill at Kettle Park. I don’t see anyone making this into an election issue.

https://infocouncil.dunedin.govt.nz/Open/2025/08/CNL_20250826_ATT_3120_EXCLUDED.PDF

Part of that report talks about the large number of trucks, and the impact on the roads to Smooth Hill. In fact the opening of the landfill is an important part of the future remediation of the site.

But like all elections, we need to remember that often quoted phrase from the 1992 Bill Clinton presidential campaign.

‘It is the economy, stupid.’

That’s what people care about. The economy is tight and people have tightened their budgets accordingly.

But we don’t see this in our rates. Just this week my family received an updated statement. We now pay $72 a week. I can recall after moving here in 2008 we went to pay weekly to reduce the hit of that larger quarterly bill. That seems like yesterday, and the cost certainly was, we paid around $27.

My salary certainly hasn’t risen by the same amount.

But I am appreciative of the roads we drive on (fix those bloody turning signals), the water we drink, the museums and art galleries we visit, the events we attend, the books we get from the library, the pools we swim in, the parks we shoot hoops on, and the events we attend at the stadium.

Maybe it is a sign of getting older, but I am very appreciate of the replacement of ageing pipes under the city.

It was fantastic to see the Shayne Carter doco, Life in One Chord at the beautiful Regent Theatre.

I’m a big fan of Carter’s work, and his writing is top notch.

I remember as an 18-year-old moving to Dunedin to study at uni. I had spent some of my Student Allowance on getting a t-shirt printed with the (in)famous Melt album cover.

I walked down Princes St on a late summer’s day only to walk past the famed Mr Carter, who had returned to Dunedin after the band broke-up.

His punk rock scowl at my teenage fandom has always stayed with me!

Anyway, my biggest takeaway from the film was that I never realised the lack of bass in Randolph’s Going Home, was in itself a tribute to the later Wayne Elsey.

I also loved seeing Invercargill’s finest, Chris Knox on the big screen. What. A. Legend.

My top ten fave Shayne Carter songs.

1. Randolph’s Going Home

2. Cast Stone

3. Dialling a Prayer

4. Crystalator

5. She Speeds

6. Drop you off

7. Done (original version)

8. Dawns Coming in

9. Seed

10. Evolution

Here is Done, which contains a lyric about a seesaw, surely a nod to the 2025 Dunedin City Council elections and the often referenced playground equipment of George St.

See you again. Maybe.

We had just come from Southland Hospital to see my youngest brother, who was being kept alive due to a series of tubes, machines and health professionals.

It was at that cafe where mum ordered the soup of the day, my brother a cheese roll, which according to the menu ‘David Hasselhoff voted this as his favourite cheese roll in Invercargill’, and I had scrambled eggs.

That wasn’t really important, but I’m a sucker for details, and that included being served by a lovely Down syndrome woman.

She wanted to know my oldest brother’s name, and we all introduced ourselves, it was a nice interaction in what had been a largely sad day.

That’s when mum told us the story, almost distantly, and not really directed at either of us.

It was in 1980, not long after Tim was born when she visited another family with a newborn.

A proud mum holding her youngest of three, she was asked if she wanted to hold a ‘normal baby’.

“I cried all the way home,” she said.

That got me, and it was on my mind as I drove the two hours back to Dunedin playing a random selection of songs from The Beatles, my brother’s favourite band. I hadn’t purposely listened to the Fab Four for years, but knew every song by osmosis - thanks to my brother.

“"Little darlin', it's been a long, cold lonely winter, little darlin', it feels like years since it's been here, here comes the sun."

When Tim was born, almost 44-years ago, I remembered getting a plastic machine gun, and my older brother a plastic rifle, who immediately forced a swap with me.

And yes, I held a grudge for him for years over it.

That day we stayed at a neighbour’s house, and we later went to see him at the Winton Maternity Centre.

Photos show us holding a toy car in each hand, wearing matching brown jerseys and huge smiles. My mum, who was 32, and my dad, a few years older, are beaming.

If she was ever upset, I never saw it. It took a few tests and days to determine that Tim was indeed Down syndrome.

