Christine Elizabeth Fletcher (née Lees, born 25 January 1955) is a New Zealand politician. Currently an
Auckland Council
Auckland Council ( mi, Te Kaunihera o Tāmaki Makaurau) is the local government council for the Auckland Region in New Zealand. It is a territorial authority that has the responsibilities, duties and powers of a regional council and so is ...
councillor, she was previously a National Party Member of Parliament from 1990 to 1999, and served one term as
Mayor of Auckland City
The Mayor of Auckland City was the directly elected head of the Auckland City Council, the municipal government of Auckland City, New Zealand. The office existed from 1871 to 2010, when the Auckland City Council and mayoralty was abolished and ...
between 1998 and 2001. In October 2010 she became the co-leader of the Auckland
local body
Local may refer to:
Geography and transportation
* Local (train), a train serving local traffic demand
* Local, Missouri, a community in the United States
* Local government, a form of public administration, usually the lowest tier of administrat ...
ticket
Ticket or tickets may refer to:
Slips of paper
* Lottery ticket
* Parking ticket, a ticket confirming that the parking fee was paid (and the time of the parking start)
* Toll ticket, a slip of paper used to indicate where vehicles entered a tol ...
Fletcher was born in 1955, the daughter of Shirley and Ted Lees, the founder of heavy machinery and marine engine company Lees Industries. Educated at St Cuthbert's College, Auckland, she was married to
Angus Fletcher Angus Fletcher was a British businessman and member of the Legislative Council of Hong Kong.
Fletcher was made Justice of the Peace in 1855. He was appointed member of the Legislative Council on 10 December 1860 in room of George Lyall who resign ...
, and was thus the sister-in-law of former
Fletcher Challenge
Fletcher Challenge was a multinational corporation from New Zealand. It was formed in 1981 by the merger of Fletcher Holdings, Challenge Corporation and Tasman Pulp and Paper. It had holdings in construction, forestry, building, and energy, ini ...
Sian Elias
Dame Sian Seerpoohi Elias (born 13 March 1949) is a New Zealand former Government official, who served as the 12th Chief Justice of New Zealand, and was therefore the most senior member of the country's judiciary. She was the presiding judge o ...
Labour
Labour or labor may refer to:
* Childbirth, the delivery of a baby
* Labour (human activity), or work
** Manual labour, physical work
** Wage labour, a socioeconomic relationship between a worker and an employer
** Organized labour and the labour ...
incumbent,
Richard Northey
Richard John Northey (born 28 April 1945) is a New Zealand politician. He was an MP from 1984 to 1990, and again from 1993 to 1996. He served on the Auckland Council between 2010 and 2013, and is a member of the Labour Party.
Biography Earl ...
. She then held the seat at the 1993 election. After Labour MP
Peter Dunne
Peter Francis Dunne (born 17 March 1954) is a retired New Zealand politician who was the Member of Parliament (MP) for Ōhāriu. He held the seat and its predecessors from 1984 to 2017—representing the Labour Party in Parliament from 1984 ...
became an independent MP in October 1994 Fletcher approached him to join the National Party. Dunne declined the offer however.
She won the new Epsom electorate in the 1996 election, and was subsequently appointed to the ministerial roles of Local Government, Women's Affairs and Cultural Affairs. However, she resigned as a minister on 11 September 1997, because she objected to the sale of the assets of the
Auckland Regional Services Trust
Auckland (pronounced ) ( mi, Tāmaki Makaurau) is a large metropolitan city in the North Island of New Zealand. The most populous urban area in the country and the fifth largest city in Oceania, Auckland has an urban population of about It ...
proposed by National.
Mayor of Auckland City
Fletcher retired as an MP in 1999, having been elected
Mayor of Auckland City
The Mayor of Auckland City was the directly elected head of the Auckland City Council, the municipal government of Auckland City, New Zealand. The office existed from 1871 to 2010, when the Auckland City Council and mayoralty was abolished and ...
at the 1998 local-body elections. She was the second woman to hold the office, after Cath Tizard. Fletcher's mayoralty was characterised by the decision to progress with the
Britomart Transport Centre
Britomart Transport Centre, also known as Britomart railway station, is the public transport hub in the central business district of Auckland and the northern terminus of the North Island Main Trunk railway line. It combines a railway station ...
in downtown Auckland. In 2001 she was defeated by
John Banks John Banks or Bankes may refer to:
Politics and law
*Sir John Banks, 1st Baronet (1627–1699), English merchant and Member of Parliament
* John Banks (American politician) (1793–1864), U.S. Representative from Pennsylvania
*John Gray Banks (188 ...
, another former
National
National may refer to:
Common uses
* Nation or country
** Nationality – a ''national'' is a person who is subject to a nation, regardless of whether the person has full rights as a citizen
Places in the United States
* National, Maryland, c ...
MP. She continued her opposition to Banks in the following years, particularly opposing the Eastern Transport Corridor, which Banks had proposed as a major motorway, and which she noted she had been opposing for more than a decade by then.
In the 2002 New Year Honours, Fletcher was appointed a
Companion of the Queen's Service Order
The Queen's Service Order, established by royal warrant of Queen Elizabeth II on 13 March 1975, is used to recognise "valuable voluntary service to the community or meritorious and faithful services to the Crown or similar services within the pu ...
for public services.
She ran again for the mayoralty in October 2004, but finished third behind
Dick Hubbard
Richard John Hubbard (born 18 November 1946) is a New Zealand businessman and politician, founder and former principal of Hubbard Foods in Auckland, and mayor of Auckland City from 2004 to 2007. He was elected mayor of Auckland City on 9 Octob ...
and Banks.
Life after mayoralty and return to politics
After her mayoral term, Fletcher became involved in various community organisations, including the Motutapu Trust, a conservation body involved in protecting
Motutapu Island
Motutapu Island (otherwise known as ''Motutapu'') is a island in the Hauraki Gulf to the northeast of the city of Auckland, New Zealand. The island is part of the Hauraki Gulf Maritime Park. Its full name, rarely used, is ''Te Motutapu a Taikeh ...
in the
Hauraki Gulf
The Hauraki Gulf / Tīkapa Moana is a coastal feature of the North Island of New Zealand. It has an area of 4000 km2,
She was a contributor in 2004 to a book by the Better Democracy group, promoting citizen participation in the New Zealand democratic process.
In 2010 she announced her candidacy for the Albert-Eden-Roskill ward on the 2010 Auckland local elections, new Auckland council, where she eventually succeeded in polling highest for one of the two available councillor seats in her ward. She considered that working for a CBD rail tunnel was one of her main priorities, extending the capacity of Britomart, whose construction she had successfully fought for in her mayoral term.
Fletcher was re-elected in 2013, 2016, 2019 and 2022.
Christine
Christine may refer to:
People
* Christine (name), a female given name
Film
* ''Christine'' (1958 film), based on Schnitzler's play ''Liebelei''
* ''Christine'' (1983 film), based on King's novel of the same name
* ''Christine'' (1987 fil ...