Auckland mayoralty: Taxpayers’ Union head says his various roles don’t conflict – صحيفة الصوت

Political activist Jordan Williams says there are no conflicts of interest in his various connections to the Auckland mayoral campaign.

Williams is best known as the co-founder of the self-styled transparency group the Taxpayers’ Union, but also wears other hats.

A business which he owns, The Campaign Company is producing social media content for Leo Molloy’s mayoral campaign.

Williams had also owned the local body lobby group the Auckland Ratepayers’ Alliance – a company that, in late 2021, he folded into the Taxpayers’ Union, of which he is the executive director.

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Taxpayers’ Union co-founder David Farrar owns the market research company Curia, which conducts a monthly poll on the state of the Auckland mayoral race, the only published measure of candidates’ public impact.

Williams would not be interviewed by Stuff but responded to written questions, some of which he answered.

“The Ratepayers’ Alliance rents a desk in my Auckland offices, but there is no co-ordination between them or any of the clients of The Campaign Company,” said Williams in a written answer.

“As is my practice generally when I have a conflict, I recuse myself from client discussions,” he said.

Restaurateur Leo Molloy said while he uses The Campaign Company, he has no link to the Auckland Ratepayers’ Alliance, or the Curia poll which comes out monthly under its name.

“You must notice, they are quite critical of me,” said Molloy.

“There’s a guy there who put some pretty average stuff up on Twitter about me, which caused me some offence – and I’m pretty hard to offend,” said Molloy.

Molloy said he had met Jordan Williams only twice, and used Farrar’s polling company, Curia, for survey work in November 2021.

Molloy said his campaign had no early or deeper access to the monthly Curia poll findings than anyone else.

The July poll of 500 respondents found 35% undecided, 17% favoured Labour and Greens-backed Efeso Collins, 15% Molloy and 12% the centre-right endorsed candidate Viv Beck.

Williams referred other question from Stuff to Josh Van Veen, a Taxpayers’ Union employee who is the spokesman for the Auckland Ratepayers’ Alliance.

Van Veen said ARA did not favour any candidate and “we have commented (negatively) about Leo Molloy’s suitability as a mayoral candidate”.

In a June 20 tweet, ARA commented on the findings of the Curia poll it commissioned, and said: “The breakdowns underscore how the mayoral candidates on offer are equally uninspiring.”

He said ARA operated independently of the Taxpayers’ Union.

Williams’ various connections aren’t the only political operators in the Auckland mayoral race.

Labour and Greens-endorsed Efeso Collins’ campaign uses Labour Party pollster-of-choice Talbot Mills, the successor to UMR used by previous left-leaning campaigns in Auckland.

Collin’s campaign said it was using an advertising agency that had no political alignment.

Viv Beck has been endorsed by the National Party-aligned, local body ticket Communities and Residents and said it had no political entity connections other connection than receiving unsolicited poll results from ARA.

Williams’ The Campaign Company is unrelated to a firm of the same name owned between May 2009 to December 2011 by then-trade unionist Matt McCarten, who is now Leo Molloy’s campaign manager.