NZCPR Newsletter: People Power

“People Power” has forced the Government to change the law to strengthen local government democracy.

This is a major win for everyone who raised the alarm about the tribal takeover of local government that’s now underway all around New Zealand. From individuals, to media, think tanks, lobby groups, councillors, and politicians – each person who spoke out strongly against the violation of democracy that’s been going on helped ensure the powers that be could no longer turn a blind eye.

Local Government Minister Simon Watts explained the detail: “Councillors are directly accountable to voters for their decisions. We are amending the Local Government Act 2002 so only elected members hold voting rights at council committee meetings.

“Councils and the public nationwide have raised concerns about individuals holding voting rights on council committees, undermining decision-making and diluting the influence of democratically elected members… That’s not democratic, so we’re fixing it.

“Councils can still appoint non-elected members… but those appointments will not come with voting rights or count towards a quorum.”

He mentioned there will be exemptions, including special arrangements set up in Treaty settlements, and he explained that councils will have six months to review their delegations and appointments before the law change takes effect.

The Government’s actions are in response to the growing public outcry over the fact that tribal corporations – motivated by power and greed – are hijacking local councils by forcing the appointment of iwi representatives as advisers on influential committees and then demanding voting rights.

Controversy surrounding the Far North District Council brought matters to a head. Not satisfied with having four Maori seats (including the Mayor) on a council of eleven, iwi leaders wanted absolute control of the influential Te Kuaka Committee for Maori Strategic Relationships – seemingly to act as a conduit through which the tribal agenda could be fed into the political system.

As a result, the Council appointed ten iwi representatives with voting rights onto the Committee of seven elected councillors – including all four from the Maori seats. Mayor Moko Tepania attempted to ease public outrage with assurances the Committee was “advisory” only and decisions would require full council approval.

However, during an extraordinary Committee meeting on April 20, the important step to pass a recommendation to establish co-governance for a recently acquired reserve onto the full council for final sign-off was deliberately ignored, with the agreement signed and sealed by the Committee, then celebrated with pre-ordered platters of hot sausage rolls and savouries.  

It was a scandalous deal that had appalling origins. Back in 2021, a local GP who owned a waterfront section gained approval from the council to remove part of an old Pohutukawa tree on his property to make way for his retirement home. Local Maori, however, claimed the tree was historically significant and illegally occupied the site to prevent the landowner building his house on his own private land.

While trespass notices were issued by the Police no enforcement action was taken to remove the protestors. After a bitter two-year occupation, the council bought the land at a discounted price to resolve the dispute.

The “Kaitiaki” co-governance agreement authorised by the Te Kuaka Committee completed the circle. By effectively handing the land to the iwi that had illegally occupied the site for two years, the council set a dangerous precedent: a radical group that engaged in unlawful trespass and occupation was rewarded with a lucrative co-governance deal, complete with official status and prestige. This sends a clear and disturbing message — that blockades, trespass, and illegal seizure can succeed with law-breakers granted governance powers over the very land they occupied.

This raises serious questions about the integrity of the decision-making process. The Te Kuaka Committee, which drove the agreement, included iwi representatives with clear connections to the occupation groups. In any normal governance setting, people with such obvious conflicts of interest would be expected to recuse themselves. Instead, a committee heavily aligned with the occupiers was allowed to approve a co-governance deal granting them official status and control over the site. This breaches basic principles of natural justice, transparency, and objective decision-making.

The partnership agreement between the Council and iwi states the Treaty of Waitangi is “the founding document of our ongoing relationship as partners to this agreement.” But the claim that the council is in “partnership” with local Maori flies in the face of the 2025 Hart v Marlborough District Council ruling, which determined that councils have “no” Treaty obligations beyond those explicitly mandated by Parliament in their legislation. Since the only legal responsibility councils have is to notify local Maori of consultation opportunities, this co-governance deal effectively strips power from the voting public and replaces democratic accountability with a system of selective privilege, where backroom concessions carry more weight than the ballot box.

On top of this, the Far North District Council has disclosed it is expecting to sign five more “partnership” agreements with local iwi in the near future.   

Such a calculated subversion of local democracy is part of a mad scramble that’s currently underway as tribal groups around the country sign and seal partnership deals with councils ahead of the proposed Resource Management Act reforms becoming law.

The problem the country faces is that instead of the Coalition terminating all undemocratic agreements with iwi that councils have secretly entered into over the years, they intend carrying them forward into their new RMA replacement – the Planning and Natural Environment Bills.

This is totally unacceptable. From the subversion of democracy in the co-governance agreement just signed in the Far North, to the multitude of Mana Whakahono a Rohe arrangements – which are initiated by iwi and represent a scandalous drain on ratepayer resources — to various other iwi agreements put in place over the years, these deals are a primary reason the RMA has become dysfunctional.

Accordingly, they should all be cancelled when the new planning regime comes into force.

Unless People Power can be harnessed to convince the Coalition that no tribal deals should be included in the new planning regime, iwi will continue to use the current delay in progressing the legislation as a window of opportunity to embed not only their position of privilege, but the lucrative income streams that flow from fabricated cultural assessment mandates and extortionate “compensation” demands like the $180 million currently being claimed from a mining company.  

