Capital Letter: NZ Herald's Georgina Campbell says Tory Whanau needs a win

Wellington Mayor Tory Whanau needs a win after months of controversy, NZ Herald's Wellington issues reporter Georgina Campbell says. 

After pushing for the council's sale of its stake in Wellington Airport and the failed Reading Cinema deal, Whanau desperately needs something positive to point to, Campbell told Nick Mills.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:07):
You're listening to the Wellington Mornings podcast with Nick Mills
from News Talks at B, taking the Pulse of the city,
the Capital Letter on News Talk seed.

Speaker 2 (00:17):
B News Talk set B Wellington Mornings every Wednesday. At
about this time, we get we're lucky enough to have
Georgina Campbell join us. She's Wellington New Zealand's she's New
Zealand Heralds Wellington's issues reporter. After three years, you think
I get that one right, wouldn't it?

Speaker 3 (00:34):
George? Good morning, Good morning.

Speaker 2 (00:36):
Now, First off, tell me your reaction to listening to
Tory Farno, who you know, you've done a lot of
stories on, you know, reasonably well no, probably as well
as anybody in journalism in Wellington area. What did you
think when you heard her come into the studio and
her reaction to my question?

Speaker 4 (00:52):
Yeah, I caught up with the interview yesterday while I
was at the gym actually, and I had to listen,
and I thought it was interesting that she admitted that
she wasn't passionate about the airport sale, she didn't campaign
on it. Interesting because it's costing her a lot of
political capital for something that she's not passionate about. And

(01:16):
didn't campaign on. Yeah, it's not really playing very well
for her.

Speaker 2 (01:22):
Do you think it's not you think that people do,
because I get she whenever you would have heard on
the interview, every time I mentioned somebody, she go, well,
that's only you.

Speaker 4 (01:30):
Yeah, And she's putting it down to political theater, isn't she.
I think was the word that she used repetitively in
your interview, and she's certainly trying to play it down saying, oh,
I still get on with these three counselors on other
issues and things like that. But yeah, I think from
having the council sort of together or working constructively, as

(01:54):
she said in that sort of lead up to the
final long term planned decision to this, it's sort of
like chalk and cheese. And you know she talked about, oh, well,
the consultation says that you know, the majority of Wellingtonians
either supported a sale or a partial sale. But I
have a real problem with that consultation because I don't
Wellingtonians were not told the full repercussions of what would happen,

(02:18):
or what council officials have implied would happen, which is,
you know, if you don't sell the airport, we're going
to have to seriously slash hundreds of millions of dollars
from the capital budget. Like people weren't told that when
they were consulted on the airport sale.

Speaker 2 (02:35):
So you think that more people would have been for
the sale if they knew that, or would they have said,
like me, they sell to social housing.

Speaker 3 (02:43):
Yeah.

Speaker 4 (02:43):
I think potentially people may have been less inclined to
support the sale if they knew the full extent of
what would need to happen if the sale did not
go ahead.

Speaker 3 (02:55):
Okay, anything else you talk out of it?

Speaker 4 (02:59):
Well, she needs a win. I think I wrote an
opinion piece like eighteen months ago, a year ago now
saying she needs a win. At that time, she said, oh,
you know, I've got something up my sleeve, sort of
pointing to Redding Cinema. Well, that's been a disaster.

Speaker 3 (03:18):
It definitely wasn't a win.

Speaker 4 (03:19):
So yeah, so I'm sort of, you know, I'm like,
what's her win? What's her thing? You know, when we
look back on torriy Fano's first term, what is her thing?
And at the moment, I can't that's not tangible for me.

Speaker 3 (03:31):
Okay, we talked about it on the show last week.

Speaker 2 (03:35):
And you've written a story about the concerns about bullying
at a Wellington school.

Speaker 4 (03:39):
Yes, I wanted to share this story about Saint Benedict's
Primary School in Kindala. I spoke to some exasperated parents
who've taken their complaints about this alleged severe bullying by students.
They've taken it all the way to the Education Minister's

(03:59):
office in their battle to be heard. So this is
really a story about parents feeling that not being listened to,
their children are having a really tough time at school.
And you know, one parent complained to the principal the
school board, then escalated her concerns to the Ministry of Education,

(04:21):
the Education Review Office and then the Teaching Council. So
that just gives you an idea of sort of all
the different layers of bureaucracy that they're going through to
try and feel that they have been hurt. So one
of them wrote to Education Minister Erica Stanford, and Erica

(04:43):
Stanford said, as a parent herself, her heart goes out
to the children involved and she understood the parents anguish
and not having their complaints adequately responded to. She said
the Ministry of Education was aware of the situation and
was closely monitoring the school. Now, the school board says
it is taking its responsibilities around well being and safety

(05:05):
seriously and seeing year leaders and staff work hard to
maintain a culture that is welcoming and safe. The board
acknowledged some people might think there are limited consequences because
many matters, you know, it needed to be kept confidential
when it comes to concerns around bullying, but you know,
with the full knowledge of what went on behind the scenes,

(05:26):
the board is confident the skill has taken appropriate, strong
and fair actions in response to bullying.

Speaker 3 (05:32):
Okay, I've got to finish with the fairy story.

Speaker 2 (05:34):
The New Zealand First have tweeted this allegation that the
ki terry was on autopilot and someone went to have
a coffee and came back. No one could turn the
auto pilot off and then coploc we hit the deck.

Speaker 4 (05:47):
It's an extraordinary question was posed by New Zealand First,
notably a coalition government party on x formerly Twitter yesterday.
New Zealand First tweeted, is it true that the uditary
ran aground when someone put the auto pilot on, went
for a coffee and then couldn't turn the autopilot oftentime

(06:10):
when that someone came back. If so, why haven't the
public been told that now? Maritime New Zealand has cautioned
that conjecture about the cause of the incident is unhelpful
while several investigations are ongoing, and Kerry Rows says the
regulated number of qualified people were on the ship's bridge
on the night of the grounding.

Speaker 2 (06:32):
They were there, but perhaps perhaps I'm surmising here, George,
I'm surmising that they didn't know how to turn the
autopilot off as it went into the Oh my gosh.
I know that you'll get to the bottom of that story,
and I know that you'll be writing about it sometime,
because well, there has to be more to that than
someone just actually coming out and tweeting it.

Speaker 4 (06:51):
I think, yeah, at the moment, I would say this
is speculation. It was posed as a question by New
Zealand first on Oh okay, you know, we have Maritime
New Zealand investigating, we have take investigating, and I guess
they will have the final say with the appropriate evidence

(07:13):
as to what happened.

Speaker 2 (07:15):
Thanks, and I'll leave you with the final say on
that one, George. Thank you appreciate you as always. Georgina
Campbell is new Zeald heralds Wellington's issues reporter.

Speaker 1 (07:25):
For more from Wellington Mornings with Nick Mills, listen live
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