Interview: Lower Hutt Mayor Campbell Barry on the Living Wage

By Walter Hamer Zamalis

Scrapping pay equity can be loud, but silence is usually louder. A noticeably empty chair sat on in a packed St Bernadette’s School on Tuesday 13 May, where the Living Wage Movement held a community action meeting to further Resene employees’ goal to get paid the living wage ($27.80 per hour before tax). The seat in question was set out for Nick Nightingale, current Resene CEO and heir to his grandfather’s paint empire. His Naenae headquarters is located just across the road from one of Resene’s two Hutt Valley factories. Unfortunately, despite the invitation to the whole Nightingale family, they refused to show up, leaving Team Naenae Trust coordinator Lillian Pak to express disappointment: “it's the workers here today who enable Resene to operate and make millions”. I’m involved in the Living Wage, and in this instance I got roped into taking photos (which was fun, I’ll admit). There was such a warm energy in the room, beginning right from when we were greeted by the St Bernadette’s School’s tremendous kapa haka. Despite going out to Naenae sometimes as a kid to visit family friends, as a vehicularly impaired Ngaio boy Lower Hutt is still a wee bit tough to get to - I took two trains at rush-hour prices. But upon hearing “Ka Pioioi E” I found myself feeling right at home. I was surrounded by the salt of the earth Labour stalwarts that remind me of my own family and which the parliamentary party has all too often forgotten. 

Among those at the meeting was outgoing Lower Hutt mayor Campbell Barry. I sought to nab an interview with him as he was on his way out, and he accepted to my delight as and I quote “a Vic old boy meself”, wanting to do Old Salient a wee favour. To begin with we were only briefly interrupted when Living Wage coordinator Finn Cordwell turned up and reminded me I was meant to be taking photographs. After poor Mr Barry was unsure of whether to stay or go, I promptly handed my camera over to Finn and whipped out my phone to record the interview. Standing out there in the bitter Lower Hutt cold like a dishevelled first year (my scarf had been caught over my face as I pulled my camera off from my neck), I managed to ask Barry how long he’s been involved in the Living Wage. His staunch involvement dates back to 2016, back when the Living Wage Movement here in the Hutt Valley was advocating for the council to become a living wage employer: “I was as supportive as a councillor so, [I’ve] been quite supportive for nearly a decade now”. For his first mayoral run in 2019, spreading the living wage to all council workers was his first pledge on the road for Lower Hutt becoming a living wage city. Now, Barry’s “really proud to have a council that reflects our community”. By paying the living wage to all its 500 employees, “they are all able to go home and [do the basics]” in a way that upholds their dignity. During COVID, Barry was able to put more Lower Hutt residents into work and keep them there through the construction of Te Ngaengae Pool and Fitness, built with 80% recycled and reused material. 70% of the contractors were local Lower Hutt residents, many of whom were local apprentices. “Quite genuinely” says Barry, “I would put that down to our journey with the living wage”.

Has said journey paid off? Well, his 2022 re-election in a landslide may suggest so. In a local government election year dominated by rightwing challengers coming up on top, Barry bucked the national trend, beating his National-linked United Hutt opponent Tony Stallinger by nearly eight percentage points. He’s been able to have a productive and healthy relationship with the council since, showing the better behaviour of the Northern Wellington mega-suburb in contrast to their more rowdy and right-wing neighbours downtown. But now it’s time for something different for Barry, 34. All that’s left is for Karen Morgan, Principal of Taitā College to step into his role if she wins in October. I asked Barry about her skills and he just smiled and reminded me, my lack of preparation be damned, that Morgan was in fact actually in attendance at St Bernadette’s Hall. I didn’t get a chance to speak with her, but I was charmed by Barry, who has “no plans yet” for his political future - except for the mysterious “conversations [he’s having] with people at the moment”. Labour has one boy from the Hutt up top already. Could the national-level Party benefit from this excessively productive election-winner from Wainuiomata? We’ll have to wait and see.