Five options with Māori ward councillors and the question of whether Napier should have its first community board are being tested in the city’s representation review deciding the city council structure from next year’s local election.
The options emerged from an open council workshop on April 16,
They are also up for discussion at public meetings in each of the current four wards this month.
Views are also being sought on whether there should be an elected Maraenui Community Board, stemming from a requirement that the reviews must provide effective representation of communities of interest, which the Local Government Commission cites as perceptual, functional and political.
Comprising elected members and able to include appointees and tasked elected councillors, there are about 110 nationwide, just one in the Hawke’s Bay region, but with two in the Tararua District.
They have limited powers specific to the area, as is the case with the Hastings District Council’s seven-member Rural Community Board, established in 1992 in a compromise after fears of a loss of rural influence in a Hastings-Havelock North merger with eight of the 10 ridings of the Hawke’s Bay County when it disappeared in local government reform three years earlier.
The new phase follows earlier consultation which found majority support for Māori wards in Napier, but comes ahead of a 2025 poll in which there will be both an election of the councillors and, as a result of a decree from the new Government, a referendum on whether there should be any Māori wards, from the next election in 2028.
Councils are required to undertake representation reviews at least once every six years, using population changes and other factors to decide the number of councillors, and whether they should be elected in a single vote across the city or in area wards.
The Napier ward options all propose two Māori ward members. Three propose a one-member increase in numbers at the Council table, currently made up of the Mayor and 12 councillors, and two, aware of the potential extra cost, propose a one-member cut in the numbers.
All retain a geographical wards structure, one retaining the current four wards of Nelson Park, Taradale, Onekawa-Tamatea and Ahuriri, one cutting the number to three general wards, and two reducing the number to two, but with two options also allowing for two members at-large, elected across the city vote.
Papers note surveys found “little appetite” for a larger council.
Napier has had a council of a mayor and 12 councillors for many years, a full wards system applying for the last two elections, with Nelson Park Taradale each having four councillors and Ahuriri and Onekawa-Tamatea each having two, replacing a mixed-representation model in which six were elected at-large across the city.
The first two public sessions will be 11am-midday gatherings for Nelson Park at The Base, Maraenui, on May 11, and Taradale at Taradale Co-Lab on May 14, while the Onekawa-Tamatea meeting at Napier Aquatic Centre on May 16 and Ahuriri’s at Napier War Memorial Centre on May 21 will both be 4-6pm meetings.
A survey will be conducted throughout, closing on May 24 with the council then deciding on a preferred option by the end of the month, calling for submissions before a final decision.
Wairoa established a Māori ward in 2019, the Hawke’s Bay Regional Council and Hastings and Tararua introduced Māori wards in 2022, and Central Hawke’s Bay is also set to introduce a Māori ward in 2025.
Doug Laing is a senior reporter based in Napier with Hawke’s Bay Today, and has 50 years of journalism experience in news gathering, including breaking news, sports, local events, issues, and personalities.