Efeso Collins pushes Hills out of Auckland Mayoralty race

Stuff reports:

A left-leaning contender for the Auckland mayoralty, councillor Richard Hills, has announced he will not be running.

Hills, who has Labour affiliations, has been working on a possible campaign since mid-2021.

However, he’s now said he won’t pursue it, on family grounds.

He’s not pursuing it because Efeso Collins has pushed him out in a massive power play.

Hills was the pick of the Labour hierarchy. Everyone knows he was both Goff’s handpicked successor, but also the pick of Jacinda Ardern (they are good mates).

Collins announced a few weeks ago that as there was no transparency around how Labour was going to select or endorse a candidate, he was going to stand regardless of Labour’s endorsement. This created a huge problem for Labour. If they went ahead with endorsing Hills, they would have had two Labour aligned candidates standing, and the chances of Labour keeping control over the Mayor’s office was reduced as a centre-right candidate could come through the middle.

So Hills has pulled out, despite having spent a year putting a campaign team together. This leaves Collins as the likely sole candidate on the left. Whether he has enough name recognition outside South Auckland remains to be seen, but many will vote for him regardless if he is the Labour endorsed candidate.