Auckland mayoral race: What they did in the Shadows (Bar)

Cost of living issues were at the forefront of the discussion as five Auckland mayoral hopefuls went head-to-head in their rowdiest debate yet on Tuesday night.

Two Auckland mayoral candidates, including one of the leading contenders, Efeso Collins, favoured higher rates for homes kept empty in some cases, during the lively debate before a student audience.

Collins said figures showed there were 30,000 unoccupied homes, a similar number to estimates on the shortfall of housing, and the council “should be getting people to offer them for rental”.

If that couldn’t be done, both Collins and animal justice candidate Dr Michael Morris favoured higher rates or taxes on them.

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The pair, as well as rivals Wayne Brown, Viv Beck and Craig Lord, faced multiple questions about housing and transport during the debate at Auckland University’s Shadow’s Bar.

Collins, a former president of debate co-hosts the Auckland University Students Association, won predictable support for his policy of fare-free public transport, also advocated by Morris, with Beck’s policy calling for fare-free for seniors, students and low income earners.

Lord cast himself as Collins’ inquisitor, loudly accusing the Labour and Green party-endorsed contender of having no idea how the climate would benefit from trialling walking and cycling on a harbour bridge lane.

Lord was shouted down with his opposition to co-governance, saying it was “time for New Zealand to grow up and be ‘New Zealanders’”.

“I’ll get 15% of the vote for being māori then?” said Lord.

A quick-fire “yes/no” round caused some candidates to struggle, Beck was booed for saying ‘no’ to cycleways, pedestrianisation, and reducing protection for character homes.

Brown took a while to end up at a ‘yes’ for an additional harbour crossing, and only Morris believed that he would not become the next mayor of Auckland.

In a tricky segment, candidates were invited to pick one other, with each saying what they had as attributes that the other lacked.

Collins picked his understanding of suburban Auckland – he lives in Ōtāhuhu – over Viv Beck, who lives and led business promotion in the city centre.

Brown backed his experience with a big organisation’s finances, and facing hard choices, in a match-up with Collins, but also said both offered a dignified approach to the mayoralty.

There were again stark differences of views on the need to act to curb climate change, with Brown favouring spending to mitigate the effects, rather than trying to reduce climate change.

Craig Lord believed Aotearoa’s global emission contribution was too small to matter and that “we’ve been hearing for years from scientists that the world would end tomorrow”.

All five said ‘yes’ to a question as to whether they would not only attend Pride and Big Gay Out events with the LGBT community, but that they would fund the events from the mayoral office budget.

None said ‘yes’ to the final question, posed by MC Martin Bradbury, that they would turn half of the council-owned golf courses into affordable housing sites.

Earlier in the day, retiring mayor Phil Goff said he would be voting for Collins, but stopped short of calling it a mayoral “endorsement”.