PHIL GOFF IS IN A CROWDED MARKET, FACE TO FACE WITH THE MAN WHO KEEPS CALLING HIM NAMES ON TWITTER.
“Hi, Phil,” John Tamihere says, turning his gaze to the middle distance. “Hi,” Goff replies, doing the same. Tamihere is campaigning at the Ōtara Markets with members of the Pacific Leadership Forum. Goff is there by himself, shaking hands. It’s an unhappy accident that they’ve found themselves walking down the same row of vege stalls. The mayor tries to cut the tension by focusing on the forum’s chairman, Teleiai Edwin Puni. With a glimmer of recognition, he mentions a campaign to build a Te Papa in south Auckland, incorrectly assuming Puni is for the idea. “We’d rather talk to you about our own plans,” Puni says, walking off with Tamihere in tow. Goff later raises the exchange with a local board member. “I thought [Puni] supported Te Papa,” he says, sounding slightly frustrated by the misunderstanding. It’s another vote he’s in danger of losing to his challenger.
Tamihere has made a habit of sidling up alongside special interest groups throughout his campaign to replace Goff as mayor. His message is mostly the same: they’ll get their way under his administration. He launched his campaign in January at Chamberlain Park golf course, where he’s backing a local lobby group in its fight to stop the Albert-Eden Local Board dividing the course to make room for sports fields and parkland. Since then, he’s revealed his support for a Takapuna group devoted to fighting council plans for a town-square development on the site of a public car park.
But it’s not just campaigners Tamihere is targeting. He wants to woo anyone who’s
