Tory Whanau’s $7000 portrait a last self inflicted footnote to an abused legacy
Right after Tory righteously called out the appalling abuse that has been the hallmark of her time as Wellington Mayor….
Outgoing Wellington Mayor Tory Whanau says she would not wish the abuse she has faced in the mayoralty upon anyone, as she delivered her final speech as the capital’s mayor today.
Whanau thanked all of her council colleagues by name, but also took the opportunity to fire shots at those she deemed responsible for attacks against her.
…she goes and does this…
Error leads to $7000 painted mayoral portrait of Tory Whanau, rather than photo
A mistake by council staff led to a $7000 portrait of Wellington Mayor Tory Whanau being painted, rather than it being done using photography.
…Jesus wept.
Look, I WANT TO SUPPORT MĀORI WOMEN IN POLITICS I really, really, really do, but this is another example of the self-inflicted train wrecks that seem to be her super power.
Much of the criticism directed at Tory has been hateful shit that is beneath the dignity of us all to engage with, but then she manages to create issues that are totally self inflicted.
Her screaming at the Wellington Unions for having the temerity for questioning her over the airport sale raised so many red flags in terms of woke micro aggression policing it may as well have been a Chinese Flag manufacturing company.
Her bewildering train wreck interviews that seemed to get worse and worse never made any sense for someone who was supposed to be so good at communication, and this last slap in the face to Wellington ratepayers for a $7000 painting is the icing to a shit cake that manages to sum up her Mayoralty in a way that really is not positive.
Much of the criticism directed at her was racist misogyny that demeans us all, but the self inflicted mistakes never helped.
Missing out on the Māori Ward seat is perhaps a fitting political end to a confused legacy.
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While she deserves to go, I don’t have high hopes regarding Andrew Little after his recent performance in government. While he comes from the unions, he appears to have been brought in and paid for by management, and is unwilling to listen to those with practical experience.
She’s an idiot, but does she seriously come across any worse than Nicola Willis? I would say no. Different sure. Tory comes across as flaky, Willis completely untrustworthy. You are making it about a Māori woman in politics but women of any Ethnicity are just as capable, as any man, of being an idiot.
Satire? It looked truthful to me.
Hold on a minute…Wellington Council has a long standing tradition of Mayoral portraits—every Mayor gets one. I have seen examples of Mark Blumsky, Kerry Pendergast etc. does not make it good use of funds, but Tory was fitting in with tradition here, not having an outburst of largesse, nice portrait too.
those are very old examples – all recent Mayors have opted for a photograph, Tory went back on that
Looks…like hubris within the context. I don’t get how the ‘mistake’ was made, as such. But look, on the plus side an artist got paid and $7000 dollars isn’t much either, for the artist to get paid, after materials probably only made $5,000. And yeah much more money than that gets wasted on things as stupid as, say farewell or Christmas office parties. $40,000 dollars comes to mind for example. So this isn’t really a hill to get wrought up about.