That didn’t mean anything to me, he was perfect. I now had a younger brother, who I could now boss around (spoiler alert: years later I found out about how stubborn a Down syndrome brother could be).

“There are places I remember - all my life, though some have changed. Some forever, not for better, some have gone and some remain.”

I never noticed the people who crossed the street rather than peer in the pram as we walked around the streets of our small town.

I don’t really know why we moved to the big smoke, well, Invercargill some 30kms down the road.

My parents bought a big old house on one of the few hills in the flat-as-a-pancake city. It offered views of the Takitimu mountains towards the north, and Bluff and Stewart Island to the south.

But Tim and I had a view of the driveway from the downstairs bedroom we shared together for some of the eighties.

I can remember our orange bedspreads, his Kermit the Frog toy, and his annoying habit of climbing into my bed and opening my eyelids to see if I was awake.

“You may say I’m a dreamer. But I’m not the only one.”

It was in that bed that I would read him stories, Spot, Dr Seuss, and Mr Men, often inscribed with a message from our wonderful grandma, and where I would test him on the alphabet.

I spent hours teaching him how to read, but for some reason he only ever wrote in block capitals. His notes over the years often looked like the messages of a serial killer, including cryptic messages of lyrics.

“SITTING ON A CORNFLAKE, WAITING FOR THE VAN TO COME.”
Tim went to a local kindergarten down the road, and then to Ruru School, which was for kids with special education needs. As an aside I thought that name, ‘Ruru’ was the Māori name for the kids who needed special education. The things we remember.

That was reinforced in the playground of my local school, which years later was closed by Trevor Mallard who also forced the closure of my intermediate school. On its expansive grass field, where you would always smell the meat works if it was a northerly, you would always hear ‘Ruru’, if someone did something wrong.

‘Mongol’ was another.

I can’t blame Tim for my first ever fight, but I can blame the kid who said my brother was a ‘Mongol’.

I can still see his smug face before I punched him in the nose, leaving him bleeding and crying, and me with a sore hand, and also crying.

#noregrets.

It can’t have been easier for Tim when he was mainstreamed a few years later, but I only recall him thriving at primary school, as he left in his taxi.

At his funeral service last Thursday, mum spoke first. I wasn’t sure if she was going to do it, but she delivered a heartfelt eulogy to “my wee gentleman”.

That included recalling that Tim would read his notebook entries from the teachers on that taxi ride home, and if it was bad he would simply rip them out and shove them down the side of his seat.

“Blackbird singing in the dead of night. Take these broken wings and learn to fly
All your life. You were only waiting for this moment to arise. (You were only waiting for this moment to arise).”

I don’t ever remember him having a tantrum, he was always good natured and kind, and was once even cast as Jesus in the Christmas play at our local Sunday School.

Shout out to the Presbyterians!

But he wasn’t quite the little Jesus. My older brother reminded me of when our neighbours called us to let us know that Tim was dangling off the TV aerial from the roof of our two storey house.

He once painted dad’s white car with brown house paint, but rather than receive the punishment we would get, he got a photo in the family album.

DOUBLE. BLOODY. STANDARDS.

I remember when he pulled the handbrake from dad’s car as it slowly rolled towards the Oreti River - with him inside it - before he was rescued from certain death.

Years later, just after the 9/11 attacks, he was stopped at airport security in Queenstown, as we were heading towards my cousin’s wedding in Wellington.

They patted him down and he was found with a large pair of fabric scissors. We just died, and still have no idea why he was taking them.

“Two of us riding nowhere. Spending someone's hard-earned pay. You and me Sunday driving, not arriving on our way back home.”

When I think of my brother I just think about his love of music, particularly The Beatles.

It started with their earlier poppy stuff, Love Me Do, I Want to Hold Your Hand, that sort of thing. The older he got the more he deep-dived into their more experimental records.

“Turn off your mind, relax and float downstream. It is not dying. It is not dying.”

He would write pages of notes, ALWAYS IN BLOCK CAPITALS, about The Beatles, their songs/lyrics, solo careers, and some of their deaths.

It really was his magnificent obsession.

