Richard Walls QSO, JP

“Idleness His Pet Hate”
Headline “Evening Star” December 1973

The death of former Dunedin Mayor, Richard Walls, has brought to a close a remarkable life of dedicated public service spanning more than 40 years.

The man who began his membership of successive councils in 1980 - he’d already served on the St Kilda Borough Council for three years - became in 1975 a Member of Parliament and returned to the Council, became Mayor in 1989, and was still working on the city’s behalf as chair of Dunedin International Airport Ltd at the time of his death.

In giving expression to the scope of Richard’s influence on Dunedin it is almost inevitable there will be some errors of omission such was the involvement in the conduct of the city’s affairs but he had his favourites - projects that became matters of great pride in those moments when he could be persuaded to reflect on a lifetime of achievement.

During his term as Mayor he led a Council that began a comprehensive overhaul and upgrade of the city’s domestic water supply and the removal of the disposal of sewage into the harbour in conjunction with state-of-the-art upgraded treatment and dispersal at Waldronville and Tahuna.

As Mayor he was proud of the part he played in preserving the Regent Theatre when its future was threatened and of the city’s acquisition of the Railway Station building which he claimed “we bought for a dollar” in a land-swap deal with NZ Railways.

Elsewhere, he was instrumental in establishing our sister city relationship with Shanghai; of setting up, with Wanganui, the city’s bi-ennial hosting of the NZ Masters Games; and of championing the re-location of the Dunedin Public Art Gallery to its present central city site in the Octagon.

Richard was fond of reminding critics of what have now become known as ‘vanity projects’ that commitment to the arts, recreation and culture was what distinguished a city from a town.

Richard Walls was keen to remind everyone that he was, first and foremost, a businessman - a member of several city company boards and of TVNZ; as the person who persuaded the Council of the day to set up an Economic Development Committee and an Economic Development Unit dedicated to retaining and stimulating business activity in Dunedin; and, while working with Allied Press, helping to set up the Star Community Newspapers.

It was a brave individual who criticised the Council’s claims to be a ‘business friendly’ city when Richard Walls was still in office.

He once famously added to the perennial debate on the city’s rating system by noting “You can be fair or equitable – but not both.”

He loved his videos/DVDs, his whisky and, in later life, his computer.

Most of all he loved his wife June and their family.

At the time of his defeat in the 1995 mayoralty he told the ODT: “The desire (to serve) doesn’t go away, you’ve just got to find another way to do it.”

He certainly did that - and Dunedin is a better place for it.