New Far North Deputy Mayor and then Kaikohe-Hokianga community board chair Chicky Rudkin (centre) after her council's 2022 swearing in ceremony in Kaikohe, along with then fellow Te Hiku community board chair Kaitaia's Adele Gardner and Bay of Islands-Whangaroa Community Board chair Paihia's Belinda Ward. Photo / Susan Botting
New Far North Deputy Mayor and then Kaikohe-Hokianga community board chair Chicky Rudkin (centre) after her council's 2022 swearing in ceremony in Kaikohe, along with then fellow Te Hiku community board chair Kaitaia's Adele Gardner and Bay of Islands-Whangaroa Community Board chair Paihia's Belinda Ward. Photo / Susan Botting
The Far North is likely to step into the record books among New Zealand’s newly-elected 78 councils with the country’s highest ratio of women to men.
A record eight newly-elected Far North District Council (FNDC) politicians are women – 73% of the council table.
They include the region’s female deputymayor, Kaikohe’s Chicky Rudkin, her appointment announced last week.
Far North Mayor Moko Tepania says it’s great to be at the helm of a “mana wāhine” council.
“I’m excited to see where we’ll take the council in the next three years,” Tepania said.
“Like actor Will Ferrell said ‘Isn’t it time for women to run the planet. Men have run the show since 10,000 BC and haven’t made such a good job of that’.
“Maybe the Far North is having a go at doing something about that.”
Half of the FNDC’s top table’s women are returning – immediate past deputy mayor Kelly Stratford, former deputy mayor Ann Court, Felicity Foy and Māori ward councillor Hilda Halkyard-Harawira.
Kerikeri's Ann Court is Northland's longest-serving current female local government politician.
Photo / Susan Botting
The others are newcomers – Arohanui Allen, Rachel Baucke, Rudkin and Davina Smolders.
Tepania is one of just three men around the new council table, also including returnees Tāmati Rākena and John Vujcich.
He said adding FNDC’s 19 community board members – which included eight women – into FNDC’s total 30 elected representatives mix took the council’s overall ratio of women to men to 53%.
Court – Northland’s longest-serving female council politician, now starting her 10th term – said her council’s situation showed how far New Zealand had come since women were given the vote in 1893.
She said councils swung between being adversarial and collaborative.
The new council illustrated how the public eventually self-corrected between those styles through voting choices, and she expected it to be more collaborative, she said.
Far North Maori ward councillor Awanui's Hilda Halkyard-Harawira and husband Hone.
Photo / Susan Botting
FNDC Ngā Tai o Tokerau Māori Ward second-term councillor Halkyard-Harawira said electing women to the ward showed what voters wanted.
People voted for those they liked after meeting face to face during the campaign.
Three of the ward’s four councillors are now women – compared with Halkyard-Harawira being the only wāhine in its first term.
All the ward councillors have teaching experience.
Halkyard-Harawira said she would miss the skills of the ward’s two men no longer representing it.
But she looked forward to the new connections and expertise incoming first-time wāhine councillors Rudkin, who is now deputy mayor, and Arohanui Allen would bring.
In extreme contrast, Northland Regional Council (NRC) has the region’s lowest number of women politicians.
Whangārei Heads' Amy Macdonald is the only woman politician on NRC newly-elected council, which she says is concerning. Photo / Susan Botting
NRC’s Amy Macdonald is the only wāhine among its nine elected representatives, intensifying the council’s downward trend.
Wāhine made up just a third of the regional council’s 2019–2022 table, declining to 22.2% in 2022–2025, but it included New Zealand’s first female regional council chair.
Macdonald said the lack of women at the council’s top table was concerning.
“It would be good to understand why.”
Women had broadly different skill sets, life experiences and networks into the community, she said.
“There’s lots of evidence proving gender diversity leads to better decision making.”
Thirty % of NRC’s 2025 election candidates were women.
Macdonald questioned why that hadn’t translated into more women being elected. “How do we support women to stand and succeed?”
The number of women at WDC's top table has dropped significantly over the last three elections. First-time councillor Whangārei Heads' Tangiwai Baker is one of just three women among the new 14-member top table.
Photo / Susan Botting
WDC’s Tangiwai Baker, Deborah Harding and Marie Olsen make up only 21.4% of the council’s new 14-member top table.
Whangārei had Northland’s biggest drop in women local government politicians in 2022, after making up 42.85% of the council’s governance table and including the council’s third female Mayor Sheryl Mai between 2019 and 2022.
