Latest news with #Whanau
NZ Herald
22-07-2025
- Politics
- NZ Herald
Exclusive: More explicit rumours about Tory Whanau – this time from Auckland councillor Maurice Williamson
Whanau, who has no objection to the Herald publishing the video as an example of the abuse she faces, said Williamson's comments 'make me feel sick'. 'It seems to be these older, weird creepy men who speak about me but also others like that. This sexualisation of women in leadership roles is purely intended to dehumanise and reduce us in terms of character.' Auckland Councillor Maurice Williamson spread a sexually explicit rumour about the Wellington Mayor during an Auckland Council committee meeting in 2023. Photo / Brett Phibbs The revelation comes after the Herald obtained an email written by Wellington mayoral candidate Ray Chung in which he passed on gossip from a neighbour about Whanau having 'tempestuous' drug-fuelled sex on New Year's Eve 2022 and having 'soft pendulous breasts'. This new rumour, like the New Year's Eve gossip, was not true, said Whanau, and was equally able to be proven false. She said the rumours were part of highly-sexualised dialogue aimed at her – and other female politicians – to demean them and undermine their roles. Williamson's comment was captured on the official Auckland Council recording but never made public. The Herald has obtained the key section, in which Williamson makes reference to Whanau allegedly performing a sex act. He has been approached for comment but is yet to respond. The video did not capture the beginning of Williamson's comments because of meeting business, and the end of his comments were indistinct because fellow councillors were trying to shout the former National MP down. As Williamson continued to speak, somebody at the meeting shouted: 'Maurice, Maurice, you better belt up mate'. Independent Māori Statutory Board deputy chairman Tau Henare, who sat in Cabinet as a minister alongside Williamson in the late 90s, can be heard immediately calling a point of order. 'I actually think you should sanction that outburst. We don't have to sit here and listen to [video cuts off].' Wellington Mayor Tory Whanau says some people try to sexualise and dehumanise women in leadership roles. Photo / Mark Mitchell Williamson's comments appear to stem from a rumour that ran rampant in late 2023 after Whanau admitted to drinking too much on November 18 at Wellington's Havana Bar. She later said she had a drinking problem for which she would seek help. A rumour emerged on social media claiming a recording existed of Whanau carrying out a lewd act while at the bar. Whanau always maintained the rumour was false, yet it persisted despite 10 witnesses and a bar manager also saying it was false. Whanau said oppressive sexualised commentary about women leaders has increased in recent years. She said former Prime Minister Dame Jacinda Ardern, Green MP Tamatha Paul, former Labour Cabinet minister Kiritapu Allan, former Green MP Golriz Ghahraman and Auckland councillor Julie Fairey and others have been targeted. Wellington Mayor Tory Whanau says women leaders, such as former Prime Minister Dame Jacinda Ardern (centre) and former minister Kiritapu Allan (right), have had to deal with increased sexualised commentary in recent years. Photo / Peter de Graaf 'I'm a woman in leadership, I'm progressive. I want the best for my community and I have the policies to deliver that. So what do these weird men do? They assassinate your character instead.' Whanau said for two years she has had to put up with people calling her 'c***sucker' and saying 'she's probably in the toilets giving another blow job'. Tau Henare called out Maurice Williamson's lewd comments immediately. Photo / NZME She said Williamson phoned her at the time to apologise, but it seemed 'disingenuous'. She claims he talked over her and didn't tell her who he had gossiped with. 'He didn't actually let me speak,' she said. Whanau said she was seeking legal advice on potential action against 'anyone who has helped push any of those false rumours about me' – but wanted a long-term solution. She said part of the problem was social media sites reducing content moderation and community guidelines. 'We need to look at social media reform regulation, we need to look at the Harmful Digital Communications Act – is it strong enough? We need to look at hate speech legislation.' Albert-Eden-Puketāpapa ward councillor Julie Fairey was at the meeting in 2023. When Williamson started speaking, she said: 'I started making a lot of noise trying to drown it out so it's not on the recording because I knew we would then be publishing something untrue and vile and possibly defamatory.' Fairey said the comments made her feel sick. 'A lot of us were in shock. It was completely unacceptable.' She said afterwards she needed to walk off the adrenaline. When Auckland Council was asked for the full video it declined, saying the section in which Williamson's comments were made 'contained inappropriate and offensive content and did not relate to the business of the meeting'. It withheld that section of the video to protect privacy and maintain 'effective conduct of public affairs' by protecting officials and others from 'improper pressure or harassment'. The council said Williamson 'made the comment to someone outside the meeting' and did not realise he wasn't on mute. After he made the comment, a council staff member placed his connection on mute. Councillor Richard Hills, chairman of the meeting, ruled Williamson withdraw his remarks and apologise and asked councillors to stop discussing the matter. He also asked the council chief executive to review the incident. A council spokeswoman said they found 'no further action was appropriate because a direct apology, verbal and in private, was given soon after the incident and Mayor Whanau, through her office, had advised that she did not seek any further action be taken'. The spokeswoman said training was now provided for online meetings. David Fisher is based in Northland and has worked as a journalist for more than 30 years, winning multiple journalism awards including being twice named Reporter of the Year and being selected as one of a small number of Wolfson Press Fellows to Wolfson College, Cambridge. He joined the Herald in 2004. Sign up to The Daily H, a free newsletter curated by our editors and delivered straight to your inbox every weekday.
