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| Turnout | 29,453 (44.50%) | |||||||||||||||
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The 1995 Lower Hutt mayoral election was part of the New Zealand local elections held that same year. The elections were held for the role of Mayor of Lower Hutt plus other local government positions including thirteen city councillors, also elected triennially. The polling was conducted using the standard first-past-the-post electoral method.
Incumbent mayor of three terms Glen Evans did not stand for re-election. In an open race, a record seven candidates came forward for the mayoralty including: [1]
Eastern Ward councillor John Egan also announced he would stand, but withdrew on grounds of ill-health.
The main talking point of the election was the amount of debt the council had amassed, particularly the construction of the Central City Plaza car-parking building, which by the election totaled $102 million. Most candidates campaigned on better controlling spending to repay the debt including Glensor who opposed any asset sales or user charges increase for council services to fund debt reduction. [1] Terris had been living in Wanganui as vicar at St Peter's Anglican parish but resigned in March 1995 and returned to Lower Hutt. Despite his long history with the Labour Party and brief affiliation with ACT New Zealand, Terris claimed to have discarded party politics, though was linked with the centre-right Citizens Action ticket who backed his candidacy. [2] There was a shift away from organised political tickets and towards independents who won 11 of the 13 council seats. Two candidates from the Labour Party and Alliance backed Positive Focus ticket (including its mayoral candidate Peter Glensor) were elected while none of the Citizens Action candidates supporting Terris were elected to the council. [3] Along with Glensor, two other mayoral candidates (Jamieson and Woodley) were elected to the council. [2] The Evening Post wrote in an editorial that Terris' victory was "the greatest comeback since Lazarus." [4]
This was the first election in Lower Hutt to use postal voting rather than polling booths. It was the last city in New Zealand to adopt postal ballots, a reaction to the record nationwide low of 25.3 percent in 1992. As a result, turnout increased by nearly 20 percent to 44.5 percent. [3]
The following table gives the election results:
| Party | Candidate | Votes | % | ±% | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Independent | John Terris | 9,901 | 33.61 | ||
| Positive Focus | Peter Glensor | 5,945 | 20.18 | ||
| Independent | Ross Jamieson | 5,913 | 20.07 | ||
| Independent | Lawrie Woodley | 3,416 | 11.59 | −34.25 | |
| Independent | Jim Allen | 2,295 | 7.79 | ||
| Independent | Colin Seymour | 933 | 3.16 | ||
| Independent | David Walkinshaw | 279 | 0.94 | ||
| Informal votes | 771 | 2.61 | +0.45 | ||
| Majority | 3,956 | 13.43 | |||
| Turnout | 29,453 | 44.50 | +19.20 | ||
Thirteen candidates were also elected from wards to the Hutt City Council. [5]
| Party/ticket | Councillors | |
|---|---|---|
| Independent | 11 | |
| Positive Focus | 2 | |
After election day it was later revealed that the preliminary result count had been incorrect with vote tallies not including manually counted votes. They indicated that Glensor had finished second but he actually was third on election night trailing Jamieson as well as Terris. [6] Glensor ended up being ahead of Jamieson in the final count, however Terris asked for a report from the chief returning officer to explain the error as well as several others including missing 1,000 votes in the preliminary count for regional council candidate Dick Werry and a computer failure on election night. [7]
