Kaipara's 18,327 electors have until Saturday to vote in this year's local elections. Photo / Susan Botting
A Kaipara council candidate criticised in a newsletter sent to 13,000 homes has accused the lobby group behind it of a political smear campaign.
And a local election mayoral candidate says the newsletter is feeding into “culture wars” that are an “unhelpful sideshow” to the council’s core business.
However, Democracy Northland, the group behind the newsletter, has rejected the newsletter criticism, saying the publication provides a different perspective to that which Kaipara people may otherwise have access to.
The four-page newsletter landed in Kaipara letterboxes last month. It traverses Kaipara District Council-related subjects including Māori wards and polling, plus what it says is “political mudslinging” over the council’s position on its Treaty of Waitangi obligations.
It also lists nine preferred candidates for the next council, saying they advance the group’s ideal democratic values for a healthy democracy.
The Letterbox newsletter pushes for current Deputy Mayor Jonathan Larsen – cited in the document as being part of Kaipara District Council (KDC) removing racial preference – as Mayor, with sitting politicians Mayor Craig Jepson, Gordon Lambeth and Rachael Williams for councillors, plus newcomers Jan Beatty, Luke Canton, Rodney Field, Denise Rogers and Mike Schimanski.
Almost a quarter of the newsletter features Mayor Jepson criticising the Te Moananui o Kaipara Māori Ward ward and sitting councillor and candidate Pera Paniora including for what he claims was her putting the interests of Māori first at the expense of everyone else and continually disrupting and undermining the council.
In response to questions by the Northern Advocate, Paniora said she had been the sole elected representative in a ward the Mayor had not wanted from the outset.
She had to continually push for Māori interests as these had been continually eroded during her council term.
She said the group’s newsletter was dragging Kaipara into an ugly political space by smearing selected candidates.
The newsletter also questioned immediate past mayor and 2025 mayoral candidate DrJason Smith’s role around lack of polling on the introduction of KDC’s Te Moananui o Kaipara Māori Ward.
Smith was mayor and Larsen a councillor in 2020 when KDC decided to bring in its Māori ward.
He said the council had consulted local iwi because the ward’s introduction was about them.
It hadn’t polled the district because of the cost to the small council.
Smith said a poll call petition to KDC had been taken into account in the council’s decision.
He said none of KDC’s 2020 politicians had voted against the ward’s introduction.
Smith said it was unfortunate Democracy Northland was continuing to feed into New Zealand’s culture wars.
“Kaipara District Council is at the pointy end of the arrow in corrosive culture wars playing out across New Zealand about local government,” Smith said.
“These culture wars are an unnecessary and unhelpful sideshow to the real business of council.”
The newsletter also pointed the finger at Kaipara Mayoral candidates, businessman and iwi leader Snow Tane and sitting councillor Ash Nayyar.
Tane (Te Roroa, Ngāti Whātua) said the group might hold a certain view about how the council should be governed, but there was a strong groundswell of people wanting a change to a less divisive approach.
They might also choose to represent Kaipara’s Māori ward in a certain way.
“But that matter’s off the table now until 2028,” Tane said.
Nayyar said that it would be the people of Kaipara who chose their council candidates, rather than the lobby group.
Sitting KDC politician and election candidate Mark Vincent was singled out for being at the “woke” social issues end of the political spectrum and having “Mickey Mouse views on local democracy.
“The group has a different idea of democracy from me, and I wonder if they understand the irony of their name,” Vincent said in response.
Whangārei-based Democracy Northland founder and chair John Bain MNZM said the newsletter had not smeared selected candidates.
Democracy Northland had simply provided its comments on those who did not agree with its perspectives.
Mayor Jepson was the only one of the nine candidates spoken to by the Northern Advocate who knew they were to be listed.
Those spoken to directly were unanimously against Māori wards.
They were also predominantly okay about being listed.
However, Maungaturoto’s Schimanski preferred his chosen position as an independent candidate.
Those who knew of Democracy Northland almost exclusively supported its governance approach.
Omamari’s Field (Te Atiawa), however, said he needed to find out more.
Field wanted to see unity rather than separation.
“My Māoridom hasn’t got me to where I am today,” Field said.
Mangawhai’s Canton said he knew little about the group but those listed candidates he knew of were on the same council governance page.
Mangawhai’s Williams said everybody had an opinion on candidates. She voted to abolish KDC’s Māori ward.
Tangiteroria’s Beatty said everybody got representation in a properly run council.
Maungaturoto’s Rogers said she hadn’t known her name was going on the list or previously seen the newsletter.
Dargaville’s Lambeth would not say if he supported Democracy Northland’s governance views.
However, Lambeth said he did not agree with anything that separated people by race.
He was not a Democracy Northland member.
Mayoral candidate Larsen also refused to say whether he supported the group’s governance views.
Larsen abstained from 2020 KDC voting to bring in Te Moananui o Kaipara Māori ward. Four years later he voted to abolish it.
He said that did not mean voting incongruity.
He’d abstained because the council had refused to poll its district first. Abolition reinstated the status quo.
Larsen said he was not a Democracy Northland member.
Bain said the nine were selected based on what the lobby group knew about them from candidate statements, social media and/or what they had said at candidate meetings where Democracy Northland-linked people had been present.
Bain said those whose political perspectives were known in these ways had not needed to be approached.
He said when asked whether the listed candidates were Democracy Northland supporters that the people were those whose policies aligned with the group’s.
Dargaville and Districts Ratepayers Association chair Rose Dixon said she was concerned about what she claimed was the newsletter’s “anti-Māori rhetoric”.
“I’m worried we could see more division, more emboldened anger and more hate in our district, when what we desperately need is a focus on core council responsibilities and the mending of relationships between various communities,” Dixon said.
Dixon said she was disappointed the newsletter criticised some candidates without any right of reply.
Political commentator Paul Barlow said he was concerned Democracy Northland was trying to stir up division in Kaipara.
Bain rejected criticism of the newsletter, including any anti-Māori bias.
“That’s total rubbish,” Bain said.
Bain said the group was about not being racist, instead pushing for each person having one equal vote, not based on race, colour or creed.
“We’re a lobby group for all sides with one focus and that’s democracy,” Bain said.
He said the Letterbox newsletter provided the community with an opportunity to learn more about a different perspective that they may not have otherwise had access to.
Democracy Northland is a Whangārei-based lobby group Bain started in 2020 after resigning on the spot as a Northland Regional Council (NRC) politician and walking out of the meeting where the council voted to bring in a Māori constituency, without consulting the public first.
Bain said that exit was against changing the electoral system where any group was prescribed a separate electoral area and doing so without public consultation.
“Democracy Northland’s goal is to promote democracy where everyone gets a fair crack at the whip,” Bain said.
■ LDR is local body journalism co-funded by RNZ and NZ On Air.