EMBEDDING TE TIRITI

According to Te Ao Māori News, the Whangārei District Council (WDC) has moved a step closer to embedding the principles of Te Tiriti o Waitangi across the organisation.

The proposal now before councillors stems from recommendations arising from a “Te Tiriti o Waitangi health check.” As reported in LETTERBOX #30, the audit was commissioned by the council’s Māori Outcomes Department without the knowledge or prior approval from councillors, for $77,293 funded from “spare” money.

The stated purpose of the Treaty of Waitangi “health check” was to help councillors better understand their “obligations under Te Tiriti o Waitangi and He Whakaputanga,” assess the state of relations between the council and Māori, and provide recommendations for improvement.

AHIPARA CONTROVERSY CONTINUES

Our feature story in last month's LETTERBOX was about a decision by the FNDC in April to appoint 10 external hapū and iwi leaders to its Te Kuaka Committee for Māori Strategic Relationships. These 10 unelected members will sit alongside six elected councillors (four of whom were elected in Māori wards). The unelected members can participate fully in discussions and have full voting rights.

Candidate views on Maori wards & co-governance

Maori seats and co-governance have come in for attention during the campaign. To find out where each WDC candidate stands on these two issues, LETTERBOX has reviewed candidate campaign material or contacted candidates directly where their position is not mentioned.

We asked two simple questions:

• Do you support or oppose Maori wards? and

• Do you support or oppose co-governance?

Here are the results. 

MURIEL NEWMAN: The State of Local Government

Local Government is in crisis. The numbers tell the story: local authority rates increased 12.2 percent in the 12 months to the March 2025 quarter – a 14 percent contribution to the 2.5 percent annual increase in inflation. As a result of the reckless spending of local authorities, interest rates are staying higher for longer, with all New Zealanders paying the price.

So why have local authorities gone off the rails? 

To answer that question, we need to cast our mind back to the reforms introduced by Helen Clark’s Labour Government. Under the guise of enabling local authorities ‘to better serve their communities’, the Local Government Act 1974, which had kept councils focussed on delivering essential services and maintaining infrastructure, was replaced by the all-empowering Local Government Act 2002.

Should our Council’s support racist and anti-democratic organisations?

Sport Northland’s purpose and vision is to enrich Northlanders' lives through movement and have all Northlanders moving more for enhanced well-being. Its purpose is admirable and on many accounts, it does great work. It is significantly funded by ratepayers in Northland to manage recreational assets. Recently it refused to hire a room to a community group because it did not agree with their political views about co-governance. It reversed its decision when it was pointed out that discriminating against a person because they don’t like their political views breaches the Human Rights Act. 

Why did Sport Northland object?