As council candidates gear up for a whirlwind few months of campaigning, councillor Karen Barker can put her feet up.
Rotorua Lakes Council’s rural ward representative has held on to her seat as the only candidate to step up – leaving her elected unchallenged.
Barker became the inaugural incumbentafter the rural ward was introduced for 2022’s local election, fending off Shirley Trumper in a two-candidate race.
Barker, a registered pharmacist who lives on a Reporoa dairy farm, will now serve three more years as a council member.
“I’m very grateful I get the chance to serve again, because it’s been a particularly enjoyable experience,” said Barker.
“I will take the opportunity to do the best I can, not just for rural people, but everybody and I am very much looking forward to it.”
Barker said she was expecting to see more names trickle in before last Friday’s nominations deadline. After nothing changed by Monday, she tentatively accepted her re-election.
She hoped the lack of challengers was a show of “confidence” from the rural community about her work.
“It can be a reflection of the kind of job you have done and how comfortable people are with what the council’s been doing. So it’s not all disengagement, sometimes there’s potentially a level of comfort.”
She also pointed to the six candidates running for four seats on Rotorua’s Rural Community Board as a sign rural constituents were not apathetic about local politics.
“That is particularly encouraging,” she said. “It shows that the rural people are engaged, and they want to have their say and they want to try and support me in my role.”
Karen Barker was first elected in 2022. Photo / NZME
Rotorua’s rural ward was established after a drawn-out representation review concluded in April 2022. The Local Government Commission also instituted three Māori ward and six general ward seats.
The rural ward covers an area with around 8000 residents including parts of the Ngongotahā Valley and Hamurana, Rerewhakaaitu, the Kaingaroa Forest, Lakes Rotomā and Rotoiti, Waiotapu, Reporoa, Mamaku and others within the Waikato portion of the Rotorua district.
Barker highlighted rates affordability, community halls and rural subdivision rules as key issues in the ward for the next three years, as well as wider Rotorua projects such as water, sewerage, infrastructure investment and the museum.
She said she was committed to still attending pre-election events to remain “as engaged as possible”.
There was a “great choice” of candidates available across the other council wards, she said.
Barker was congratulated by fellow councillors at Wednesday’s Infrastructure and Environment Committee meeting, which she chairs.
Don Paterson and Conan O’Brien both passed on their well wishes, while Robert Lee said she had “conducted herself admirably” in her role.
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 the UK for eight years.
– LDR is local body journalism co-funded by RNZ and NZ On Air.
