'As fit as a buck rat': Porirua councillor dies after morning workout

Author: Janhavi Gosavi,
Publish Date: Mon, 15 Jun 2026, 8:55pm

A “much-loved” Porirua City Councillor who died suddenly in the weekend had collapsed after a workout, his daughter says.

Mike Duncan’s death was announced on social media yesterday by Porirua City Mayor Anita Baker, who mourned the loss of her friend.

Duncan, 76, had been on council for a decade, after being first elected in 2016.

His daughter Avril Ringrose, 53, told the Herald her dad was “as fit as a buck rat” and exercised for an hour every morning alongside his wife.

On Sunday morning, Duncan was 15 minutes into his treadmill workout when he came upstairs, and told his wife he had a tight chest and suspected he might have indigestion.

“He said, ‘I’ll just take a Gaviscon and go back down.’

“He took that and then collapsed and that was him gone,” Ringrose said.

She said paramedics worked on her dad for an hour to no avail.

Porirua City councillor Mike Duncan with his wife and six children.

Ringrose said Duncan was “everything” to her, her five siblings and his many grandchildren.

“Family drove dad, and other people’s needs - but the laugh came first.

“He lived life with a great outlook and loved sharing stories and hearing stories.”

Ringrose said her dad had an “absolute passion for Porirua” and always wanted to make a difference in his community.

“We all live here and it’s been so good to us.”

The Onepoto ward councillor spent all but two of his years living in Porirua, which he previously described as “the most beautiful place in the world” to Kapi-Mana news.

Mike Duncan pictured putting up a billboard for his campaign to be the Labour Party candidate for the Porirua electorate in 1987.

Before becoming a councillor, he was a printer and a journalist who worked at several Wellington news outlets, including a stint as a sub-editor at The Post and the now-defunct Evening Post.

He later ran Word for Word, a media project in which he chronicled Porirua politics and local government affairs.

Ringrose remembered being a child and helping her father put up billboards when he stood for the Labour Party nomination for the Porirua electorate in 1987.

He stood for the Porirua mayoralty in 2010 and 2019, but lost out both times, which Ringrose said he was secretly relieved about.

“I’ll never forget the phone call came through with the results,” she said.

“He thought he’d won mayor, and we saw his face drain ... and they were like, ‘As councillor, not mayor’ and he went, ‘Oh thank God.’”

In his last term on Porirua City council, he was an active member of several committees and found time to be “everywhere 24/7″, according to Baker.

“He cleaned the side of the road ... he was unbelievable, he went to every citizenship, every Pacific flag raising, he was the only councillor that did all of these things,” the mayor said.

Mike Duncan acting as MC at the Porirua Anzac Day service in 2018, accompanied with a NZSL interpreter.

Duncan was remembered by the council as a “strong advocate” for New Zealand Sign Language who pushed to get more interpreters at council events.

For the past few years, he had been the emcee at the Porirua Anzac Day Civic Service, which Ringrose said he was “immensely proud of”.

Ringrose said a date for Duncan’s funeral had not been set but the service would be made open to members of the public who wanted to pay their respects.

Janhavi Gosavi is a Wellington-based journalist for the New Zealand Herald who covers news in the capital.