Sue Wells
New Zealand politician

Sue Wells (born 29 September 1965) is a media personality and former city councillor in Christchurch, New Zealand.
Wells received her education at Heaton Intermediate (1976–1977) and Christchurch Girls' High School (1978–1982). Wells is the author of a novel called Nearly Twelve and appears on The Panel, a discussion programme on Radio New Zealand. She is a presenter on Canterbury Television, as host of her program, Susan Sells. She was previously a presenter for radio station Classic Hits 98FM. On the 24 May 2007 edition of The Panel, she requested her own Wikipedia page be made to complement those of host Jim Mora and fellow panel member Clive Matthew-Wilson. The page was up before the end of the programme.
She was first elected onto the Shirley-Papanui community board in 1995. In 1998 and 2001, she was a city councillor in the Heathcote ward. After the numbers of city councillors were reduced from 24 to 12 and the number of wards reduced accordingly, she successfully stood in the Spreydon-Heathcote ward in the 2004, 2007, and 2010. Early in 2012, she called on the government to replace the Christchurch City Councillors with commissioners after they had become dysfunctional, a call that was rejected by the Minister for Local Government, Nick Smith.
Begin with the source’s own compact description: “Sue Wells” is new Zealand politician. The dossier treats that line as a proposition to test through Wells, Zealand and politician, not as a finished interpretation.
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Biographical claims are most persuasive when dates, appointments and relationships can be traced to records created close to the events described. The source revision retrieved here is dated Aug 13, 2025. The linked authority identifier is Q7634331. VIAF identifies the subject as 12244184. The Library of Congress control number is nr2002029142. 2 of 3 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1965, 1976, 1977 and 1978.
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This entry incorporates text from “Sue Wells” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.