The Spinoff
15-07-2025
- Politics
- The Spinoff
Weird men are driving people out of politics
Their smear campaigns are ham-fisted and grotesque. They're also working. Ray Chung seemed more annoyed than apologetic in what he'd billed as his ' unequivocal apology ' to Wellington mayor Tory Whanau. The Independent Together mayoral candidate said he regretted sending a florid email full of false rumours about the sitting mayor's sex life to several of his council colleagues, but stopped short of actually saying a word widely considered to be a key ingredient in an apology, 'sorry'. Perhaps he needed to save space in his video statement for bitter recriminations. Chung was annoyed at an as-yet unidentified councillor and journalists for collaborating in a scurrilous Dirty Politics-style campaign to accurately report his, and the Independent Together team's, real words and actions. 'Over the last week there's been a concerted campaign against me and my campaign for the Wellington mayoralty,' he said. 'This attack on me and our team of Independent Together candidates is designed to undermine our campaign.' Chung may have been befuddled at the chorus of boos he's been hearing, given previous attempted smears have met with a far warmer reception. Just 18 months ago, Whanau was seen going for drinks with friends at Havana Bar in central Wellington. Her night out became the subject of a digital chain letter from social media's pulsating swarm of weird men, who managed to churn out a rumour about her being videoed performing a sex act in public. The clamour got so loud and insistent, the alleged video was reported by RNZ and Stuff. Whanau was forced to release a statement based on the limited information put to her by the media. On The Platform, Sean Plunket described the alleged contents of the video in detail, before getting councillor Nicola Young to weigh in on why Whanau should resign for bringing the mayoralty into disrepute. Auckland councillor Maurice Williamson was overheard phoning a friend to gossip about the video during a council meeting. Whanau didn't resign, partly because the video didn't exist, and those who insisted it did were, to use the scientific term, 'full of shit'. But Young's career didn't suffer. Neither did Williamson's. More recently, Green MP Benjamin Doyle was the subject of a similarly toxic and defamatory chorus of accusations after posting what amounted to a joke caption on their private Instagram account. A group aligned with Chung's Independent Together ticket later gave the businessman behind that campaign, Rhys Williams, the task of finding someone to put together an opposition dossier on their left-wing rivals. These high-profile incidents are flare-ups against a background radiation of abuse. Just about every woman or gender diverse person in politics will tell you their job requires an ability to multitask between deleting insulting emails and blocking dehumanising social media posts. The noise from the weird men is relentless. It's so loud and vehement, it's hard to believe it's simply the product of a heady mix of fevered imagination, unalloyed prejudice, and easy access to the internet. Perhaps that's why the media keeps taking the bait. RNZ never saw the footage of Whanau's night out in 2023. That didn't stop it stating its existence as fact. 'RNZ learned of footage circulating and put the allegations to her office,' its reporter wrote of the non-existent video, under a headline dubiously asserting that the mayor had engaged in 'drunken antics'. Doyle was the subject of dozens of media stories and misleading opinion pieces from people determined to misconstrue a caption that was clearly more about themself than about their child. When Doyle finally fronted the media about being 'attacked in such a baseless, personal and violent way,' nearly all the questions were about whether they'd admit to political misjudgement. Rather than step down for their own safety, Doyle committed to staying in politics. These flimsy scandals were egged on by a braying online crowd which urged journalists to conflate sound with substance. The weird men online have endless reservoirs of psychological dysfunction and large expanses of time to marshall their obsessions into people's mentions. More often than not, they win. Several former politicians have admitted that being subjected to monotonous daily abuse was a factor in their public breakdowns. Former prime minister Jacinda Ardern has moved to the US and still requires security escorts when she re-enters the country. Whanau isn't running for re-election. She's unequivocal that smear campaigns motivated her decision which will likely allow Labour's Andrew Little to sweep to office on a tidal wave of resigned shrugging. 'This harassment has been the main cause of me stepping aside from the mayoralty,' she says. 'I'm just glad it's now visible for others to see and we can make changes to ensure this doesn't happen to others. I'll commit to doing that in my role as a councillor.' At the end of his apology video this week, Chung vowed to fight on. 'I look forward to seeing you on the campaign trail as we build the momentum to take back our city,' he said. Despite the brave posturing, it seems his campaign is most probably over before it's begun. Not only is it unlikely he'll win the mayoralty; some now believe his ticket could cede winnable races to the left. If that's the case, it'll be a notable departure from the norm. For once, the consequences of a false, sexist rumour will fall primarily on the person spreading it and his allies, rather than the woman on the receiving end.
