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ACT Party candidate in the Tauranga by-election, Cameron Luxton, has called for Commissioner Anne Tolley's head.
In a press release today, Luxton said: "The right to choose who speaks for us is our democratic birthright, but nobody told Anne Tolley, Tauranga's Marie Antoinette.
"It's time Tauranga gave her the same treatment. The power has gone to her head, and we say off with it."
Former National MP and minister, Tolley was appointed commission chair after the collapse of the city's council.
Luxton told Checkpoint he was summoned to a meeting with the commissioners and was unhappy with the tone of the invitation and the suggestion of how Tauranga should be governed.
"To have an unelected commissioner ... well commissioners with Anne Tolley as the chair, acting as if she has some insight into the community that no one else has, without ever having to stand in the election ... quite an insulting thing to be said.
"She also intimated ... she implied that candidates in this by-election were not across the issues that really mattered to Tauranga."
Cameron Luxton Photo: SUPPLIED
Luxton said he grew up in Tauranga and it is where his family and business also are. He was out in the community talking to people, he added.
It was "an unfortunate choice of words from someone who is not actually an elected leader of our town", he said
He said Tolley - who has been appointed by the Labour government - should stand in an election if she wanted to have a political sway there.
Luxton told Checkpoint he likened Tolley to a former French queen Marie Antoinette because he saw similarities in that "Marie Antoinette was aloof from the population, overpaid, underworked and generally not aware ... of the issues that were facing the people in the community".
"When things go wrong, people's heads should roll is the way we talk about things in this country and in this particular thing, I think the head of the commission should roll. She should not be getting involved in politics and the political side of things."
Luxton said he did not see a problem with his statement.