The Coalition was also elected on the promise they would repeal the Labour Government’s Three Waters legislation which introduced tribal co-governance.

While that’s been done and the mandatory co-governance structures put in place by Labour have been removed from their replacement scheme “Local Water Done Well”, by failing to rule out the involvement of self-interested iwi, the new scheme is morphing Three Waters by a different name.

The problem is that by leaving Councils free to choose how much tribal involvement they wanted, those that have already been ‘captured’ by iwi, are giving them essentially the same rights the public demanded be removed from Three Waters. Worse, they are doing this without any regard for the opinions of residents and ratepayers.

In Wellington, the five metropolitan councils — Wellington City, Hutt City, Upper Hutt, Porirua, and Greater Wellington Regional Council — have established Tiaki Wai as a Council-Controlled Organisation operating in partnership with iwi. As expected, iwi are heavily influencing the overall direction, not only through Board of Director appointments, but also by embedding “Te Mana o te Wai” in the organisation’s values and planning to ensure a financially rewarding and enduring involvement!

In Hamilton, the new water entity, IAWAI, is a CCO jointly owned by Hamilton City Council and Waikato District Council in partnership with iwi. Three members from each council and three from iwi form the partnership oversight body, which has already entrenched Te Mana o te Wai into all decision-making. While the Board of Directors is skills-based, appointees were sought with strong tribal links and as a result three of the six Board members have iwi affiliations.

What all of this means is that in spite of the Coalition Government being elected on a promise of stopping co-governance and preventing race-based policy, their failure to directly enforce these requirements in local government is resulting in Local Water Done Well having the same inherent failings of Three Waters.

People Power is the only way this can be stopped.

While the Minister’s plan to prevent unelected representatives on Council Committees having voting rights is to be applauded, he needs to extend the new restrictions to all CCOs including Local Water Done Well.

On top of that, it is crucial that he stops unelected “advisors” becoming permanent appointees on council committees – not only because their lucrative financial packages are an expensive drain on ratepayer resources, but to prevent the bullying and intimidation of councillors who oppose their recommendations.

Finally, there’s also an opportunity for People Power to delay the Coalition’s headlong rush to disestablish Regional Councils, which risks turning small, well-managed councils into faceless, unaccountable behemoths – as this week’s NZCPR Guest Commentator Fiona Mackenzie explains:

“Government Ministers Simon Watts and Chris Bishop have given councils just another two months to propose mergers or face imposed restructuring, which they say will simplify and strengthen “local voices”. But it would pay to be sceptical of their motivation.

“Auckland’s imposed amalgamation in 2010 should serve as a warning, not as a blueprint. It shows how such constructs can leave ratepayers funding their own political marginalisation at an ever-increasing rate.

“The promise was stronger representation, lower costs, and greater efficiency. The reality in Auckland has been the opposite, with the Council becoming a sprawling and expensive bureaucracy where decision-making is remote, cumbersome, and increasingly dominated by unelected officials, interest groups and the tribal elite…

“Remember that Auckland’s so-called Super City has delivered:

• More distant governance and weaker accountability.
• CCOs controlling resources (such as water) and infrastructure with appointed boards and deals with tribal interests.
• Higher costs, rising debt, and wasteful spending.
• Larger bureaucracies and less transparency.
• Legalised race-based ‘corruption’, expanded tribal influence and control, co-governance and co-management frameworks, decolonisation programmes, and race-based spending.

“The inevitable conclusion is that amalgamation does not strengthen democracy. It concentrates power further away from ratepayers while rewarding incompetence, inefficiency and greed.”

As Fiona points out, no definitive argument has been made to convince voters that bigger local government is better. In fact, it flies in the face of arrangements all over the world where governments are at pains to ensure local communities are well served by smaller councils that meet their needs and give them a sense of connection and belonging.

The rushed amalgamation should be put on hold until after the election when there is time for proper community engagement – including a local referendum asking residents and ratepayers for their preferred option. To date, the public, which local councils are supposed to serve, has been left out of the conversation.

New Zealanders must never forget the “Power of the People”. It may sometimes appear a thankless task contacting MPs and sharing your views, but what is clear is that if enough voters present the case for change, politicians will listen – especially in election year.

With parties now in full campaign mode, the Coalition has both the opportunity and the responsibility to finish what it started: extend the ban on unelected voting rights from council committees to all CCOs, including Local Water Done Well schemes; prevent unelected advisors from becoming permanent fixtures on Council committees; and put the rushed regional council amalgamation plans on hold until after the election so communities can have a genuine say.

The battle for local democracy is not over. If the Coalition fails to act decisively, the tribal capture of local government will continue — not because the public wants it, but because too many councils have already been captured by iwi interests.

The Coalition has the opportunity to stop it – can People Power convince it to do so?

Please note: the email addresses for all MPs – and local body councillors – can be found on our “Have Your Say” page HERE.

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THIS WEEK’S POLL ASKS:

*Should the time frame for the amalgamation of local councils to be extended to give the public an opportunity to have the final say?

Dr Muriel Newman established the New Zealand Centre for Political Research as a public policy think tank in 2005 after nine years as a Member of Parliament. The NZCPR website is HERE. We also run this Breaking Views Blog and our NZCPR Facebook Group HERE.