Latest news with #BetterWellington
1News
6 days ago
- Politics
- 1News
More candidates quit Ray Chung's campaign group
Two more Wellington council candidates running under the Independent Together ticket have left the group following mayoral candidate Ray Chung's email about Tory Whanau. In a press release, the group confirmed that Andrea Compton and Dan Milward had left their organisation to campaign independently of it. It follows fellow candidate Lily Brown's announcement on Wednesday that she would not run with the group either. She said she did not feel aligned with tactics employed by Better Wellington who has helped run Independent Together. The changes meant that the number of candidates that stood under Independent Together had reduced from nine to six. ADVERTISEMENT In a statement Milward said that he was surprised by "recent allegations and the subsequent media coverage storm". He said that at an Independent Together roadshow event on Tuesday his wife was threatened by "agitators". "I knew it was time to take a different approach. "I'm proud of what we have achieved together but this is the right call for me, my family, and my community — it's time to run the 'Dan Milward Campaign'". Independent Together said the media scrutiny on its team had been intense. "The extent of it has been unnerving on our business and community minded candidates. "While the team feels the loss of both Andrea Compton and Dan Milward, we acknowledge the impact this is having on both of their families." ADVERTISEMENT They said that threats and bullying tactics from "the political establishment won't work on Independent Together candidates anymore". Compton said standing independently offered her the best opportunity to connect directly with her community. "This election is about listening, offering practical solutions, and having the courage to stand by what you believe in." Ray Chung sent an email, seen by RNZ, to three fellow councillors in early 2023 recounting a story he'd been told by his neighbour about the neighbour's son allegedly having a sexual encounter with the mayor. The email surfaced last week. Whanau rejected the contents of the email and said it was false and contained a "malicious and sexist" rumour. She has since received an apology from Chung.
Scoop
6 days ago
- Politics
- Scoop
More Council Candidates Quit Ray Chung's Independent Together Campaign Group
Two more Wellington council candidates running under the Independent Together ticket have left the group following mayoral candidate Ray Chung's email about Tory Whanau. In a press release, the group confirmed that Andrea Compton and Dan Milward had left their organisation to campaign independently of it. It follows fellow candidate Lily Brown's announcement on Wednesday that she would not run with the group either. She said she did not feel aligned with tactics employed by Better Wellington who has helped run Independent Together. The changes meant that the number of candidates that stood under Independent Together had reduced from nine to six. Independent Together billboards showing Andrea Compton, Dan Milward, and Lily Brown are up around Wellington. In a statement Milward said that he was surprised by "recent allegations and the subsequent media coverage storm". He said that at an Independent Together roadshow event on Tuesday his wife was threatened by "agitators". "I knew it was time to take a different approach. "I'm proud of what we have achieved together but this is the right call for me, my family, and my community - it's time to run the 'Dan Milward Campaign'". Independent Together said the media scrutiny on its team had been intense. "The extent of it has been unnerving on our business and community minded candidates. "While the team feels the loss of both Andrea Compton and Dan Milward, we acknowledge the impact this is having on both of their families." They said that threats and bullying tactics from "the political establishment won't work on Independent Together candidates anymore". Compton said standing independently offered her the best opportunity to connect directly with her community. "This election is about listening, offering practical solutions, and having the courage to stand by what you believe in." Ray Chung sent an email, seen by RNZ, to three fellow councillors in early 2023 recounting a story he'd been told by his neighbour about the neighbour's son allegedly having a sexual encounter with the mayor. The email surfaced last week. Whanau rejected the contents of the email and said it was false and contained a "malicious and sexist" rumour. She has since received an apology from Chung.