His room in our old house on the hill was covered in Beatles’ posters, and I can still hear Paul McCartney’s bass lines reverberate through the walls whenever returning from holidays.

I remember mum calling me about Tim, just days after my brother and I left for university. Turns out he was giving her the silent treatment after we left home.

Days turned into months, months turned into years.

“I read the news today, oh boy. About a lucky man who made the grade. And though the news was rather sad.”

He was diagnosed as being an elective mute, but to my older brother and I he was just being a stubborn little shit.

I remember our first trip home from university when we held him down, tickled him and gave him dead arms so he would speak to mum.

“FUCK YOU,” he said through gritted teeth.

He would chat to mum no problem on the phone, but stay quiet if she was in the room.

Inevitably he would potter downstairs before disappearing upstairs to listen to music and to write his notes.

The self-imposed silence led him to develop a few quirks. One of his favourite things was to walk to a dairy to buy a Lotto ticket and TV Guide each week, but that regular journey ended when he decided to steal SIX copies of the same TV Guide.

In recent years he had lived in a supported environment with some others at a Pact house in Invercargill.

He loved it there, had a new lease of life and was becoming more like his previous self.

My family was looking forward to watching him compete in the Special Olympics in Dunedin later this year.

But his death, although unexpected, came fast.

He simply choked on some food, and was without oxygen for 20 minutes, before paramedics were able to revive him.

Mum was there when he was taken by ambulance to Southland Hospital, and was there when her wee gentlemen took his last breath three days later.

My brother taught me that life isn’t linear.

He never had a girlfriend, never got married, never had kids.

His wordly possessions, which consisted of clothes, books, CDs and albums, could almost fit in a car boot.

Tim didn’t hate anyone, was never in a fight, never bullied anyone online, never expressed jealousy, never called people names.

One in a 1000 babies are born with Down Syndrome, a genetic disorder caused when abnormal cell division results in an extra full or partial copy of chromosome 21. 

When I travelled throughout Europe, the Middle East and later Asia, the sight of a person with Down syndrome would always make me smile.

They would look more like Tim than myself or my older brother ever did.

Apart from his brilliant green eyes.

Those eyes were shut when I last saw him in hospital.

I took an AirPod out of my pocket and put it in his ear.

I played some of his favourite Beatles’ songs, as I wept for my brother.

‘And in the end the love you take is equal to the love you make'

Tim’s death wasn’t the only death that caught me by surprise, after the death of The Chills’ Martin Phillipps.

I wrote an initial reaction piece here.

I’ve been a long-time fan of his music, and I’ll let that do the talking.

My Top 5 Martin Phillipps’ songs.

Beautiful stuff. Rest in power Martin.

Lastly a mate sent me this. Enjoy.

These people are often the most vulnerable in society, and the choices they have available are limited due to the shortage of housing and lengthy waiting lists, with some impacted by mental health issues and alcohol and drug addictions.

A walk down George St is a visible reminder of the housing issues facing some New Zealanders. The other day I counted five people begging in just two city blocks - three of those had signs saying they were homeless.

I will never forget interviewing a man in Invercargill who ripped up the floorboards of his cold wooden house and burnt them on his open fire for warmth during a cold spell.

I’ve been thinking about whether I look at boarding houses, but decide to leave that to the ODT, but I have become increasingly aware of the number of motels and backpackers that have been housing those who were yet to find a stable address to call their own.

I first highlighted this in a previous newsletter when I wrote how Stafford Gables collected $86,000 from the Ministry of Social Development in 2020, for a total of 860 bed nights. I looked at this because I wrote about a family who paid $600 a night to stay at the backpackers on the night of the Red Hot Chili Peppers’ concert earlier this year.

That family, a dad and his three daughters, found damp sheets, pubic hair in a ball pressed into a wall, broken beds, a bathroom heater hanging by a wire and then the final insult: poo in the corner.

Probably not worth $600 a night.

But it got me thinking: just how many other accommodation providers in this city, are renting their rooms as ‘emergency housing’ to MSD?

Well, quite a lot.

But first an explainer: an Emergency Housing Special Needs Grant (EH SNG) is available to people who cannot remain in their usual place of residence, if any, and do not have access to other accommodation which is adequate for them or their family's needs.

