GUEST OPINION - Cr Craig Jepson

Northland Doesn’t Need a Super‑Council — It Needs Local Democracy That Works

By Craig Jepson - Kaipara District councillor and former mayor.

For all the noise about “simplifying” local government in Northland, one question remains unanswered: where has bigger ever proven better? No one can point to a single example in New Zealand where amalgamation has delivered lower costs, better services, or stronger communities. What we can point to are the failures — and Northland is being pushed down the same path.

The proposal to amalgamate Whangarei District Council (WDC), Far North District Council (FNDC), and Kaipara District Council (KDC) into a single super‑authority is being sold as efficiency. In reality, it risks creating a distant, debt‑laden bureaucracy that weakens rural communities, strips local voice, and repeats Auckland’s mistakes on a smaller scale.

Maori wards - the Kaipara experience

 

By Frank Newman

The Kaipara District Council stands alone as the only council to disestablish its Maori ward. By doing so, it has avoided the need for the referendum that is about to be held by 42 other councils that introduced Maori wards without obtaining a mandate from the public before doing so.

I spoke with Kaipara District Council Mayor, Craig Jepson, about his experience with their Maori ward and why his council thought disestablishment was the appropriate path to take.

He said that’s an easy question to answer.

“The Maori seats have become radicalised. Our Maori ward councillor continually disrupted and undermined our council. Although she took an oath to work in the best interests of all people, she clearly put the interests of Maori first, at the expense of everyone else.

Mayor Jepson changes seats

 Kaipara Mayor, Craig Jepson, will not be contesting the Mayoralty in the forthcoming elections but will instead stand for the Mangawhai ward as a councillor. Jepson said the move would allow him to focus on local issues in his ward.

He is endorsing his deputy mayor, Jonathan Larsen, for the mayoralty. He said Larsen is the perfect person to build on the solid base that has been established during his term as Mayor.   

Larsen is standing on a platform of “Stability – Unity -  Leadership”.  He has been on the council for 12 years, the last 3 as the deputy Mayor. 

[Photo credit: NZ Herald]

NZ Herald article: Here >>>

Guest comment - Craig Jepson, Mayor Kaipara District Council

Guest comment by Craig Jepson, Mayor, Kaipara District Council.

The 47^th President of the United States has just been sworn in, but the Trump effect is already being felt. Trump’s re-election is a remarkable thing. Remarkable because he did so in the face of huge opposition from the political and media establishment and Hollywood.

In the end, none of that mattered because in a democracy what matters is what people think, not what the establishment thinks or what the Oprah Winfrey’s of the world say. In a democracy, the vote of the person on the minimum wage flipping burgers at McDonald’s is worth exactly the same as the celebrity who gets paid a million dollars to say Kamala Harris is the best thing since sliced bread. In Trump speak: Democracy - It’s a beautiful thing.

Shortly after Trump’s victory, Facebook made a startling announcement that they were abandoning the use of “Fact Checkers”, because they were politically biased! These are the same Fact Checkers that the mainstream media and socialist politicians embraced to control “misinformation”!

This should be a wake-up call for our mainstream media but history would suggest otherwise. 2025 is likely to see a further decline in the relevance and influence of the traditional mainstream media as a source of information. They are now primarily a source of derision as they continue to push their increasingly less credible agendas.