The Spinoff
16-07-2025
- Politics
- The Spinoff
Chaos on Courtenay: Inside Ray Chung's unruly, incomprehensible campaign rally
The controversial mayoral candidate's rally devolved into a mess of yelling, finger-pointing and claims of assault. I'm not sure where to start. I'm not even sure I understand what I just witnessed. On Tuesday night, Wellington mayoral candidate Ray Chung and his oxymoronically-named party Independent Together hosted a campaign rally – the final event in its Zero Rates Roadshow – at The Grand on Courtenay Place. By the end of the night, it deteriorated into the political equivalent of chimpanzees throwing their faeces at each other. It was an online flame war playing out in real life. It's always a risky proposition for a politician to host a large public campaign event while actively in the throes of a high-profile scandal. Chung has been at the centre of the media spotlight after revelations that he sent emails to three council colleagues spreading salacious and unverified rumours about Wellington mayor Tory Whanau having a drug-fuelled sexcapade with his neighbour's son. I had attended another Independent Together event the previous night in Miramar, and it went mostly according to plan; deep in suburbia, surrounded by close supporters. It was a different situation entirely in the centre city, a dark and mysterious realm full of young lefties and overly opinionated public servants who were driven to madness aeons ago by excessive consumption of oat milk and the hypnotic powers of the bucket fountain. The majority of the crowd were supporters of Independent Together, but about a quarter of the room showed up intending to disrupt, or at least watch the chaos unfold. Better Wellington campaign director Alistair Boyce laid out the plan for the evening: he would explain Independent Together's five 'campaign pillars', then each candidate would give a short speech, then a Ray Chung campaign video, a speech from Chung, and finally, they would open the floor to questions. The speeches mostly went to plan. The candidates stayed on script, almost identical to the previous night, though some seemed rattled by the larger and less agreeable crowd. Then came the time for the Q+A. The yelling began immediately. A man near the front bellowed at Chung, 'Will you apologise? Will you apologise?'. The crowd chanted back at him, 'Out, out, out'. A woman standing behind the yelling man stood up and started clapping in his ear. Judy Rohloff, who founded Wellington Rates Revolt and seemed to have appointed herself as Chung's enforcer, marched towards him and wagged a finger in his face. The poor security guards of The Grand looked completely lost. 'You may want to leave of your own accord,' Boyce said, but the man stayed seated. Before the hullabaloo had quietened down, three more people were on their feet and shouting. A woman in a red shirt and an N95 mask tried to ask something, but I couldn't hear it because she was drowned out by a man screaming: 'Take your mask off! Get out of here! Mask off!' She walked to the front of the room, raising her arms and clapping as the crowd roared abuse at her, then left. She seemed to be protesting a specific cause, but I have no idea what it was. Boyce directed the next question to an older woman who asked a long question about Chung's email controversy. The crowd yelled back and forth, 'Sit down', 'No, let her speak'. She stuck to her guns and eventually concluded with something along the lines of 'how are you going to persuade voters that you are a person they can trust?'. Boyce didn't want Chung to address it: 'Can we talk on the pillars?' Ignoring the pleas of his campaign director, Chung agreed to answer the question: 'That happened a few weeks after I was elected. We'd been to a lot of presentations about how we should have integrity on council, how we should not do anything to embarrass the council and all of these things. So when it happened, I didn't know what to do, so I asked three of my trusted colleagues, people I knew before I was on council for many years. That's why I sent it out, almost three years ago. Yep, you're absolutely right, I shouldn't have done it…' Just as Chung started to admit personal fault, Boyce cut him off. 'Ray's acknowledged that and he's apologised on the video for it, can we move on please? Please sit down.' (The video that Chung's campaign video released addressing the controversial emails notably did not contain an apology.) There were a couple of friendly questions from supporters. One person asked Chung about how he would ensure the council's chief executive wouldn't undermine his policies as mayor. Chung gave a slightly rambling answer, and again Boyce spoke over him to explain Independent Together's policy more succinctly. A woman at the back stood up. 'I have a question for Mr Chung.' 'No, no, wait your turn,' Boyce said as the crowd booed her. He directed the next question to a man holding a clipboard. Fifteen seconds later, the back of the room erupted with a scream: 'You did that on purpose, asshole.' It was the same woman. 'Look at my seat, it's wet,' she declared, holding her folding chair above her head. She pointed accusingly at a man in a suit whom she claimed had poured a drink on her. 'Look at him, he wet my seat!'. The crowd chanted 'out, out, out'. She held the chair aloft again. 'This is assault! This is assault! Look at him, he's the assaulter.' A man behind me called out 'good job, buddy'. Rohloff marched towards the chair-holding woman and scolded, 'shut up, you're a nutjob'. Another voice called out: 'Is this how you want to treat women, Ray Chung?' Security once again tried to intervene but couldn't decide what to do after competing sides of the crowd started bleating their case. A woman standing behind the ordeal asked, 'Are you all actors? Are you all actors?' (If they were, it was a thoroughly entertaining performance.) The moment there was a slight lull in the noise, an older woman stood up and started repeatedly demanding Chung take a stance on Israel: 'Will you declare Wellington an apartheid free-zone? Will you?' The rumble from the crowd grew louder. Rohloff confronted her, demanding she leave, this time with Historic Places Wellington chair Felicity Wong as reinforcement. 