New Far North Deputy Mayor and Kaikohe East School principal Chicky Rudkin chats with her pupils ahead of a pōwhiri. Photo / Susan Botting
New Far North Deputy Mayor Chicky Rudkin says supporting Mayor Moko Tepania to build a strong, united team is among her early goals.
“I’ll also be working closely with staff on strengthening engagement with our communities, particularly across our rural and Māori wards, to make sure all voices are being heard and valued from the outset,” Rudkin (Te Rarawa) said.
The Kaikohe East School principal of 26 years is Northland’s first district council leader selected after standing in a Māori ward.
She is also only the second Māori electoral area-generated council leader to take up her elected office in Northland.
Rudkin represents Ngā Tai o Tokerau Māori Ward and was confirmed as a first-time councillor on October 18.
This is her second term in Far North District Council’s (FNDC) local government structure. She chaired the Kaikohe-Hokianga Community Board between 2022 and 2025.
Tepania (Te Rarawa/Ngati Kahu ki Whangaroa) has previously said he needed a deputy who was trustworthy, someone he got along well with and who would also have his back.
His reasons for selecting Rudkin also included her being a born-and-bred Kaikohe resident who was geographically close to the council’s head office base.
Tepania said Rudkin had played a key role in his re-election.
He announced Rudkin as Deputy Mayor on October 23 and witnessed her official swearing in six days later.
Tepania bestowed the title TeKohepu o te Hiku o Te Ika – the kohekohe tree flower of Far North District Council – upon Rudkin at her swearing-in.
He chose the title for the flower’s beauty and fragrance and importance to Ngāpuhi.
The kohekohe tree (New Zealand mahogany) also links to the name Kaikohe which comes from the originally longer word Kai kohekohe.
This longer name is in reference to those who escaped a 19th-century raid on their village that was part of the Kaikohe area then called Ōpango.
The escapees who sheltered among kohekohe groves on Tokareireia (now Memorial or Kaikohe Hill) were forced to eat the tree’s bitter fruit because there was no other food available.
The area’s name changed from Ōpango to Kai kohekohe as a result, later shortened to Kaikohe.
Tepania said Rudkin’s time as tumuaki (principal) would be a great benefit.
Her experience employing staff would be invaluable for her role on the council’s Te Huia – executive review committee, the mayor said.
Kaikohe East School has 240 pupils and 40 staff.
“There are lots of transferable leadership skills, for a start communicating with lots of people.
“I have to talk with a wide range of people.”
Rudkin said not least among that was interacting with the 240 students’ whānau.
“There’s nothing much better than doing that to have a clear picture of what local people need,” she said.
Rudkin said she will stay on as Kaikohe East School principal until at least the end of the school year.
Being the school’s principal was something she would always treasure.
She said she wanted to make sure the school’s transition to a new principal was a good one.
Rudkin, who continued working as principal during the election, said her electioneering was done outside school hours.
She was born in Kaikohe Hospital and has lived in the town of 4500 most of her life apart from eight years’ teacher training and teaching in South Auckland.
Rudkin attended Kaikohe East School, Kaikohe Intermediate and Northland College.
“My lifelong connection to this place fuels a deep passion for our communities and commitment to seeing them thrive,” Rudkin said in an earlier community board election statement.
She also spent a lot of her childhood in the Far North’s Waihou in North Hokianga near Panguru in the district’s west, and on its east coast at Wainui, near Whangaroa.
Meanwhile, Northland Regional Council (NRC)’s new chair Pita Tipene (Ngāti Hine, Ngāti Te Tarawa) is the second Northland leader elected from a Māori electoral area – Te Raki Māori Constituency – for the 2022-2025 term.
In so doing, he becomes the third person from a Māori electoral area to be elected for a top council governance role in Northland.
The first was NRC’s former chair Tui Shortland (Ngāti Hine, Ngātiwai, Te Rarawa), who was the first wāhine Māori to lead a regional council in New Zealand, after also being elected in the council’s Te Raki Māori Constituency.
In 2022, Tepania stood for mayor and as an FNDC Ngā Tai o Tokerau Māori ward councillor, winning a seat in both but taking up the mayoral role.
■ LDR is local body journalism co-funded by RNZ and NZ On Air.