Celia Wade-Brown

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Celia Wade-Brown
File:Celia Wade-Brown, 2013.jpg
Celia Wade-Brown in 2013
34th Mayor of Wellington
Assumed office
27 October 2010[1]
Preceded by Kerry Prendergast
Personal details
Born (1956-07-12) 12 July 1956 (age 67)
Political party Green Party
Spouse(s) Alastair Nicholson (m. 16 January 1993)

Celia Wade-Brown (born 12 July 1956) is the 34th and current Mayor of Wellington, the capital city of New Zealand. She is the third female mayor of the city, replacing centre-right Kerry Prendergast. She defeated Prendergast by 176 votes in the 2010 single transferable vote mayoral election, winning a second term in 2013. She is the second mayor of a major New Zealand city to be a member of the Green Party of Aotearoa New Zealand, after Dunedin's Sukhi Turner, but she stood as an independent candidate. Wade-Brown is contesting the Wellington mayoralty in the 2016 local election for a third term.

Early life

Born in Paddington, West London, to a British military officer father Paul Wade-Brown,[2] Wade-Brown grew up in a council flat.[3] She attended The Holt School in Wokingham, Berkshire, England. After school, she took a gap year in Cape Coast, Ghana, then earned an honours degree in philosophy from the University of Nottingham. She started her professional life with IBM in the United Kingdom,[4] and moved to Wellington in 1983.[3]

As an adult, Wade-Brown discovered and connected with two half-sisters.[2] One half-sister Gitta Rupp was a German war child born to her father and a German mother.[5]

Political career

National politics 1996–2002

Wade-Brown first stood for the Green Party as a list candidate (ranked 44th) under the Alliance banner in the 1996 election.[6] In the 1999 election, she stood for the Green Party as a list candidate (ranked 29th).[7] In the 2002 election, she stood for the Green Party as a list candidate (ranked 15th)[8] in the Rongotai electorate and placed third.[9] She did not appear on the Green Party list for the 2005[10] or 2008[11] elections.

Local government politics 1994–current

Wade-Brown served as a Wellington City Councillor for the Southern Ward in 1994–1998 and 2001–2010.[3]

In 2010, she contested the mayoralty only, not standing as a councillor; Paul Eagle replaced her as a councillor. Six contenders ran for mayor:[4] Wade-Brown won by 24,881 votes to 24,705. She was ahead of Prendergast on a significant number of ballots from the four trailing candidates after they were eliminated, which allowed her to overcome Prendergast's initial lead of 21,809 to 18,560 in the first iteration.[12]

Wade-Brown does not favour Wellington's adopting a 'super city' type council like Auckland, though she supports reducing the number of councils in greater Wellington from nine to "three or four".[13]

The Wellington City Council came under criticism from the business community in April 2013 after the Council laid off 150 workers and approved $350,000 in renovations for the mayor's office, seemingly without the mayor and councillors knowing.[14]

After her re-election in October 2013, Wade-Brown listed priorities for the first 100 days as"the south coast cycle lanes, completing the draft annual plan before Christmas, agreeing on three-year priorities, taking first steps towards a living wage for council staff, slimming down council-owned companies and continuing to improve shared services with other councils".[15]

On 27 August 2014 Wade-Brown became an executive leader of Mayors for Peace.[16][17]

Community involvement

Wade-Brown was a founding member of the New Zealand Internet Society,[18] a non-profit organisation set up in 1995 dedicated to protecting and promoting the Internet in New Zealand.[19] In 2002 Wade-Brown founded Living Streets Aotearoa,[20] a walking-advocacy organisation with 15 branches. It holds collective membership of the International Federation of Pedestrians, of which she is a Board member.[21]

Wade-Brown is a Friend of Taputeranga Marine Reserve.[22]

Family

She is married to Alastair Nicholson and has two sons.[3]

See also

References

  1. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  2. ↑ 2.0 2.1 http://www.stuff.co.nz/national/8021813/Wellington-Mayor-finds-secret-sister
  3. ↑ 3.0 3.1 3.2 3.3 Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  4. ↑ 4.0 4.1 Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  5. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  6. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  7. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  8. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  9. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  10. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  11. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  12. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  13. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  14. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  15. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  16. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  17. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  18. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  19. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  20. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  21. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  22. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.

External links

Political offices
Preceded by Mayor of Wellington
2010 – present		 Incumbent
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