What I Stand For

I am running for Mayor because I want to regain people’s trust in Council and get stuff done. Here are some ideas that if elected Mayor I will be promoting and actively supporting:

Make Christchurch an even better place to live

  • Be a strong voice that is focused on Christchurch’s best interests, particularly by building a good relationship with government.

  • Focus on economic development in Christchurch to ensure opportunities for our kids and grandkids into the future.

  • Support our vulnerable citizens by improving the quality of our social housing.

Deliver core services better

  • Improve council response times for services to residents.

  • Ask Council staff what processes are stopping them getting their jobs done more efficiently – what’s slowing them down – and get their ideas for change. 

  • Lead and foster a can-do approach across Council.

Keep rates affordable and reduce debt

  • With interest rates on the rise and inflation increasing, go over the books line by line to see where we can save money.

  • Keep rate increases below the rate of inflation over the next three years.

  • Grow the value of our city’s assets.

Finish our roads and footpaths

  • Prioritise repairs to roads, footpaths and other core infrastructure and services that are overdue.

  • Establish an in-house roving maintenance crew connected to the Council’s call centre that goes out to fix things when a complaint comes in, and also spots issues in the community and fixes them.

  • Better plan and link up all work needed in an area, so it is undertaken at the same time.

Look after our Environment

  • Reduce Council’s carbon footprint and develop pragmatic solutions to identify and respond to climate change issues. 

  • Support and engage with affected communities to look at measures to mitigate and adapt to the impact of climate change especially for our coastal and riverside neighbourhoods.

  • Focus on greening our neighbourhoods and increasing our tree cover canopy.

Regain ratepayers’ trust in the Council

  • Become a visible Mayor in the community that gets out of the office, listens to people, groups, iwi and businesses to see what is happening in their neighbourhoods.

  • Give each Councillor a specific portfolio that they are responsible for overseeing and becoming a subject expert. This will lift accountability and improve knowledge around the table.

  • Genuinely listen to our ratepayers to identify roadblocks and find out how we can improve what we do – after all, it’s ratepayer money we are spending.

Five Minutes With Phil

Q: Why are you running for Mayor?

I will bring practical leadership and creativity to the role of Mayor.

The city has progressed since the earthquakes and there is a lot of positivity out there. However, too many things are still taking too long. I am going to go out of my way to get stuff done.  We must be open to innovative thinking and trying new things.

We have a diverse ratepayer base in Christchurch, and we need to balance looking after those that need help, with also making sure Christchurch is an easy place to build and invest in.

I want to keep rates affordable.  I would like to see them down around the rate of inflation. 


Q: What are some of your concerns?

We are on our way to becoming a world-class city, but we must get the basics right too. I’ll keep pushing to make sure we provide the right budget to fix our roads, footpaths, sewers and water mains – they are our core business, they need to be repaired and maintained.

The upcoming Three Waters (drinking water, wastewater and stormwater) changes are a concern to our city, the council should be able to decide if we can opt in or out of these reforms. To take away local democracy sets a dangerous precedent.

Another key focus for me is spending and managing our money carefully by making long-term investments. Our ratepayers pay half a billion dollars annually in rates, they deserve the confidence this will not be frittered away or comprised by short-term thinking.

I voted in favour of retaining the larger capacity for the Stadium and proposed the council approach other parties, such as neighbouring councils, to secure additional capital. The fact that councillors were given the wrong costs is not good – we must make sure this does not happen again.