A meeting to encourage and help aspiring Māori politicians considering being candidates at this year's local election has been held in groundbreaking but ironic times for councils in Hawke's Bay.
While the Hawke's Bay Regional Council, the Hastings District Council and Dannevirke-based Tararua District Council include Māori wards for the first time, at least three councillors who blazed the way in Māori representation at council tables in the province are standing down.
The three are five-term Hastings District Council Flaxmere ward member Henare O'Keefe, who is retiring, two-term Napier City Council member Apiata Tapine, who has moved to Wairoa, and two-term Hastings council member Bayden Barber, who in April was elected chairman of Ngati Kahungunu Iwi Inc.
It is Barber and aspiring second-term Hawke's Bay Regional Council member Hinewai Ormsby who were behind the meeting, which was held Thursday in the Hastings council chambers.
Available was what Barber calls a 90-page book completed just in time for the hui.
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Nominations for the 2022 local elections open on July 15, with candidates having four weeks to get their names in before starting the campaigns leading-up to the elections, which will be by postal vote from September 16 to noon on October 8.
The big feature is the implementation of the Māori wards, including two Māori constituencies with a councillor each created in the regional council area, effectively being separate northern and southern reaches of the four local councils from Wairoa to Central Hawke's Bay.
The Hastings District Council and the Tararua District Council, which is in the Horizons (Manawatu-Whanganui) Regional Council area, have each chosen to have one Māori ward for the first time, while the Napier City, which had just effected an electoral system change at the 2019 elections, has deferred consideration of the issue until the new 2022-2025 term, as has the Central Hawke's Bay council.
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Advertise with NZME.The Wairoa District Council at a poll alongside the 2016 elections decided on Māori ward membership which was implemented three years later. It had already had multiple elected Māori members, including eventual Māori Party parliamentary candidate Derek Fox as Mayor from 1995 to 2001.
Barber said the Thursday forum and the book he and Ormsby prepared was aimed at giving those aspiring to council positions the "tools" to know what they are in for and how to do the job.
"We have some unprecedented times and this is an opportunity to pass on how things happen. With these Māori wards for the first time, we need to make sure it's successful."
He expected candidates would come from "all sorts of backgrounds", not necessarily just those who had already cut their governance teeth on sports club, school or marae committees.
"People do need to go in with their eyes open to the work needed to serve their communities, which I am sure all will want to do."
He believes most who took part in the hui are prospective candidates, and the book that was provided while prepared for the Māori candidates is applicable to anyone considering standing.