That means the Ministry, in this case MSD, pays the grant directly to the accommodation supplier with assistance “generally granted for up to seven nights but can be extended dependant on individual circumstances”, according to housing group general manager Karen Hocking.

So if they stay for those seven nights, Work and Income will arrange another appointment to discuss their housing situation and if another grant is required.

“The Ministry recognises that motels are not a long-term solution, or the solution that we want to deliver for people who are potentially in a vulnerable situation. They provide a short-term solution while more sustainable options are progressed.”

That’s a good answer, and we can see certainly see an increase in housing stock from the private sector, council and Kainga Ora.

But back to the motels. So I filed an Official Information Act request (OIA to those playing at home) regarding how much those providers received.

In 2018, Dunedin accommodation providers received about $185k, with The Leviathan receiving about $45k to house 36 clients over a combined 435 nights.

By the next year, the figures show those payments increasing significantly to $445k, with the Cumberland Motel getting $86k to house 27 clients over 423 nights.

From those figures, it is obvious that most people were staying far longer than seven nights, and we can really see the crunch on the city’s housing sector.

From 2020 it really gets interesting, because that is the time when Covid hit and the borders were shut, so these grants also kept some of these motels afloat.

So in 2020, the grants topped $1 million, and included several places being paid six figures. That included Alcala Motel receiving $172k (45 people for 1299 nights), Owens Motel $172k (48 people 1203 nights), and then Stafford Gables, which I’ve previously reported.

In 2021, the number of grants fell to $426k, with Alcala Motel again one of the top providers with $76,497 (36 people, 555 nights) while Owens Motel earned $58k (21 people, 309 nights), and Cumberland Motel $58,526 (12 people, 270 nights).

When you break them down, some of these seem quite expensive per night. The Cumberland Motel works out to be $216 a night, given these are its normal prices.

Last year the grants increased to $531k, with Cumberland Motel earning $113k (24 people, 564 nights) and a big new entrant being Motel on Carroll with $107K for 21 people over 624 nights — that’s an average stay of 29 nights. Owens Motel made $77k, while George St Motel and Apartments made $72,120 to provide accommodation for just a dozen people.

This year, for the year ending June 30, the total payments were about $165k, with Cumberland Motel earning $77k.

The list includes a few places that had turned from backpackers to boarding house: Stafford Gables, Manor Place Backpackers, and a few more expensive places. That included Wains Hotel, which in 2020 hosted a dozen people for $1200.

The figures overall show numbers trending down in recent years, after the Covid spike.

Hocking note that demand for housing across New Zealand was growing and many people were experiencing a severe and immediate need.

This demand was generated by a shortage of affordable housing driving up house prices and rents. People on low incomes were most affected by rising housing costs and many sought financial help through MSD.

She also noted that some people may struggle to access suitable housing due to a lack of available supply, or they simply may not be able to meet the high cost of housing which may result in them receiving the emergency housing grants “for an extended period of time”.

And for people with high and complex needs, it can sometimes be challenging to identify suitable long-term housing, which can lead to longer stays in emergency housing”.

Work and Income worked closely with those people to “see what can be done to ensure that once they have a home of their own, they have the skills to sustain it, and the support they need to keep it”.

She also noted that emergency housing suppliers were expected to meet all the relevant regulatory standards imposed by regulatory authorities, including local councils.

Quality standards for emergency housing suppliers would be introduced on November 6, with MSD to prioritise working with suppliers who have signed up to these standards.

You can read more about those standards here.

MSD said no emergency housing providers in Dunedin were deemed unsuitable, largely because they did not have the information.

That’s because, and we are going to go full Monty Python here, MSD plays no role in building regulatory compliance. That was a job for councils, the Ministry of Business, Immigration and Employment and Fire Emergency New Zealand.

“The Ministry's responsibility is to assess people's eligibility for financial assistance.”

Last Wednesday, the city hosted Labour leader Chris Hipkins. We had the announcement at the Otago Medical School, then the staged visit at the cleanest student flat I’ve ever seen it (as an aside, why bring sugary donuts when a central plank of your election campaign is about dental care…), and then at Otago Polytechnic to open the new trade training facility.

