13 hours ago
Kerrin Leoni wants to be the next mayor of Auckland. Does she have a chance?
From Mount Roskill to Waiheke to London and back, Whau ward councillor Kerrin Leoni explains her path to politics, what she's learned from Wayne Brown and why she's making a bold bid to take his job.
'Isn't he funny?' says councillor Kerrin Leoni. She's talking about current Auckland mayor Wayne Brown, who has just mockingly told a reporter he won't be giving him any comments as the governing body meeting breaks for lunch. Leoni laughs as she tucks into one of the rolls offered around.
This morning has been spent in the council chambers at Auckland Town Hall, discussing budget appropriations and the year ahead. Across the road at the food court, Leoni sits amid the lunchtime rush, standing out in a multicoloured floral blazer, red lipstick and a large pounamu around her neck. Her hair is pulled back in a tight bun, gold ball earrings dangling from her ears as she tucks into a pho – the roll was seemingly just a ratepayer-funded entree, which few would blame Leoni for taking advantage of.
'I think the council has had a certain type of leadership for a long time, and we need new leadership to get more Aucklanders excited about what happens with council,' says the 44-year-old first-term Whau ward councillor between spoonfuls of broth. She has a calm, assured presence: calculated and refined, warm yet cautious. She's undergone media training for her mayoral campaign in the lead-up to the October election, and it shows. Every response is carefully considered, revealing just enough, never too much. It makes her hard to read.
Born and raised in Auckland, Leoni spent her early years in the suburb of Mount Roskill with her grandmother. Later, she moved to Waiheke Island to live with her grandfather and uncle and attended Waiheke High School. For her final year of secondary school, she went to Louisiana in the deep south of the United States, where she experienced overt racism for the first time. 'I stayed with a Pākehā family first, and they told me I wasn't allowed to have black friends. That was pretty full on.'
Back in Aotearoa, Leoni enrolled at AUT, studying Māori development and social work, eventually completing a master's degree. By 21 she was working for Child, Youth and Family, and by 23 she was supervising staff twice her age. Alongside a group of friends, she also began investing in property.
In her mid-20s, Leoni moved to London. It wasn't your run-of-the-mill OE: she launched a consultancy specialising in social work and quality assurance, and completed another master's degree at King's College London in economics and international politics. Recognising her privilege, she started a charitable organisation called Mana Aroha, helping young Māori and Pasifika move to London for work and exposure. 'I've always had that inspiration to give back to the community,' she says. 'I felt very blessed to have the opportunity to work and travel somewhere I didn't experience the racism we face here as Māori.'
A decade abroad gave her a new lens on what makes a world-class city. 'I came back and felt our transport system was way behind, our infrastructure was way behind. Auckland's a beautiful city – but there's so much more we could be doing.'
In chambers, Leoni keeps a relatively low profile compared to councillors like Maurice Williamson and Alf Filipaina, who go at it like old foes. Leoni sits two seats from Mayor Brown, next to deputy mayor Desley Simpson – a proximity she says limits her ability to challenge him directly. 'It's hard to get into debate with the mayor because I sit so close to him.'
Before announcing her mayoral run last October, she approached Brown to let him know, as a courtesy. 'We have mutual respect, but I don't need his permission.' She says that mutual respect is partly due to their shared connections in the north. She also admires his no-nonsense approach to setting boundaries. 'What I've learned from Wayne is that it's OK to say no to media if your energy's low – as long as you're doing the job. He turned down over 180 interviews early on, and no one questioned it because he's an older white male. It showed me you can set boundaries, delegate, and still lead effectively.'
While it's not quite accurate that no one questioned Brown's reluctance to engage with the media, it's true that his standoffishness with the press doesn't seem to have dented his credibility or popularity.
Leoni's ward, Whau, covers the central-western suburbs of Blockhouse Bay, New Windsor, Avondale, Green Bay and Kelston, and that's likely where a majority of her support lies. But she knows that to win, she'll need to reach all corners of the supercity – especially into the north and east, where the voter base is older. 'The highest number of voters are 60 years and over, so you've got to have the right policies that resonate with them.'
Those policies include bringing council contracting and services in-house to reduce waste, improving city safety – especially on public transport – and continuing efforts to reintegrate agencies like Auckland Transport. She also supports affordable housing, better transport, sustainability and inclusive, transparent governance, she says. 'I feel central government is doing education and health, and we're pretty much doing everything else,' she tells her fellow councillors during a budget meeting.
Returning to Auckland, Leoni says, was always about giving back. 'There were times when I wasn't 100% sure I was going to come back, but I hit that 10-year mark [in London] and I knew it was time.'
She came home in late 2015, and had twins Kahu and Atarangi with her ex-husband Damian in 2017. They realised their central city apartment was too small for a growing family and bought a home near relatives in Avondale, where Leoni still lives. 'I went from travelling the world to breastfeeding 20 hours a day,' she laughs. The two now co-parent the twins.
A Labour Party member, in 2018 Leoni got an email from the party encouraging members to run for local government. She had governance experience through her iwi, Ngāti Kuri and Ngāti Paoa, and says politics felt like a natural next step. 'With all the skills I'd learned overseas, I wanted to come back and contribute to Auckland.' She was elected to the Waitematā Local Board under the City Vision ticket and served as deputy chair in the first half of the term.
There, she met Richard Northey, the board's chair and a former Labour MP. He became a political mentor. In 2020, Leoni stood for parliament as Labour's candidate in Waikato, coming second to National's Tim van de Molen in the safe blue seat. Her party list placing of 66 wasn't quite high enough to get her into parliament, despite the red wave of 2020 returning the party a historic 64 seats, but she hasn't ruled out another bid in the future. 'I'm really open to all options… I'd love to look at central government at some point.'
In 2022, Leoni ran for Auckland Council in the Whau ward on the Labour ticket, narrowly beating incumbent Tracy Mulholland by 362 votes. She became the first wāhine Māori elected to the council since the 2010 supercity merger. Now, she says, the next step feels obvious. 'I was a local board member, then a councillor – now it's a natural progression to become mayor.'
Leoni isn't leaning on identity politics to get there. 'It's not about being the first Māori woman mayor – it's about whether Aucklanders think I've got the policies and strength to lead.' Since announcing her run, she's built a campaign team of around 100 volunteers, attended public events, visited places of worship, and made inroads with both iwi and unexpected allies, like members of the Sikh community.
'Wayne's a millionaire. I'm not,' she says. 'But I've already costed the basics – hoardings, leaflets – and I'm prepared to cover them myself.' At her peak, Leoni owned five properties across Aotearoa. Now she owns three: in Auckland, Waikato and Kaitāia, where she has whakapapa ties.
Regardless of the result, Leoni says she has options – a return to work with Ngāti Paoa or Ngāti Kuri, or perhaps politics in Northland. But what's clear is that she's not backing away from public life.
