1989 Christchurch mayoral election

The 1989 Christchurch mayoral election was part of the New Zealand local elections held that same year. In 1989, election were held for the mayor of Christchurch plus other local government positions. The polling was conducted using the standard first-past-the-post voting method.

Incumbent mayor Hamish Hay had first entered the city council in 1959 and has had continuous service since then. For the last five terms, he had been mayor, and he had announced his mayoral candidacy in October 1988. Less than two months out from the election, he pulled out of the contest due to ill health.^[1][2]

There was deadlock on the city council with a four-way split in its membership. The Labour Party won a plurality of seats with seven seats, the United Citizens won seven, the new Christchurch Action ticket with six seats and the remaining three seats won by independent candidates. Prior to the election there was a schism on the right wing Citizens' Association resulting in two conservative tickets running against each other.^[3] Christchurch Action was set up, comprising former councillors from districts that merged with the city as part of the 1989 local government reforms.^[4]

Hay was succeeded by Labour Party councillor Vicki Buck who became Christchurch's first female mayor.^[5]

The following table gives the election results:

Vicki Buck polled highest in all but one of the Christchurch Wards, Margaret Murray won her own Waimairi ward, while Fahey did not get a plurality in any ward, his highest polling ward being Heathcote^[10]. Polling by The Star suggested Buck would dominate a majority of the wards although the opposing candidates disputed the figures during the campaign. ^[11][12]

Footnotes: * denotes incumbents

Buck was elected the first ever female mayor of Christchurch, and four women were elected to the council. Margaret Murray and Morgan Fahey both conceded in a friendly manner in person on the night. Fahey, her nearest opponent, became the deputy mayor.

Despite losing the mayoralty, Action performed very well and Citizens' lost its overall majority on council. There was accusation that Action split the centre-right vote and lead to no overall control on the council. Because of the Citizens' animosity towards the action team Labour and Citizens' formed an alliance on the council which resulted in Action missing out on a fair share of committee chairmanships.^[5][14]

Dennis Rich retained his position as team leader after the election, but Labour's team leader Alex Clark was replaced by Pegasus councillor David Close after Clark expressed a preference to focus on his regional council seat. Clark was also unable to secure a committee chairmanship, even in transport, despite his advocacy for a city owned bus company.^[14]

Although Labour candidate Arthur Adcock had won on election night by a margin of 19 votes, independent Mike Stevens refused to concede and sought multiple rounds of recounts, eventually resulting in Adcock losing his seat to Stevens.^[15] This meant Labour's election night plurality of seats was also lost. There was also legal action in the Papanui ward over the nature of election material.^[16]

Mayor Buck initially tried to get councillors to sit in alphabetical order next to each other, however, councillors ended up moving their own name plates around to sit in party/team blocs.^[17]