I’m sure Hipkins will come back again on the campaign trail, and I expect that will include some visits to the Taieri electorate, and perhaps a student walk-around.

Last week’s visit was as much as raising the profile of Rachel Brooking, who now will face off against another candidate Jim O’Malley, who joins the likes of Michael Woodhouse, Dr Ben Peters and Francisco Hernandez in a fascinating campaign for a seat vacated by Dr David Clark.

Brooking should be the front runner in a Labour stronghold, but when the tide is turning, and it appears to be so, this will be one to watch.

Clark came into politics in the 2011 election, and numbers from that election showed he won almost 13,000 votes, to Woodhouse’s almost 9500. Of course that featured Metiria Turei who received 5700 votes. That same election saw Labour win only a few hundred more party votes than National, which were in power at the time under Key.

I remember looking at the results from the booths around campus, and being stunned that National won two of six booths. The next election they won all seven. You can read that ODT story here.

What I’m saying is that Labour can’t afford to take Dunedin for granted, as there is clear anger in the community about cuts to the tertiary sector and the hospital, while the cost of living crisis is impacting everybody. You add in a few candidates with name recognition and you would have to think it is ‘game on’ in the Democratic Socialist Republic of Dunedin.

A day after that visit by Hipkins, I was driving to Hyde to attend the Strath Taieri community board meeting, largely over the Code of Conduct

You can watch his apology here.

It was good he apologised, but I thought it would be smarter if he stood down as chair and stay on the board. But no.

“I’m sorry for the impact my behaviour has had on the person involved.”

I spoke to Cr Bill Acklin after the meeting, who said there was zero tolerance for the language Williams used, particularly from elected representatives.

He noted how those words had impacted the wider council and “snowballed”, which was in reference to the resignation of Cr Sophie Barker as deputy mayor, and two code of conduct complaints.

The strangest bit of covering the meeting came after Middlemarch resident Shane Loader used his five minute time to talk about Williams and the “racist underbelly” of New Zealand.

That prompted board member Tony Markham to ask him how he performed in the last election, and whether he ever played rugby.

“I played rugby, and I played it for 10 years,” Loader replied.

“How did I go in the community board? I came last, I was the lowest polling candidate and I am proud in a community that supports racist behaviour . . . that I came last.”

As an aside, Shane Loader’s father was the late All Black Colin Loader, who died in Dunedin in 2021, aged 90.

I feel that the divide in the Middlemarch community will take some time to heal.

If you want something different to do on Friday, try taking a bus.

The Dunedin City Council and the Otago Regional Council are offering free buses across the city on Friday to celebrate International Car Free Day.

Bee Cards machines will be deactivated for the day, and further information including timetables and the journey planner can be found here.

Next Sunday, Lan Yuan Dunedin Chinese Garden will celebrate its 15th birthday with a day of public activities at the garden, which coincides with Chinese National Day and the annual Moon Festival. More information is available here.

Do you know where this is? If so, please mention in comments below.

Leave a comment

I was interested to see that TVNZ had finally posted their job for the Dunedin reporting role, which was vacated in *checks diary* back in April.

“We’re committed to maintaining a strong news presence across the South Island,” a TVNZ spokesperson told me at the time.

That’s five long months, and it will be longer before the replacement reporter role, in this case a ‘Video Reporter’, hits the ground.

A video reporter of a different kind, here is a Dunedin travel special from a YouTuber:

Next month it’ll be 30 years since the release of this track, seems like yesterday:

And this:

So good.

Lastly, and quite importantly, I’ve made a decision to end the newsletter. It is time. I’m quite overwhelmed with work at the moment, and feel it is time. I have loved the opportunity given to me by Stuff (thanks to Mark, Angela and Julia), Substack (Hamish the main man), and of course you the subscribers. Any subscribers with time remaining on their subscription will receive a refund. Any issues with those subscriptions just contact me below.

My favourite posts have been the following:

And,

It has been a blast, you can still find my stories at Stuff.co.nz, or follow me on X @southernscoop, or email me anytime at hamish.mcneilly@stuff.co.nz.

