Not enough candidates to vote for in Hawke's Bay

Hastings mayor Sandra Hazlehurst (left) and Mohaka Ward council member Tania Kerr are both re-elected unopposed. Photo / NZME

Thousands of electors in Hawke's Bay will miss out on a vote in this year's local elections because the numbers of nominations in their areas are not enough to require a vote.

Among those missing out are voters in Central Hawke's Bay District Council ward Aramoana-Ruahine, where there have been just four nominations for the four positions, as well as just one each for the mayoralty and the single Tamatea constituency seat on the Hawke's Bay Regional Council.

Thus mayor Alex Walker is re-elected unopposed, as are Aramoana-Ruahine Ward members Kate Taylor, Tim Aitken, Jerry Greer, and Brent Muggeridge, and regional council member Will Foley.

A similar situation exists in the northern reaches of the Hastings District Council area, with mayor Sandra Hazlehurst re-elected along with Mohaka Ward member Tania Kerr and Heretaunga Ward members Alwyn Corban and Ann Redstone, and regional council Ngaruroro Ward member Jerf van Beek. There are also no elections necessary for three members of Hastings District's rural community board.

Tania Kerr has been a councillor for the Hastings District Council Mohaka Ward since 2008 when she won the single seat in a two-candidate byelection in 2008, in a 40 per cent turnout of the 3561 on the roll, and notes that also missing from the elections is the district health board, abolished nationwide this year in a new health governance model.

But the council's largest ward by area, comprising a population of about 5900 and spreading over two-thirds of the district, has had only one election since, when she faced one other candidate in 2019.

Otherwise re-elected unopposed, not having to erect a single billboard in 2010, 2013, 2016 and now this year, she passed off the suggestion it must have saved on campaign expenses by saying: "The campaign is for a whole three years. Getting re-elected starts when you are elected the first time."

In any event, the ward is "so big it's impossible", Kerr says of the prospect that she might ever have to trudge the roads and knock on all the doors.

She did not comment, however, on the absence of a voting opportunity, particularly for the younger electorate, saying she preferred to keep it positive.

The DHB disappearance continues a long-standing trend. There were once four hospital boards from Wairoa to Dannevirke, a similar number of power boards and regional councils merge roles of former catchment, roads and pest destruction boards, and a harbour board.

Where there were 249 municipalities before the reforms of the 1980s, there are now effectively 67, comprising 11 city councils and 50 district councils, and six unitary authorities, which combine the roles of territorial authorities and regional councils, of which there are 11 throughout the country.

Nominations for the 2022 local elections closed last Friday. The elections open with the delivery of voting papers on September 16-21 and end on October 8.
Anyone over 18 is entitled to vote, but they must be enrolled.