Rotorua mayoral candidate Takeina 'Shakaina' Fraser likes the "dark horse" tag. Photo / NZME
Local body elections are under way and five hopefuls are vying for Rotorua’s top job. Local Democracy Reporting quizzed the mayoral candidates about key issues before the October 11 election.
Shakaina Fraser is, in her own words, the dark horse in the 2025 mayoral race.
She has detailed a platform focused on community, housing, family advocacy, and alternative approaches to development.
The dark horse reference, for her, is significant. She is reminded of the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse depicted in the Book of Revelation – where the dark horse’s rider represents famine. She refers specifically to how a day’s wages could not provide the sustenance required to feed a family.
Referring to the cost of living and Rotorua’s homelessness issues, she said: “If we pay for rent, pay for power, pay for all of us in a family, we won’t even have money to buy food.
“Some of those people on the streets right now used to own or rent homes,” she said. “They’re now living on the street.”
Getting people off the streets was a key issue for Fraser, whose background is in horticulture, agriculture and community psychology.
“There have to be some subsidies available to our beneficiaries to be able to get into those rental homes. If they can’t, then cap them.”
She drew on personal experience to illustrate the burden, describing her own three-bedroom house at $620 a week.
“I was able to afford that comfortably with my family living with me, even with just one daughter. Because we both worked.”
That was no longer the case after a change in circumstances.
“I was put on the edge. With all the benefits I could qualify for, it only came to $547. I still had to pay for the car, my rent and having given all that money over, how am I going to now live?”
Fraser’s campaign has been unorthodox. First, there was confusion over her name. She remains listed on the ballot as Takeina Fraser, her legal name. She said she was not allowed to use her middle and preferred name.
Then there was the recent court appearance for driving while disqualified from holding or obtaining a driver’s licence. She has denied the charge.
Then there was the self-admission that she had previously been trespassed from the Rotorua courthouse, Work and Income, and the Inland Revenue Department buildings.
Despite these issues, Fraser said she would be a vocal advocate for Rotorua’s families.
“I can relate with a woman who has been beaten up. I can relate from a caregiver’s point of view with people whose children have been removed,” she said.
For Fraser, family wellbeing is tied directly to wider priorities. “It needs to be addressed because if we’re not going to take care of our families and our people, how are we going to take care of our money and other things?”
Fraser offered a sharp rebuke of the current council leadership, saying Mayor Tania Tapsell has “divided” the council and, in her view, “hasn’t done anything” for the city.
Fraser believes rates are not offering “any improvements”, especially for Rotorua’s natural environment. She has proposed using collected rainwater as a means of cleaning Rotorua’s lakes and advocated for more solar power usage – to reduce environmental impact and long-term cost.
“I want to be mayor because of what’s happening here,” she said.
“We can see it with our own eyes, and I know it by my own experiences, my work, and I see it in my family, I see it in my communities, that decline. People’s needs are not being met now.”
Voting in Rotorua’s local body elections remains open until October 11.
Mathew Nash is a Local Democracy Reporting journalist based at the Rotorua Daily Post. He has previously written for SunLive, been a regular contributor to RNZ and was a football reporter in Britain for eight years.
– LDR is local body journalism co-funded by RNZ and NZ On Air.