And it is not over, far from it.

You would have seen my newsletter last night about Cr Barker’s resignation.

That led to me racing from my morning police briefing (another sad tale of youths causing issues after stealing booze), to get to the Dunedin City Council’s Community Services Committee meeting at the DPAG on Wednesday.

I got there five minutes before the 10am start, had some interesting chats with a few councillors, and almost got a half smile from Cr Lee Vandervis. Almost.

It was nice to be at a council meeting again. I’ve been guilty of watching too many of them online, via YouTube.

But like most things in life, you can’t beat being there in person

Obviously the meeting was conspicuous by the absence of Cr Sophie Barker, who until yesterday was the Deputy Mayor of Dunedin.

An hour into the meeting, chair Marie Laufiso (who runs a good meeting) moved that Cr Barker be excused from the meeting. Noted.

A high point was Cr Mayhem-Bullock adding that she was now a property owner, with that to be added to the declaration of interest. That’s to avoid any clashes when potential conflict arises.

But I digress.

I’m going to give some free PR advice, it is not rocket science, it is bloody obvious. But for a certain sector of our society, middle-aged white dudes (I am in this bracket), it is a very hard thing to do.

So what is it? It is saying ‘sorry’, not just for the offense you have caused, but because you mean it.

That was lacking in the Barry Williams scandal. It was missing when Mayor Jules Radich minimised the community board chair’s appalling comment, which he knew, in an ill-advised interview on RNZ.

And I say ‘ill-advised’ because I understand he effectively acted rogue on this, by agreeing to do an RNZ interview despite council saying it would not comment further on the Williams’ affair.

This is touched on in the statement from Barker, when she wrote “extemporaneous interviews”:

“It is hard to imagine that these have not undermined the integrity of the council,” she wrote.

She has a point. The mayor has had a couple of interviews on RNZ where his comments have later been walked back, with the Williams’ example being the latest.

Those around the mayor should probably tell him not to do live interviews. Maybe not ever, but at least for a while. Interviews can go south very quickly. If you want an example of this, please watch Jack Tame’s excellent interview with Christopher Luxon:

This is also great: Tova O’Brien with Chris Hipkins.

As an aside, Hipkins is in Dunedin on Wednesday. Dunedin is viewed as a Labour stronghold and he desperately needs a bump in the polls.

Eat a dozen cheeserolls and then smash a goon on Castle St, that’s my free PR advice.

Back to council.

So with Barker not at the meeting, where do things proceed from here?

Well, council is expecting to issue a statement this afternoon. This may be an acknowledgment of Barker resigning, an indication of her replacement, and perhaps a nod to the Code of Conduct. Maybe all three!

Another development will be at the meeting of the Strath Taieri Community Board in Hyde on Thursday.

Obviously I’ll be interested in how Williams handles the matter.

This is obviously also a blow for Radich, who reached across the political divide to announce Barker as his deputy mayor, that way keeping the highest polling candidate nice and close. But that relationship is all but over, and while he has the numbers on council, that will be far more eyes on him for the rest of the term.

I should mention that the council meeting had some interesting discussion on live music, theatre spaces, public art, and housing.

I wrote this piece about the live music scene, this sounds really promising.

I’m not sure if you read Dudley Benson’s post on the court releasing the full list of the 89 people who wrote letters of support for James Wallace, who, when he asked for that support, had already been found guilty of sexually assaulting three men.

That list included a few names you will recognise, you can read that here.

The Otago Regional Council sent a statement about its management plan to protect the upper Taieri River’s unique scroll plain. This is about protecting those important wetlands from the likes of grazing cattle. I was particularly taken with the supplied pictures.

My eldest son is due to start studying geography as one of his chosen subjects, and I can’t wait to bore him with my extensive knowledge of oxbow lakes.

Anyway, you can read more about that here:

Response Letter From Otago Regional Council

104KB ∙ PDF file

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If you know where the below was taken (not Greece, not Italy), please let me know in the comments.

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A bit rushed this week (I’m not doing the newsletter tomorrow), but I will leave you with song I’ve been playing on repeat. Play them loud.