The Spinoff
13-07-2025
- Politics
- The Spinoff
Chung's non-apology deepens storm over sexist smear campaign
He promised to make a public apology to Tory Whanau. Instead, mayoral hopeful Ray Chung last night issued a video statement in which he claimed to be the victim of a dirty tricks campaign, writes Catherine McGregor in today's extract from The Bulletin. No apology, no accountability Wellington mayoral candidate Ray Chung is facing a growing backlash after failing to deliver a promised apology over a degrading email he sent about current mayor Tory Whanau. Chung claimed over the weekend he had scripted an 'unequivocal apology' for the 2023 email in which he circulated a second-hand rumour describing Whanau's supposed 'night of debauchery'. Instead, last night he published a video statement alleging the email leak was part of a 'concerted campaign' to discredit him. In the video, Chung said he regretted writing the email and sharing it 'with people whom I thought trustworthy'. As reported by Tom Hunt in the Weekend Post (paywalled), Chung had at one point told the paper he didn't see why he should apologise at all, 'due to embarrassment he said Whanau caused him at a conference a couple of years back'. Whanau says she is yet to hear from Chung directly following the email revelation. It's fair to say that for many, his dithering, tin-eared response has only reinforced the original offence, and the perception that he's unfit for leadership. Whanau considers legal action over smear campaign The mayor, meanwhile, has signalled she is no longer willing to stay silent. In a detailed public statement, Whanau said she is seeking legal advice over what she called a campaign of 'malicious, sexist rumours' spread by both Chung and fellow mayoral candidate Graham Bloxham. 'Throughout this term, I've endured a constant stream of false and malicious rumours,' she wrote. 'I've chosen to stay focused on our city's progress and ignore this behaviour – until now.' Whanau's legal threats could encompass action under the Harmful Digital Communications Act and potentially a trespass order against Bloxham, who posted about her on LinkedIn and the Wellington Live platform which he is still fronting, though he now claims not to own it. 'These lies often start online, but their impact in real life can be devastating,' Whanau wrote. 'They are a tactic designed to dehumanise, wear people down, and discourage good people from standing for public office.' 'Trump without the tactics' Chung's email scandal is just the latest in a long list of controversies. In a blistering Windbag column published in The Spinoff this morning, Joel MacManus argues that the councillor had disgraced himself long before the Whanau email surfaced. Chung has been accused by colleagues of making wildly inappropriate comments in the council offices, including a grotesque remark about a deceased young man and repeated verbal abuse directed at Whanau. He has compared council sustainability efforts to the Cambodian genocide and frequently loses his temper or gets procedural basics wrong in meetings. 'He lacks the intellectual and temperamental qualities that we should expect from our elected officials,' Joel writes. 'Ray Chung is Trump without the tactics. Winston Peters without the wit. Wayne Brown without the brains. The human personification of the angriest and least-informed comment section on Facebook.' Chung, Joel notes, became the default candidate on the right thanks to an aggressive campaign and early fundraising – potentially blocking more competent right-leaning contenders from stepping forward. Controversy engulfs Independent Together and Better Wellington The furore around Chung has capped a disastrous 10 days for his campaign ticket Independent Together (IT) and its backer Better Wellington. As The Post's Andrea Vance revealed on Wednesday (paywalled), a Better Wellington–commissioned opposition research dossier labelled one candidate a 'Labour Covidian', mocked others for supporting te reo or climate action, and described a Māori hopeful as 'brazenly and belligerently pro-Māori'. The group later distanced itself from the report, claiming the researcher had gone 'mad'. Separately, Better Wellington social media accounts mocked councillor Ben McNulty – including references to his children – and boosted an attack from IT candidate Lily Brown, who misrepresented mayor frontrunner Andrew Little's remarks at a mayoral debate. Brown was later forced to issue a clarification. Chung has alternated between disavowing knowledge of these attacks and downplaying their significance. But with legal threats mounting and key financial backer Mark Dunajtschik withdrawing his support, his campaign is flailing. For a group supposedly committed to 'bringing back sanity' to Wellington politics, Independent Together's tactics are suggesting just the opposite.