'No, I'm waiting for an answer,' she said, standing firm. All semblance of a Q+A session was abandoned. The entire room was talking at once, multiple people were on their feet yelling their questions, statements and abuse. All seven candidates were on their feet, huddling with Boyce, unsure what to do. Another woman stood up in the front row, turned to face the crowd and gave an impassioned speech with lots of arm waving. 'Apologise to the women of Wellington,' she demanded at the top of her lungs. Her furore didn't seem directed at Chung, though, because most of the crowd roared in support. 'If we had any common sense you lot would get in,' she said, directed to the candidates, followed by something about women's toilets. A young woman in a keffiyeh had been trying to ask a question all night and, realising that the meeting was about to implode, took the moment to project above the crowd: 'I have a question for Ray Chung.' The crowd jeered back 'No', 'no', 'go away' but she continued, 'what are three policies that you would enact as mayor to ensure a respectful code of conduct among the council.' There was a momentary stunned silence at the realisation that it was actually a decent question. Boyce didn't want to allow it: 'can we draw the questions to the pillars that we are campaigning on please?' She continued: 'Please answer the question, I feel like that's a really fair question to ask.' Chung looked lost and turned to Boyce for support. Rolhoff grabbed the mic and jumped to his defence. 'Have you never, ever made a mistake?' she asked. The rest of her speech was drowned out by more shouting, but the crowd applauded when she finished. She hugged Chung and Wong, and Boyce regained control of the mic. 'Thank you for attending, please vote Independent Together, please vote Ray Chung for mayor.' Half of the crowd jumped to their feet in applause. The rest continued yelling at each other. I sidled away home while the cacophony of arguments continued. What did I learn? Nothing, really, except that this year's local body elections are going to be really, really, unbelievably stupid.
The Spinoff
15-07-2025
- Politics
- The Spinoff
Ray Chung gets a woman to apologise for him
'Accountability really matters,' said the woman Ray Chung found to take accountability on his behalf. It was standing room only at the Miramar Community Centre on Monday night for the 14th edition of the Zero Rates Roadshow, the campaign event for mayoral candidate Ray Chung and his politicial-party-that-insists-it-isn't-a-political-party Independent Together. Chung has been feeling the heat of the media spotlight after revelations that he had sent an email to council colleagues spreading an unverified and likely defamatory rumour about Wellington mayor Tory Whanau – and repeating the rumour in a live radio interview. The controversy hasn't dulled his base of support, though. According to Independent Together candidate Ken Ah Kuoi, Monday's event drew the biggest crowd so far. Seven council candidates spoke, followed by an address from Chung and a Q&A session. Alistair Boyce from the campaign group Better Wellington (and owner of The Backbencher gastropub) MCed the event as if he was the party president; often stepping in to answer questions on the candidates' behalf, using the collective 'we', and at one point cutting Chung off when he started to answer a question in a way that Boyce didn't like. As the event began, Chung sat in the front row while candidate Paula Muollo made the first speech and addressed the elephant in the room: Chung's controversial comments. 'We believe that most people, if they reflect honestly, can recall moments where they exercised poor judgement,' she said. 'What matters is taking responsibility for it. We do not condone inappropriate comments or language, and Ray has acknowledged his deep regret for this lapse of judgement. Accountability really matters.' It was a much stronger apology than anything that has come out of Chung's mouth so far. He hasn't publicly acknowledged that his emails were inappropriate or admitted it was a lapse of judgement. The 'apology' video he released on Sunday included nothing of the sort. There was a brief reference to regret – 'I regret writing it and regret sharing it with people I thought trustworthy' – but the rest of the video was an attack on a 'deliberate attempt to discredit me' that was 'designed to undermine our campaign'. On Monday night, Tory Whanau said she had received an email apology from Chung, but he hasn't released this publicly. When Chung finally spoke to the crowd, more than 50 minutes into the event, there was no hint of the 'deep regret' he supposedly felt. 'The smear campaign against us this week has the Labour Party and Green Party all over it. They do not want to surrender control of the council coffers. They lost central government and now they want to keep their claws in local government money,' he said. 'The allegations have been thrown at us by a complicit media working hand-in-hand with political party lobbyists are designed to knock us out of the race. I say: give it your best shot… we don't be deterred, we won't be threatened, we won't be bullied.' That was the only time Chung acknowledged the scandal. Then, he was back to his stump speech about council spending. 'Every time I look at our finances, I stagger,' he said. He highlighted the cost of the Tākina convention centre and the temporary fencing around the waterfront. He honed in on the proposal to build a new regional organic waste facility, which would cost $35 million shared between Wellington, Porirua and Hutt City councils. 