And:

Dunedin deputy mayor Sophie Barker has resigned from the role, citing a difficult working relationship with Mayor Jules Radich.

Barker, who was first elected to the Dunedin City Council in 2019, was appointed deputy mayor by Radich in October.

‘’Cr Barker has a proven track record as an astute, strategic, hard-working and conscientious councillor and I’m thrilled to appoint her to the position of deputy mayor,” Radich said of the appointment.

“Along with her skills, Cr Barker was the top-polling councillor candidate in the recent election, which demonstrates the confidence the community has in her to deliver.’’

But fast-forward 11 months and that relationship between the pair has been fractured.

Here is the resignation letter in full:

This letter is to inform you that I am resigning as Deputy Mayor. It is untenable for me to continue this role in the current circumstances. The breach of the confidential Council meeting on 29th August is the last straw in what has been a series of breaches by the Mayor when he is giving extemporaneous interviews. It is hard to imagine that these have not undermined the integrity of the Council. I also believe after laying the Code of Conduct it will be difficult to maintain a close working relationship with the Mayor. I will continue to do everything I can as a councillor to better the city and community I represent and uphold the standards they deserve.

Radich has been approached for comment.

The friction came over the mayor’s handling of Barry Williams, the chair of the Strath Taieri Community Board.

That comes after an independent investigator Steph Dyhrberg, found a material breach of council’s code of conduct had occurred.

As Stuff reported last week, that involved Williams calling a hotel worker, who has since left the Middlemarch town, a ‘’stupid black b****’’.

That led to the matter being discussed in a non-public part of a council meeting, which cited the need to protect the identity of the victim.

Council then decided to send Williams a letter, which was later made public, and which asked Williams to resign.

‘’Council is appalled by your behaviour’’, the letter to Williams said, which was signed by Mayor Radich.

The released information then added council ‘’will not be making any further comment on the matter’’.

But the following day, Radich told RNZ ‘’it happened in a pub, and he didn’t even remember that it had happened, so it was just a relatively minor thing’’.

“’Certainly the people who overheard the incident didn't report it or bring it to anyone's attention,’’ Radich told RNZ, adding it was word-of-mouth which led to the complaint.

‘’Here he was out in a public setting and has lowered his standards so it's only appropriate that we do censure him and it's just unfortunate it has happened.’’

Radich told RNZ: ‘’I think it's not beyond the ability of anyone to come back from such a thing’’.

But that minimising of what happened has led to growing disquiet with the mayor, and his handling of the matter.

That led to a later statement where the first-term mayor apologised ‘’unreservedly’’ for those comments.

“’To be clear - a racist comment is always a racist comment,’’ Radich said in another statement.

But Radich’s handling of the matter is understood to be behind a Code of Conduct complaint against the mayor, which is being instigated by Barker and supported by Cr Jim O’Malley.

Details of that complaint have yet to be made public.

The council’s community services committee meets on Tuesday at 10am.

I’ll keep you updated.

We know about the one concerning Barry Williams, I’ve written a few of those stories and today on Stuff published what he said, “Stupid black b****”.

Williams was less keen on chatting yesterday.

As an aside, since publishing the stories I’ve had a mixture of positive and negative replies of my own.

Including this (from an Auckland businessman, yes, I looked you up, John):

“Don't you have any news to generate? The Mayor of Auckland's spot-on referring to you all as drongo media.”

I don’t understand how a community board chair calling a hotel worker a “stupid black b****” in a packed pub is not news. I guess I am a drongo.

Here is another one. I get ones like these semi-regularly:

“Journalists are one of the least trusted professions, nobody trusts you, so its naive at the very least to expect us to trust you.”

Thanks.

I’ve said it before, if you write any stories that touch on racism or the country’s Covid response I can expect my inbox, and particularly my spam folder, to fill up fast.

So back to closed door meetings.

Well, there is another one being held this week, this time at the Otago Regional Council.

The agenda for Thursday’s meeting, included Item 4. RESOLUTION TO EXCLUDE THE PUBLIC.

The only information available is: Proposed Maritime Reserves.