The Spinoff
13-07-2025
- Politics
- The Spinoff
Windbag: Ray Chung has never been fit for office
Recent revelations of Ray Chung spreading sexual rumours about Tory Whanau shouldn't be a surprise to those who have followed his lone term on council. Wellington mayoral candidate Ray Chung is a 75-year-old man who writes emails spreading rumours about his colleague's 'pendulous soft breasts' and 'tempestuous sex'. On Friday, the NZ Herald revealed that Chung sent emails to fellow city councillors in 2023 detailing salacious and unverified rumours about mayor Tory Whanau's sex life. Whanau told The Spinoff she was considering legal action against Chung. 'I believe we must take a stand against these kinds of false, sexist and personal attacks,' she said. The issue here isn't just that Chung has questionable morals. It's that he has horrendously poor judgment. Multiple councillors and council staff told The Spinoff that Chung has a habit of making inappropriate comments in the workplace. Councillor Rebecca Matthews raised a complaint to the mayor and deputy mayor in 2023 after a conversation in the council offices where Chung explicitly described the penis of a man who had died in a high-profile tragic event. Matthews wrote in her account at the time: 'Ray said to me in the councillors' lounge that he met with the police yesterday…[identifying information removed]…He went on to describe how the young man who recently died was found with his fly undone, but he reassured me that 'he didn't have a hard on'.' Another council source recalled Chung making phone calls in the council offices where he loudly referred to Whanau as a 'bitch'. Chung did not respond to multiple requests for comment on these specific claims. Chung has a record of controversial public statements – including this comment on Scoop, where he compared a council action plan for food sustainability to the Cambodian genocide: ' I've worked in Cambodia and visited the 'killing fields' often and I can see where this idea came from now! We have a council who are driven by ideology as much as Pol Pot.' As a councillor, Chung has been erratic. He often loses his cool in meetings or goes off on unhinged and unrelated rants. After three years, he still doesn't seem to have a strong understanding of council processes; he tries to give speeches at the wrong times or asks off-topic questions. Operating in a non-traditional way would be fine if he were effective around the council table, but he isn't. The intellectual heft on the council's conservative opposition comes from Diane Calvert and Tony Randle, both of whom are detail-oriented, engaged and strategic. They write intricate amendments and play background games to disrupt Whanau's agenda. Meanwhile, Chung is like the popular kid in the group project who volunteers to lead the presentation, but butchers it because he didn't do any of the work and doesn't understand what he's talking about. At this point, every journalist in Wellington knows Chung is a bunny. It's easy to bait him into giving a stupid quote. Sometimes it's completely unforced, like when he told Newstalk ZB's Ethan Manera the mayor was ' full of shit' during an interview that he apparently forgot was being recorded. Chung became the leading mayoral contender on the right because he is an incredibly active campaigner. He's always out and about, being outspoken and raising his profile. He capitalised on the rising tide of anger about rates increases, bike lanes, and the council's perceived 'woke ideology'. Along the way, he amassed an enormous war chest (Chung told the NZ Herald he had received $200,000 in donations) through his campaign ticket Independent Together and its campaign surrogate, Better Wellington, with support from property developers Vlad Barbalich and Mark Dunajtschik (Dunajtschik withdrew his support after the revelations of Chung's rumour-mongering emails). That money will almost certainly go to waste. It was inevitable that the wheels would fall off Chung's campaign once he faced any serious scrutiny. Ray Chung is Trump without the tactics. Winston Peters without the wit. Wayne Brown without the brains. The human personification of the angriest and least-informed comment section on Facebook. He lacks the intellectual and temperamental qualities that we should expect from our elected officials. The real tragedy in this ordeal is the state of the Wellington mayoral race. By sucking up so much early attention and financial support, Chung may have blocked better candidates from emerging on the right. It seems likely that Diane Calvert, a