Te Arawa partnership sparks debate in Rotorua council meeting, as councillors’ pay revealed

There was disagreement among Rotorua Lakes councillors at their first meeting on Wednesay about the council's partnership with Te Arawa. Photo / Andrew Warner

Rotorua Lakes Council has agreed on salaries for councillors, but a discussion about its committees and standing orders led to disagreement in the chamber.

The council met on Wednesday for the first time since being sworn in last month.

Remuneration, committee structures and council delegations and representations were on the agenda.

The Remuneration Authority set a $984,754 governance pool for Rotorua, which the council must spend.

It set the base salary for a councillor at $84,000, but this would increase for those with additional responsibilities.

Deputy Mayor Sandra Kai Fong will be the highest-paid councillor on $155,254.

Infrastructure committee chairwoman Karen Barker and deputy Gregg Brown will each get $110,250.

Merepeka Raukawa-Tait and Te Rika Temara Benfell will each receive $88,500 as leaders of the Te Arawa 2050 Vision committee.

Trevor Maxwell and Fisher Wang will earn $90,000 with ambassador roles.

Don Paterson, Robert Lee and Ben Sandford remain on the base.

Mayor Tania Tapsell’s salary is $177,369, a figure set independently.

The council decided to remove the community and district development committee for this term, rolling its responsibilities into general council meetings.

That leaves seven other decision-making bodies, including committees for infrastructure, audit and risk, chief executive performance, district licensing and dog control, as well as the Rural and Lakes community boards.

There is also the Te Arawa 2050 Vision committee, which was voted in at the end of 2024. It cannot make decisions, but can make recommendations to the council, which would make the final decisions.

Lee voted against affirming the Te Arawa 2050 Vision committee.

Rotorua Lakes councillor Robert Lee at a meeting in June this year. Photo / Laura Smith

He expressed “concerns” over the membership of five “co-opted” Te Arawa board members on the committee, as he believed setting a vision should be the sole responsibility of elected members.

This sparked a rebuke from Māori ward councillor Temara-Benfell, who said the Te Arawa partnership was mentioned 43 times in the city’s Long-Term Plan.

“It’s important for the very fabric of our community,” Temara-Benfell said.

Rotorua Māori ward councillor Te Rika Temara-Benfell at his swearing-in ceremony last month. Photo / Mathew Nash

Lee also voted against the appointment of representatives to 24 external committees and trusts, as he believed some protocol committees were more like joint committees.

He wanted agendas for those committee meetings made available to the public, and expressed doubt about whether some of them were required under Treaty of Waitangi settlements.

Tapsell told Lee those committees were not decision-making bodies.

Raukawa-Tait suggested Lee should become more informed and described some of his comments as “quite ignorant”.

“I hear a lot of information often coming from that side [of the table], but little wisdom,” she said.

Rotorua councillor Merepeka Raukawa-Tait.

A resulting stoush between Lee and the mayor led to a point-of-order call from Brown.

“I think the member should respect the chair,” Brown said.

Despite Lee’s objections, both recommendations were passed.

Lee and Paterson voted against the adoption of standing orders related to public forums.

Current public forum rules do not allow topics on the council agenda to be discussed within the public forum of the same meeting, something both questioned.

Standing orders were then passed allowing public forums (outside pre- and post-election periods) where speakers, approved in advance and time-limited, can raise issues within the committee’s scope.

Topics on the agenda or previously discussed by multiple speakers may still be restricted, and no debate or decisions would occur on forum matters.

The council agreed to adopt Local Government New Zealand’s Code of Conduct template, although Paterson abstained from voting.

Colin Guyton, who missed the inauguration meeting last month, was also sworn on to the Rural Community Board at Wednesday’s meeting, with rural ward councillor Karen Barker re-appointed as its council representative.

An appointee for the Lakes Community Board is to be made after the March by-election.

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.