'Why not just get people to do their recycling at home? It's much, much cheaper to just get people a recycling bin and a composting bin and do it at home,' he said, apparently suggesting everyone own their own recycling plant. The questions from the audience were overwhelmingly supportive, often drawing applause at both the questions and the answers. There was one notable exception; an elderly man carrying a disorganised stack of papers who asked a long, rambling question about why he should believe the candidates' claims that a 0% rates increase was possible when councils nationwide had faced a 15% average increase this year. Boyce tried to cut him off, and the crowd shouted the man down, but he kept going until Chung agreed to answer the question. Chung's big idea was that he would ask other people for advice on how to save money. 'Other councils are looking at different ways of actually reducing the cost of running their cities, so I will be meeting them to understand exactly how they go to see what we can actually use in Wellington. So there are ways of doing this.' Most of the other Independent Together candidates offered little more by way of specifics. Muollo said the council needed to cut 'ideological pet projects' so they could fund her own pet projects of saving Begonia House and repairing the City to Sea bridge. The clear standout was Andrea Compton, who is running for Independent Together in the Takapu/Northern ward. The self-confessed 'infrastructure nerd' is the Group Financial Controller at StraitNZ and has previously worked on iRex and Transmission Gully. She spoke at a level of detail far beyond all the other candidates, including and especially Chung. She proposed changes to the council's budgeting procedures, selling Tākina, and reducing the downtown development levy. She gave examples of how the Whanganui District Council had kept their rates increases to 2.2%. After Chung's idea that everyone should do their own recycling and composting, Compton tried to save him by proposing an actual alternative: the council could work with Lower Hutt-based company Earth Starch, which has developed a scalable organic waste processing technology called Rosie2500. And so Ray Chung's campaign continues. He got himself and his entire team in trouble by spreading baseless and defamatory rumours about a woman's sex life. Then a woman colleague apologised on his behalf. Then, when it became clear that he didn't understand his own policy, another woman did the work for him.
RNZ News
11-07-2025
- Politics
- RNZ News
High-profile donor withdraws support of mayoral candidate Ray Chung after gossip email about mayor
Chung sent an email to three fellow councillors in early 2023 recounting a story he had been told about Tory Whanau by his neighbour. Photo: Supplied / Facebook A high-profile donor has withdrawn his support for mayoral candidate Ray Chung in the face of an email scandal , while another supporter is continuing to back his mayoral campaign. Ray Chung sent an email, seen by RNZ, to three fellow councillors in early 2023 recounting a story he had been told about mayor Tory Whanau by his neighbour about the neighbour's son. Whanau rejected the contents of the email and said it was false and contained a "malicious and sexist rumour", that she was now seeking legal advice on. Rich-lister and philanthropist Sir Mark Dunajtschik said in a statement he did not support Chung's behaviour. "I believe that the city will best be served by a mayor and councillors who bring a mix of business and local body experience. At various times I have met with and spoken to a number of different mayoral and councillor candidates. "Assuming the recent media reports, about dirty politics, are correct I am disappointed, I do not support that behaviour nor will I support any candidates who engage in it. "I urge all candidates to engage in a clean campaign and address the important and urgent issues facing the city, they should play the ball not the person," Dunajtschik said. Alistair Boyce, from the group Better Wellington, behind Chung's Independent Together ticket, said he was still backing Chung. He rejected Chung's email was sexist or malicious and said the release of it two and a half years' later was "dirty politics". "It was not a public email, or a public statement, there was nothing public from Ray about that, it was a private email." He rejected Chung's language in the email was sexist or malicious, but that he was "very naive" in sending it. "He was only two to two and a half months into his tenure as a councillor, a first-time councillor, he doesn't know protocols or procedures. "So he was very naive to put that - he should have probably just discussed it privately, in person, and said this is the situation I've come up against, with a constituent who has related this story." He said Chung could "chill-back" a bit in his campaign work, but that he was in no way saying he should step back from the race. "Ray yesterday worked from 5am in the morning until 10 o'clock at night. Now according to my maths, that's something like 17 hours straight. "Do you think that's a good idea?" Whanau said in a statement that it was deeply concerning that individuals spreading "harmful falsehoods" were now standing for election. She said spreading rumours was a tactic "designed to dehumanise, wear people down, and discourage good people from standing for public office". "(I) am speaking publicly because I believe we must take a stand against these kinds of false, sexist, and personal attacks," the statement said. "Our city deserves elected members who uphold the highest standards of respect, honesty, and integrity." Chung, on Morning Report , said he wouldn't object to apologising to the mayor. "On hindsight, if that was now, I think we're more aware of the things that we should or shouldn't say or the things that we should or shouldn't pass on. I think that I'm wiser now after a couple of years in council." Sign up for Ngā Pitopito Kōrero , a daily newsletter curated by our editors and delivered straight to your inbox every weekday.