much more experienced and competent councillor, would have run if Chung hadn't built such an early lead. Or perhaps a former MP or prominent business leader would have come out of the woodwork. Among current candidates, Karl Tiefenbacher is the only somewhat serious alternative for centre-right voters. With Tory Whanau out of the race, the only candidate pushing frontrunner Andrew Little from the left is Alex Baker, a late entrant who has a lot of work ahead of him to build name recognition. Meanwhile, Little seems determined to run the most milquetoast campaign in the history of New Zealand politics. His recent policy announcements have included a promise to release yet another annual report and a commitment to protect the Brooklyn library, despite there being no suggestion that the library is actively under threat (its closure was mistakenly included as a cost-cutting measure in a draft document in 2024, but this was quickly withdrawn). Wellington is a city with many problems, and Wellingtonians deserve a mayoral race that is a rigorous debate of ideas. Unfortunately, so long as Ray Chung is a major candidate, that's not what they'll get.
1News
11-07-2025
- Politics
- 1News
Whanau hits back at Chung over 'malicious, sexist' rumour sent to councillors
Wellington mayoral candidate Ray Chung says, in hindsight, sending an email containing third-hand claims about a sexual encounter with mayor Tory Whanau might not have been the best idea. Chung sent an email, seen by RNZ, to three fellow councillors in early 2023 recounting a story he had been told about Whanau by his neighbour about the neighbour's son. Whanau has declined to be interviewed, but in a statement said the claims were a "malicious and sexist rumour". "What's deeply concerning is that some of the individuals spreading these harmful falsehoods are now standing for election," she said. "Ray Chung has circulated a malicious and sexist rumour - a tactic designed to dehumanise, wear people down, and discourage good people from standing for public office. ADVERTISEMENT She said she was seeking legal advice. "(I) am speaking publicly because I believe we must take a stand against these kinds of false, sexist, and personal attacks," the statement said. "Our city deserves elected members who uphold the highest standards of respect, honesty, and integrity." Chung told Morning Report he did write the email. He said it was because it was soon after the election and he wanted his colleagues' opinions on what they thought of a relatively unknown mayor. "On hindsight, if that was now, I think we're more aware of the things that we should or shouldn't say or the things that we should or shouldn't pass on. I think that I'm wiser now after a couple of years in council." Wellington mayor Tory Whanau. (Source: ADVERTISEMENT "I wouldn't object to apologising to [Whanau] but it's actually interesting how it's actually being cast," he said. He claimed the email had been released now for "political purposes". He said the email was sent following a conversation with a neighbour while he was out walking his dog. "I sent it off to my closest colleagues on council and so I said 'what do you think about this?'" Asked about the language used in the email, Chung said he repeated the story "verbatim". "This is exactly what I was told... none of it was my opinion." Chung said he didn't know about an alleged dossier of information against his opponents that The Post reported on earlier this week. ADVERTISEMENT High-profile mayoral contender and former Labour MP Andrew Little said of Chung sending the email: "This is unacceptable behaviour and if elected mayor I would have zero tolerance for it". Chung, a current city councillor for the Wharangi/Onslow-Western Ward, is standing as mayor under the Independent Together banner. Whanau has said she won't stand again for the mayoralty, though she is standing for the council's Māori Ward. She has previously told RNZ about the "ugly" side of politics she has faced. She faced a bumpy time as mayor amid drinking problems and an ADHD diagnosis. Whanau's statement on Friday went to say "politics has changed". "In my first campaign, we saw respectful debate and no dirty politics. Now, for some candidates, smear tactics seem to have become the norm," she said. "A healthy democracy thrives on open, fair, and honest discussion about the issues that matter. It is undermined when false rumours, personal attacks, and defamatory statements are used to damage others. I urge the public to be vigilant and to thoroughly research who they are voting for."
