1992: I Don’t Care Where As Long As I’m Mayor

January 7, 2022

By AHNZ

In 1992, Tim Shadbolt attempted to be re-elected as a mayor and didn’t care where. Auckland, Dunedin, and Waitamata all rejected him that year as he campaigned for office in all 3 places. Wellington Central rejected him as a counsellor later in the same year.

In 1993, Invercargill elected Shadbolt their mayor for one term of office. During this period, Tim nipped up to Canterbury to try to win an electorate seat in the Selwyn Buy Election for New Zealand First. Perhaps this opportunism is the reason Invercargill threw him out whereupon he switched to Aotearoa Legalise Cannabis Party for the 1996 General Election.

“The former Mayor of Waitemata, who was defeated in 1989 after two terms, had stood for the mayoralties of Auckland, Waitamata and Dunedin at the 1992 local body elections, coming third in each campaign” – unknown paper, Southlands Past; Facebook (2021)

“In the 1990s he appeared in an advertisement promoting New Zealand cheese, where he humorously repeated the phrase “I don’t care where as long as I’m mayor”, referencing his dual mayoralties. He admitted later that the phrase was developed by an advertising agency.” – Wiki

From 1998 Tim Shadbolt has stuck to being Invercargill’s mayor. A real human barometer for what that city has become during the era of the Boomer.

In another era, to other generations, this blatant carpet bagging would be rejected. The man has no pretense at loyalty to party or to municipality. He just wants a host population to elect him into a position of political power and he’s completely honest about that. The amazing thing is that Invercargill allows it. This, to me, is a sign that the city has a major self-esteem problem.

Shadbolt Stamp

Not super legit but the image in this post was a real legal postage stamp.

New Zealand Mail (NZM,) now defunct, were the personalised number plate version of postage stamps. You could get anything on a stamp you wanted.

“We believe we were the first company in the world to print whatever you want onto a postage stamp and have this recognised by the postal administrator i.e. New Zealand Post.”- NZM

Real Estate firms, The Mad Butcher, Go Cat, Freemasons,…and Tim Shadbolt. It’s not the same as the traditional idea of a postage stamp as a sort of state-sanctioned paper monument of recognition.

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Image ref. Old Invercargill, Facebook (2021)

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