Chaos on Courtenay: Inside Ray Chung's unruly, incomprehensible campaign rally

The Spinoff

6 days ago

The controversial mayoral candidate's rally devolved into a mess of yelling, finger-pointing and claims of assault.
I'm not sure where to start. I'm not even sure I understand what I just witnessed.
On Tuesday night, Wellington mayoral candidate Ray Chung and his oxymoronically-named party Independent Together hosted a campaign rally – the final event in its Zero Rates Roadshow – at The Grand on Courtenay Place. By the end of the night, it deteriorated into the political equivalent of chimpanzees throwing their faeces at each other. It was an online flame war playing out in real life.
It's always a risky proposition for a politician to host a large public campaign event while actively in the throes of a high-profile scandal. Chung has been at the centre of the media spotlight after revelations that he sent emails to three council colleagues spreading salacious and unverified rumours about Wellington mayor Tory Whanau having a drug-fuelled sexcapade with his neighbour's son.
I had attended another Independent Together event the previous night in Miramar, and it went mostly according to plan; deep in suburbia, surrounded by close supporters. It was a different situation entirely in the centre city, a dark and mysterious realm full of young lefties and overly opinionated public servants who were driven to madness aeons ago by excessive consumption of oat milk and the hypnotic powers of the bucket fountain. The majority of the crowd were supporters of Independent Together, but about a quarter of the room showed up intending to disrupt, or at least watch the chaos unfold.
Better Wellington campaign director Alistair Boyce laid out the plan for the evening: he would explain Independent Together's five 'campaign pillars', then each candidate would give a short speech, then a Ray Chung campaign video, a speech from Chung, and finally, they would open the floor to questions. The speeches mostly went to plan. The candidates stayed on script, almost identical to the previous night, though some seemed rattled by the larger and less agreeable crowd.
Then came the time for the Q+A. The yelling began immediately. A man near the front bellowed at Chung, 'Will you apologise? Will you apologise?'. The crowd chanted back at him, 'Out, out, out'. A woman standing behind the yelling man stood up and started clapping in his ear. Judy Rohloff, who founded Wellington Rates Revolt and seemed to have appointed herself as Chung's enforcer, marched towards him and wagged a finger in his face. The poor security guards of The Grand looked completely lost. 'You may want to leave of your own accord,' Boyce said, but the man stayed seated.
Before the hullabaloo had quietened down, three more people were on their feet and shouting. A woman in a red shirt and an N95 mask tried to ask something, but I couldn't hear it because she was drowned out by a man screaming: 'Take your mask off! Get out of here! Mask off!' She walked to the front of the room, raising her arms and clapping as the crowd roared abuse at her, then left. She seemed to be protesting a specific cause, but I have no idea what it was.
Boyce directed the next question to an older woman who asked a long question about Chung's email controversy. The crowd yelled back and forth, 'Sit down', 'No, let her speak'. She stuck to her guns and eventually concluded with something along the lines of 'how are you going to persuade voters that you are a person they can trust?'. Boyce didn't want Chung to address it: 'Can we talk on the pillars?'
Ignoring the pleas of his campaign director, Chung agreed to answer the question: 'That happened a few weeks after I was elected. We'd been to a lot of presentations about how we should have integrity on council, how we should not do anything to embarrass the council and all of these things. So when it happened, I didn't know what to do, so I asked three of my trusted colleagues, people I knew before I was on council for many years. That's why I sent it out, almost three years ago. Yep, you're absolutely right, I shouldn't have done it…'
Just as Chung started to admit personal fault, Boyce cut him off. 'Ray's acknowledged that and he's apologised on the video for it, can we move on please? Please sit down.' (The video that Chung's campaign video released addressing the controversial emails notably did not contain an apology.)
There were a couple of friendly questions from supporters. One person asked Chung about how he would ensure the council's chief executive wouldn't undermine his policies as mayor. Chung gave a slightly rambling answer, and again Boyce spoke over him to explain Independent Together's policy more succinctly.
A woman at the back stood up. 'I have a question for Mr Chung.'
'No, no, wait your turn,' Boyce said as the crowd booed her. He directed the next question to a man holding a clipboard. Fifteen seconds later, the back of the room erupted with a scream: 'You did that on purpose, asshole.' It was the same woman. 'Look at my seat, it's wet,' she declared, holding her folding chair above her head. She pointed accusingly at a man in a suit whom she claimed had poured a drink on her. 'Look at him, he wet my seat!'.
The crowd chanted 'out, out, out'. She held the chair aloft again. 'This is assault! This is assault! Look at him, he's the assaulter.' A man behind me called out 'good job, buddy'. Rohloff marched towards the chair-holding woman and scolded, 'shut up, you're a nutjob'. Another voice called out: 'Is this how you want to treat women, Ray Chung?' Security once again tried to intervene but couldn't decide what to do after competing sides of the crowd started bleating their case. A woman standing behind the ordeal asked, 'Are you all actors? Are you all actors?' (If they were, it was a thoroughly entertaining performance.)
The moment there was a slight lull in the noise, an older woman stood up and started repeatedly demanding Chung take a stance on Israel: 'Will you declare Wellington an apartheid free-zone? Will you?' The rumble from the crowd grew louder. Rohloff confronted her, demanding she leave, this time with Historic Places Wellington chair Felicity Wong as reinforcement. 'No, I'm waiting for an answer,' she said, standing firm.
All semblance of a Q+A session was abandoned. The entire room was talking at once, multiple people were on their feet yelling their questions, statements and abuse. All seven candidates were on their feet, huddling with Boyce, unsure what to do. Another woman stood up in the front row, turned to face the crowd and gave an impassioned speech with lots of arm waving. 'Apologise to the women of Wellington,' she demanded at the top of her lungs. Her furore didn't seem directed at Chung, though, because most of the crowd roared in support. 'If we had any common sense you lot would get in,' she said, directed to the candidates, followed by something about women's toilets.
A young woman in a keffiyeh had been trying to ask a question all night and, realising that the meeting was about to implode, took the moment to project above the crowd: 'I have a question for Ray Chung.' The crowd jeered back 'No', 'no', 'go away' but she continued, 'what are three policies that you would enact as mayor to ensure a respectful code of conduct among the council.'
There was a momentary stunned silence at the realisation that it was actually a decent question. Boyce didn't want to allow it: 'can we draw the questions to the pillars that we are campaigning on please?' She continued: 'Please answer the question, I feel like that's a really fair question to ask.' Chung looked lost and turned to Boyce for support.
Rolhoff grabbed the mic and jumped to his defence. 'Have you never, ever made a mistake?' she asked. The rest of her speech was drowned out by more shouting, but the crowd applauded when she finished. She hugged Chung and Wong, and Boyce regained control of the mic. 'Thank you for attending, please vote Independent Together, please vote Ray Chung for mayor.'
Half of the crowd jumped to their feet in applause. The rest continued yelling at each other. I sidled away home while the cacophony of arguments continued. What did I learn? Nothing, really, except that this year's local body elections are going to be really, really, unbelievably stupid.