WINDBAG: Is the work of delivery trying to freeze your strongest Yimby?

Wellington city councilwoman Rebecca Matthews is one of New Zealand’s most effective lawyers for real estate reform. But it seems that the labor party no longer wants it.

On Sunday, April 6, the Wellington Labor Party will vote to confirm its candidates for the local body elections later this year. The nominations were initially closed in March, but were extended because the party fought to find appropriate candidates in various wards – and especially found no one to carry their flag in the mayor’s race.

The most conspicuously empty ward is the Nonslow-Western ward, which goes from Karori to Khandallah. The acting advisor to work in the wing, Rebecca Matthews, did not decide if he ran again. If she does, it may not be for labor.

The co-president of Wellington’s workplace work Committee Paul Tolich confirmed that the party had not yet received an appointment to the candidate for Matthews before the extended deadline. However, no one of the party asked Matthews to run again.

According to various sources of the party, the relationship between the work and Matthews was cold. There was an effort to silently freeze Matthews so that she would not apply for the nomination again – and if she did, members can vote against her.

When asked if the party was giving Matthew’s cold shoulder, Tolich said, “In any political organization, there will be groups that like one candidate over another.” He confirmed that Matthews was still a financial member of the Labor Party and said: “Constitutionally, we cannot prevent a financial member from defending the nomination.”

Who is Rebecca Matthews?

In his two terms on the board, Matthews named it mainly as a defender of the density and accessibility of housing. It also operates in climate change and transportation issues and presides over the important long -term plans, finances and performance committee.

Matthews was the leading force in the multiannual campaign to allow greater housing density in the council’s district plan-which culminated in a change that I described as The largest and fattest in the history of the pro-housing movement of this country. She wrote several of the most significant amendments to the plan and built support to pass them with a clear bipartisan majority. Changes include reducing the size of the character areas, increasing height limits in the internal suburbs, removing the setbacks from the front yard, and making Adelaide Road a high density zone.

After the district plan’s decision, I praised Matthews as “loved by the young man, the activist left and still pragmatic enough to gain ample support” and suggested that work of work can look at him to run in the ōhāriu electorate. Clearly, I was wrong. The electorate of ōhāriu no longer exists, and the work is distancing itself from Matthews, instead of hugging it.

What happened?

The offense that seems to have placed Matthews to prevent labor faithful is that it was not strong enough to oppose the sale of the council’s minority participation at Wellington Airport. To be clear: Matthews never voted to sell the airport shares. She voted against it on three occasions. However, she was not particularly vocal and, unlike Ben McNulty and Nredddin Ventuahman, she was not willing to take the nuclear option and vote in the board’s 10 -year budget to stop the sale.

The sale of the airport was a highly emotional issue for the Wellington unions, which organized a fierce campaign against it, which Oliver Neas covered in great detail in the series of three parts of the spinoff “Lost privatization ”. dredge for the old trauma of asset sales and apparently left members of the labor party with Bad blood towards Matthews, whom they realized as not having done enough to prevent him.

Frankly, I think participation in the party is making a big mistake. If there is no room for Rebecca Matthews at the Wellington Labor Party, it says more about the local party than about it. They are being victims of the old political trap: placing an ideological purity test ahead of Matthew’s history of significant progressive results.

A green source told me that if Matthews would change aside, it would be received with open arms and surrounded by all the support, Awhi and voluntary energy that the party could gather. It would be a major recruitment blow to a party that, despite its growth in recent years, still struggles to find serious candidates.

If Matthews would like to move to green is another question. She could compete as independent or independent with party support and not as a party candidate, or simply not running. Labor nominations close on April 2 before the party’s vote on April 6. If two financial members appoint Matthews as a candidate, he will go to a party association vote.

What does this mean for the election of the local body?

OnSlow-Western sends its three first pulp candidates to the board based on a single transferable vote (classified choice). He is a conservative wing of Wellington’s standards – was Andy Foster’s place for 27 years. In the 2022 elections, Matthews finished third behind Ray Chung and Diane Calvert, two of the most firm opponents on the Tory Whanau agenda. The fact that Matthews was elected twice – while still achieving significant progressive goals – makes it a political heritage. It would be difficult for the labor/green coalition to gain a majority of the board without at least one of the onslow-western seats.