By Todd Niall, senior Auckland affairs reporter ofPhoto: RNZ / Lucy XiaAnalysis - In the end it was a trouncing. If you had attended Wayne Brown's Auckland mayoral campaign launch at the end of March, you would never have picked him to be the runaway winner just over six months later. Goff said on two occasions that the seven months he made available for his successor to mount a winning campaign was plenty of time, but no one from past campaigns agreed. Hutcheson, and other mayoral campaign veterans spoken to, said Collins did not manage to overcome the handicap of lower name recognition, outside his core constituency. It was only in the last weeks that Collins contested Brown's claim that he might "de-fund" the council culture and economic agency Tātaki Auckland Unlimited.

Source: Stuff October 09, 2022 03:03 UTC