Christchurch's next mayor: Poll shows big lead for Phil Mauger

First-term Christchurch city councillor Phil Mauger is likely to become Ōtautahi's next mayor, a Q+A Kantar Public Poll suggests.

But Mauger's main contender - David Meates, the former boss of Canterbury and West Coast DHBs - told Q+A the race isn't over and his campaign's momentum was building.

In a poll of 500 eligible Christchurch City Council voters, 38% refused to say, didn't plan to vote, or didn't know who they'd vote for.

Excluding this group, of the people who said they were likely to vote:

Meates said he was "not surprised with the poll results".

"When you've got 38% that have not responded or indicated where they are, I think [it] gives a sense of a lot of people still waiting to explore what has been offered and to make decisions and choices."

Mauger said he wasn't taking anything for granted.

"I know that if I take my foot off the throttle, there's someone snapping at my heels."

It's the first time in nine years Christchurch will be getting a new mayor - incumbent Lianne Dalziel announced in July last year she wouldn't be seeking a fourth term.

Whoever the new mayor is, they will have their work cut out for them.

When asked if voters felt confident in the ability of Christchurch City Council to meet the needs of its residents, the 500 poll respondents said:

Meates said it was an asset to go into local government without experience as he didn't have "baggage".

He said, during his time as DHB boss, he'd built up the community's trust in their health services.

After 12 years as Canterbury DHB CEO, Meates suddenly resigned in 2020 after a series of high-profile disagreements over plans around major spending cuts. DHB staff gave the departing Meates a guard of honour.

The poll results also come as it was revealed sitting Christchurch city councillor James Gough sought a pre-election dinner with Christchurch City Council CEO Dawn Baxendale for himself, councillor Sam MacDonald - who is seeking re-election - and Mauger.

"There was a meeting jacked up, which I never saw, of the email [from Gough to arrange a dinner with Baxendale] that went out," Mauger said.

"But, we went and met the chief executive and all of the executive leadership team,"

He said the way it was put to him was that council staff wanted to speak to all mayoral candidates. He said Gough had sent the email, but added that invitations to all mayoral hopefuls were sent the next day to meet with the council's leadership.

He said there was a delay in the council sending out those invitations.

When asked if it was appropriate to seek pre-election dinners, given the already low trust in council, Mauger said: "I don't know. I think we were just the first cab off the rank and whether I think it was - not hiding behind anything - it said an administration error, that it wasn't sent out in time.

"But take that as you will."

Q+A also polled voters on a number of other issues, including cycleways in Christchurch, the chlorination of drinking water supplies, and the development of a $683 million multi-purpose Christchurch stadium.

Read the results and methodology here.

Between August 29 and September 4, 2022, 500 eligible Christchurch City Council voters were polled online, using online panels. The maximum sampling error is approximately ±4.4 percentage points at the 95% confidence level. For candidate support, percentages have been rounded up or down to whole numbers. Undecided voters, non-voters and those who refused to answer are excluded from the data on candidate support. The data have been weighted to align with Stats NZ population counts for age, gender, ethnic identification and education in Christchurch City Council. The online sample is collected using an online panel.