A contender for Auckland’s mayoralty is promising to release a key policy this week after an embarrassing campaign blunder over the weekend.
On Friday, a press release sent out by Kerrin Leoni’s campaign team stated the Auckland councillor, and main contender to incumbent mayor Wayne Brown, would release her fiscal policy plan at the Avondale Markets that weekend.
“Kerrin Leoni will release her fiscal policies at the Avondale Markets on Sunday at 10am,” it said.
But when the day came, she was nowhere to be seen at the West Auckland market, and there was no mention of it elsewhere.
When approached by RNZ for comment, Leoni chalked it up to miscommunication.
“We had originally intended to go [to the market], but we had not announced it as an event.
“Over the weekend, we had a number of competing issues that came up. We had our hoardings go up over the weekend, and I actually experienced a difficult situation with one of the hoardings that went up.”
Leoni would not elaborate on what the difficult situation was.
She said the announcement was not promoted anywhere and was only mentioned in a press release to media.
“There was no one that I’m aware of at that event.”
She said she would personally handle inviting reporters to policy announcements going forward.
“That miscommunication will not be happening again. I’ll be leading those invites going forward.”
She said she would announce her fiscal policy in the next few days at an event for media.
“We’ve spent a lot of time working on these policies, and I look forward to releasing them this week.
“As a qualified economist, I have a master’s in economics and international politics, fiscal policy is very important to me and will be at the centre of my campaign.”
The announcement was included in the same press release that criticised Brown for not committing to any candidate debates which was first reported by RNZ last week.
“I think Brown wants a low turnout this election so he can simply cruise to victory,” Leoni said.
Speaking to RNZ today, she doubled down on her calls for the mayor to debate her.
“Having policies on a website versus being able to debate those policies in public are two different things.”
Brown’s campaign team declined to comment when approached by RNZ.
By Jessica Hopkins of rnz.co.nz