That’s interesting. This has been floated (excuse the pun) for a number of years (since 2019) but for whatever reason (Covid, too-hard basket) that has been delayed.
That could be because the six maritime reserves – which reach from Timaru to Waipapa Point – are in areas of rich biodiversity, but that rich maritime hotspot is also popular with recreational and commercial fishers.

Public consultation on the proposal to establish a network of marine reserves and marine protected areas off the coast of the south east coast closed on 3 August 2020.

By way of background, marine reserves offer the highest level of marine protection, and come under the Marine Reserves Act 1971.

The department responsible for the management of the country’s maritime reserves is the Department of Conservation.

That means that DOC is responsible for the implementation, management and monitoring of New Zealand’s 44 marine reserves. 

I was surprised when I checked, that DOC and Fisheries NZ received 4,056 submissions. Submissions were extended - due to Covid - and closed on August 3, 2020.

And then radio silence.

But if you wanted to fill up that silence you could always read those submissions. They are here.

What jumped out at me about this process has been how open the departments involved have been in proactively releasing information.

That includes the following:

• Recommendations report (PDF, 17,879K) (opens in new window)

• Map of Network 1 (PDF, 1,149K) (opens in new window)

• Paper from Ministers of Conservation and Fisheries to Cabinet Environment, Energy and Climate Committee 14 March 2019 (PDF, 212K) (opens in new window)

• Minute of Cabinet Environment, Energy and Climate Committee 14 March 2019 (PDF, 115K) (opens in new window)

More of this please.

And at 4.30pm I got the following response from DOC:

It is coming.

It was interesting to read that the Dunedin City Council was investigating a voluntary property acquisition scheme for flood-prone South Dunedin.

Mayor Jules Radich said purchased properties could be used for a range of adaptation projects – pumps or pipes, parks or wetlands, or new more resilient housing developments.

“If we start acquiring property today, it will give us more options tomorrow, meaning we’ll be better placed to build a new pipe, expand a park, or move a house – whatever is required to make South Dunedin a safer and better place to be,” Radich said

Council’s statement added that, as part of a draft indicative business submitted to Treasury, it estimated costs up to $132 million over an initial five-year period. That was based on buying 65 properties a year.

So my maths works that out to be a budget of $26 million a year, so in order to buy that targeted amount of 65 properties, you are buying home for an average of $400,000.

I jumped on TradeMe to see if there were any properties at that price in the impacted area. I found these:

Two bedroom unit ($369,000):

Three bedroom brick villa ($429,000):

Three bedroom ($352,000):

But obviously the key matter will be if other (newer, warmer) housing is available, and I suspect the former Forbury Park will come into play.

Watch this space.

I laughed when I read the ODT’s Today in History column as it had reference to a large crowd of youngsters becoming unmanageable, with several boys pushed through large glass windows.

The reason for this? Barton’s Butchery was handing out free kites. I found the original story here.

That happened on September 5, 1932, right next door to my actual office. Below is a picture from the Hocken of the building.

If you know where the below was taken, please comment below.

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Nice to see the Otago Community Trust awarding $30,000 grant to He Waka Kotuia Trust to support the Ngā Manu Kōrero National Secondary Speech Competition.

Dunedin will host this event for the second time in its 58 year history.

And NZ On Screen has announced that the Making New Zealand series has been uploaded. Dunedin, as you would expect, features heavily.

Speaking of TV, I don’t really watch any free-to-air anymore, but was contacted by a mate to say some footage I had shot was in a TVNZ documentary.

The footage is of old mate Barry Kloogh grimacing as he walked from court to his awaiting car. You can watch that doco, Crime: Need v Greed, here.

I loved this image from Critic about the trip into town from Dunedin Airport. Outstanding.

Spot the Dunedin locations on this new video from Dunedin muscian Neive Strang:

As an aside, the Could I Reset video was made by Sean Donnelly, who is known as the artist SJD and is a new(ish) resident of our fine city.

This week I located one of my all-time favourite Dunedin songs, it kicks arse.

Here is the Dead C with Scarey Nest:

And if you liked that, this is even better:

And lastly I went down a nostalgia bent, and found this. Who else had their school books covered in wallpaper?

Have a great week!