Award for Te Arawa partnership 'hypocritical'

Rotorua Lakes Council has taken home a major prize from the Local Government New Zealand awards, but not everyone is celebrating.

Rotorua Lakes Council has taken home a major prize from the Local Government New Zealand awards, but not everyone is celebrating.

The council won the Martin Jenkins Judges' Choice Award for Outstanding Value and Service Delivery for its work on the controversial Te Tatau o Te Arawa Board partnership.

The awards were held in Dunedin on Monday night during the annual Local Government New Zealand (LGNZ) conference with mayor Steve Chadwick, deputy mayor Dave Donaldson, chief executive Geoff Williams, Te Tatau o Te Arawa board chairman Te Taru White and councillors Janet Wepa and Karen Hunt attending the ceremony.

While opponents of the board say it has split Rotorua and is undemocratic, Mrs Chadwick said the partnership was "another step forward in Rotorua's journey".

"What's good for Te Arawa is good for us all as a community and this award is a wonderful tribute to the whole community."

Mr White said Te Arawa, the council and the Rotorua community should be proud.

"We had belief in ourselves and it has been recognised nationally that this is a good thing to do, that as a community we can raise ourselves together.

"It wasn't an easy road. Nothing comes easy, you've got to do the hard yards and be dedicated and believe in it. It takes leadership and a love for our community."

He said the partnership was working well from Te Arawa's perspective.

"This is a partnership built on honesty and integrity and with the intention to do the best for our community."

The partnership was hailed by judges as representing "a step change in council/iwi relationships which will influence the manner in which relationships develop in other parts of New Zealand".

LGNZ president Lawrence Yule said the partnership showed an innovative approach to community consultation and engagement, and was an "excellent model that could be rolled out in many parts of New Zealand".

But, councillor Mike McVicker and mayoral candidate Dr Reynold Macpherson, who helped set up the Rotorua Pro-Democracy Society, now known as the Rotorua District Residents and Ratepayers group, to stop the partnership being formed, were not celebrating.

"A national conference of hand-picked delegates does not have the right to tell us how we should be governed," Dr Macpherson said.

"In 52 days we will start voting to decide if we want to be ruled through co-governance, with a tribal elite, or return to democracy, with all votes equal and no back doors into power."

Mr McVicker said the award was, in his view, the "height of hypocrisy".

"Appointing unelected Maori representatives to council, which resulted in splitting the Rotorua community, and still does today, to win an award strikes me as hypocritical," he said.

He said, in his opinion: "Granted, there needed to be an improvement in relations between Te Arawa and council, but . . . to appoint unelected Maori to council committee meetings, with voting rights, was a step too far."

Judges for the awards were former Wellington mayor Kerry Prendergast, Earthquake Commission chairman Sir Maarten Wevers and The New Zealand Initiative's executive director Dr Oliver Hartwich.