Council’s own survey mirrors findings of Better Wellington’s political poll

The Wellington City Council does an annual survey of residents.

In past years, the council has put the full results on its website, but according to Kiwiblog, this year only posted a summary of the positive highlights. (Wonder what it wants to hide?)

Sensing a rat, someone requested the full report under the Local Government Official Information and Meetings Act, and it is published here. And the results are interesting.

In a nutshell, this current council of elected representatives are dragging the city into the gutter. Actually, not dragging, but more like rapidly hastening the city’s demise. Since the 2022 local government election, the people who were elected to council have made decision after decision that is sending the city lower than the crumbling sewer pipes. Here’s the results from the council.

Those who have a sense of pride in the way Wellington looks and feels has gone from 82% in 2020 to just 50% in 2024. Those who think Wellington is a great place to live, work and play down from 95% in 2019 to 73% in 2024. The general view is trending downwards, and in a hurry too!

What about the City Centre. Those who think the city centre is lively and attractive has rapidly declined from 88% to 37%. The Mayor Tory Whanau will argue that her Golden Mile with the huge cycle lane down the middle will fix that. The Mayor is living in Disneyland and her ego is writing cheques that the city can’t cash (to paraphrase the original Top Gun movie!)

While the city centre might be in freefall, at least the suburbs are profiting from the crash. This mirrors our findings, which was explained well by Gubb’s Shoe Shop owner, Julie Gubb, in a video for Better Wellington here.

Dissatisfaction with the council’s performance is at 56% according to its own data.

Better Wellington’s poll found that 51% believe the council’s performance is abysmal. To put it another way, 86% believe the council’s performance is merely average or worse.

Here’s the kicker! The city councillors who were elected on a Green Party ticket, the likes of Geordie Rogers and Deputy Mayor Laurie Foon, all dismissed the Better Wellington poll as being biased. According to some councillors, they were slagging off our poll at council the day after it was released. They said it can’t be trusted because Curia Market Research is apparently not a member of Research Association of New Zealand. The Mayor herself is quoted by Wellington’s daily newspaper The Post saying the same thing, and accusing Better Wellington as being a “conspiracy-aligned group with a clear right-wing agenda”. That must make the thousands who have signed up to our website to change the council as all being “conspiracy-aligned”, whatever that means.

Well, the data itself demonstrates the results are on the button when compared with the council’s own survey. The council didn’t want their results getting out, but there it is. You can read all the bad news yourself. The link is in this article.

NOTE: We’re told that the council has written to The Post criticising the publication for running an article about our poll when Curia Market Research is not a member of the RANZ. Not sure if that’s true, but The Post would undoubtedly reply to that with a good, old fashioned “who cares”.