Local Focus: A greenie, a pastor and a lifecoach walk into the council chamber

Among the new faces on Tauranga City Council are three women, all well-known in the community, but they couldn't be more different.

"I've got chickens, I've got my own compost, I ride a bike."

Heidi Hughes, 50, is a self confessed "greenie" who ran her campaign on protecting the environment.

"At the moment we are using seven times more resources than this planet can support," Hughes said. "And 'a bit of a greenie' sounds like an outside thing, but this is the reality of what we need to do to survive.

"I'm really interested in biodiversity, I'd like to see our native flora and fauna also survive."

Tina Salisbury is a pastor at her local church. She ran her campaign on affordable housing.

"We've got an issue with homeless as we all know, so I think we can be a whole lot more creative on how we solve those [problems] together - affordable housing, emergency housing, transitional housing... finding ways for everyone in our city to have a nice and stable home environment."

And Dawn Kiddie, president of the Mount Ratepayers Association and a lifecoach, is known for leading opposition to Te Papa o Ngā Manu Porotakataka park.

"I look forward to it being a positive journey," Kiddie said. "There's a fair bit of negativity out there in certain sectors of the community and I'm really pleased and happy that, hopefully, I can be that person that can make the change, that can open a Pandora's box, that can be transparent. And they can see what goes on behind the scenes as well.

"The learnings for all of us as the three women on [council], will be learning to appreciate, to acknowledge and to understand we are different."

Despite their differences, the three are keen to work together.

"I think we are quite different," Salisbury said. "We come from completely different spheres. It's kind of like we all have our own kite of information we bring to the table, so what we have been able to do is cross pollinate that information."

And while the trio is pleased to be increasing the number of women in council, they say there's still a lack of diversity.

"I'd love to see more diversity and culture, I'd love to see more Māori in there, certainly haven't got that representation which is so sad," Hughes said.

"I think it's a shame one of the Māori candidates wasn't elected, and as an elected member now, I'd like to work with some of those candidates just to see how we can collaborate over the next three years to raise their profiles," Kiddie said.

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