Young Reuben Shadbolt, front, with his father Tim Shadbolt, behind, in an anti-Russian nuclear protest in Auckland city in the late 1970s.

It's a quarter-century since Tim Shadbolt skipped Auckland to become Mayor of Invercargill, but now his name is controversially back on a west Auckland ballot paper and his son Reuben Shadbolt isn't happy about it.

Reuben says he is dismayed that his father has given the green light for Wayne Davis, a man with a conviction for domestic violence, to use the party name "Shadbolts Independent" as he runs for election in the Whau Local Board next month. Davis's use of the Shadbolt name harks back to the late 1980s, when Davis successfully ran on a ticket alongside Shadbolt in west Auckland.

"I can't have the Shadbolt family to be associated with domestic violence. I ran in the previous election and I feel voters may think I'm endorsing family violence," said Reuben. (He stood for the Auckland supercity mayoralty in 2013, winning just under 1 per cent of the vote.)

SUPPLIED Wayne Davis is campaigning to be on the Whau Local Board.

Reuben said his father hadn't even lived in West Auckland since 1993, when he moved to Invercargill, and "this name doesn't just belong to my father and Wayne".

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He said he owed it to his late great-aunt René Shadbolt, who has a park named after her in Davis's campaigning area in Green Bay, to let people know Davis is not endorsed by the Auckland part of the Shadbolt family.

ROBYN EDIE/FAIRFAX NZ Invercargill Mayor Tim Shadbolt.

In 2003 Davis was convicted to 100 hours community service after pleading guilty to domestic violence charges. But Shadbolt said though he "deplored" domestic violence, he believed Davis had addressed his past offending, and should be given a second chance.

Davis said when he received Shadbolt's blessing to use the name he'd thought Reuben had no objection. He has run under the same name in the past. "Tim said Reuben was OK with using the name."

The Shadbolt name has a rich and sometimes controversial history in West Auckland. In 1942, the New Lynn mayor Stan Rickards named a park after René Shadbolt in recognition of her heroic work as a nurse in the recent Spanish Civil War. (René was aunt of Tim, and also of his cousin Maurice, the famous author).

The park became widely known as "Shadbolt Park" but in 2008 an historian suggested a new sign be erected to remind visitors of its full name and origins. Shadbolt said he didn't want the name clarified, because "since [René] there have been other Shadbolts who have come into prominence".

Shadbolt was elected mayor of Waitemata City in 1983, then again in 1986 on a political ticket called "Tim's Team". He lost the 1989 race, and left for Invercargill four years later.

Last week, he said Davis was a survivor.

"I formed a ticket in 1989 called Shadbolts Independent and he was the only one who succeeded ... he's stuck to the same party name."

Davis said Reuben's attacks on him because of his historical conviction is "the kettle calling the pot black. Reuben has done some things in the past he's not proud of. We all have at some point."

Shadbolt said he endorsed Davis's use of the name Shadbolts Independent in June.

"I challenged him on the domestic violence and he said he had been through Man Alive programmes and was a changed man and I felt he should be given a second chance."

Shadbolt said he "deplored" domestic violence and had backed Davis on the basis he had been reformed.

In 2006, Shadbolt's first wife, Miriam Cameron, who is Reuben's mother, told the Herald on Sunday that she had split with Shadbolt in 1989 because he had been violent towards her, though she never laid charges. At the time Shadbolt declined to comment about the allegations.