Auckland mayoral candidates fail to impress ethnic community

Auckland's mayoral candidates failed to leave much of an impression on voters at a community meeting on Sunday.

John Alcock, Eric Chuah, Ted Johnston and Kerrin Leoni joined incumbent Wayne Brown at the meeting in the South Auckland suburb of Māngere Bridge.

Hosted by the Auckland Chinese Community Centre, the event drew more than 100 people who were predominantly from the Chinese community.

Each candidate was given eight minutes to deliver a pitch to the audience, which was followed by questions from the event emcee covering infrastructure, housing and leadership.

First up was Chuah, who claims to have experience in psychology and business circles.

Chuah promised to slash rates by cutting wasteful spending at the council, such as money spent on road cones.

"If I become mayor, no rate rises because I've successfully proven to you here, we have an action plan," he said.

Chuah vowed to do an independent audit of all council-controlled organisations and better asset management, including how to spend the Auckland Futures Fund.

He said Brown hadn't fixed "anything at all", alluding to the latter's election slogan "Fix Auckland".

Johnston, a criminal lawyer, vowed to focus on improving the rail system, reducing corruption and wastage at the council, and more efficient use of the port system.

He championed the idea of building "satellite cities" to ease pressure on the transport system and housing.

Launching a new Auckland lottery to raise money was also proposed to increase income streams, Johnston said.

Johnston said Brown had been "an invisible man" who had showed up for the first time at a campaign event and was trying to "sleep his way into victory".

Alcock believed the council shouldn't overreach and interfere with people's life and property unnecessarily.

The role of local government should be limited to managing public goods such as local defence, emergency services and infrastructure, he said.

Alcock refused to make any promises in his campaign pitch.

"I'm standing here to tell you what my principles are, and these are the positions that I will carry forward into any elected position," he said.

"From those, you should be able to determine what I will do."

Alcock said some values of Chinese culture such as "good work ethics, efficiency, family focus and community focus" should be adopted more in New Zealand.

Having a background in social service and consultancy, Kerrin Leoni pledged to focus on public transport, bringing contracts back to local businesses and support "density done well".

With Auckland Transport being stripped of its powers, Leoni said Aucklanders needed to secure more say from the central government.

She said she would extend train services to Kumeū-Huapai as well as create a dashboard to show if train services were on time.

"I'm not just standing because I want to be a mayor for all of Auckland," Leoni said.

"I want to actually address the books as well and make sure that the budgets are addressed and that every single dollar spent is accountable back to you as Aucklanders."

Brown appeared calm when delivering his pitch despite some earlier attacks by other candidates.

His greetings in Mandarin prompted a few laughs from the audience at the opening and closing of his speech.

Brown vowed to stop wasting money and regain control of council-controlled organisations such as Auckland Transport.

Brown felt "very proud" of the central government's decision to remove the transit visa requirement for Chinese nationals.

"So much has been done, and I'll seek one more term to finish these changes," he said.

Audience reaction

Those who attended the meeting generally left feeling as if none of the candidates really nailed their pitches.

Voter Susan Young expressed concern about transport, housing and infrastructure in the city.

Young didn't feel as if any of the candidates provided clear practical solutions in their pitches.

"I think [there was] a lot of ideology there, [but] not a lot of action pinpointing the actual problem," she said.

The council needed to ensure infrastructure could meet the needs of high-rise buildings as the city spread out, Young said.

Resident Annie Hu said rising rates, congestion, wasteful spending, slow progress on projects and a lack of public safety were concerning.

"I think they should have some focus and let us see some hope, such as if you want to do something, you should make it happen," Hu said, pointing to the scrapped light rail project that would have included Mt Roskill as an example.

She said Auckland did not have the transport system and infrastructure it needed to service the population.

Stella Hu, who was unrelated to Annie, expressed disappointment about Brown's three-year term so far.

Rising rates concerned her the most, she said.

"Rates have been increasing all the time. I don't mind handing in more money, but I want to see that it had been used to benefit the public," she said.

"But with the increased rates every year, I feel we're getting less service."

She highlighted several poorly maintained public green spaces and inorganic collections' booking services.

"I think Auckland is becoming worse," she said. "It's the city we choose to be home, and I feel disappointed.

"Why so many people are moving to Australia? I think they need to do some reflections."

Twelve candidates are standing for mayor of Auckland in the local body election.

Voting starts on Tuesday and runs through 11 October.