The potentially contentious issue of separate Maori representation on the Tauranga City Council kicks off today with Maori supporting change.
Mayor Stuart Crosby and five councillors sit down with six representatives from the city's Tangata Whenua Collective to discuss the pros and cons of establishing a separate city-wide Maori Ward.
Today's meeting of the Tangata Whenua/City Council Committee will be the first public airing of an option that comes along every three years when the shape of electoral representation was decided.
Previous councils have not supported bids for Maori to get their own representative but the clean-out of the old guard in last year's election meant the outcome was less certain this time. A paper written by the council's legal and governance manager Kirsty Downey-McGuire laid out the options the committee can recommend to the full council.
A council decision opposing a Maori ward could trigger a public-initiated process to force a poll on the issue. A poll required support from 5 per cent of electors enrolled for the 2013 council election, or 4237 people.