Reynold Macpherson: Who Does Rotorua Lakes Council Serve?

Two Issues, Two Signs, Four Years, and Falling Legitimacy.

Voter turnout in Rotorua Lakes Council elections has remained below half of eligible voters for many years. Turnout was 45.99% in 2016 and 45.15% in 2019. It rose slightly to 46.46% in 2022, possibly reflecting controversy over proposed co-governance changes, yet still fewer than half of voters participated. In the 2025 election turnout fell again to 43.27%, despite record spending by officials intended to boost participation. Taken together, these figures suggest a persistent and now worsening problem of civic disengagement that raises questions about the legitimacy of Rotorua’s local government.

Reynold Macpherson: An Open Letter to the Editor and to the Mayor and Councillors of Rotorua Lakes Council

AN OPEN LETTER TO THE EDITOR AND TO THE MAYOR AND COUNCILLORS OF ROTORUA LAKES COUNCIL

In February 2025, Rotorua Lakes Council, under Mayor Tapsell’s leadership, transferred decisive influence over Rotorua’s long-term direction to the Te Arawa 2050 Vision Committee. Whether readers support or oppose that arrangement is not the issue. In a democracy, the threshold requirement is that significant shifts in power are transparent, contestable, and subject to ongoing and informed public consent.

Reynold Macpherson: Te Arawa 2050: Who Decides, Who Pays, and Who Is Accountable?

The launch of the Te Arawa 2050 Committee a year ago was framed as a gesture of goodwill and partnership within Rotorua Lakes Council. Many welcomed its stated aim: to give Te Arawa fair and proportionate influence in council policymaking. That objective was legitimate and long overdue. A year on, however, it is clear that goodwill cannot substitute for clarity—especially when households face sustained rates pressure and councils are being urged to live within tighter fiscal limits.

Reynold Macpherson: Te Arawa 2050 Committee - A new pathway to internal Co-Governance

A guest post on Kiwiblog by Reynold Macpherson, Chairman of Rotorua District Residents and Ratepayers:

I watched the launch of this committee online this morning and was left with ambivalent feelings. While I strongly support Te Arawa having a fair and proportionate influence on Council policymaking, I was struck by the way politically critical implications were overshadowed by a cultural tide of goodwill and, at times, naïveté.

Reynold Macpherson: Letter to Minister of Local Government 4 Feb 2025

Rotorua District Residents and Ratepayers

4 February 2025 

The Hon. Simon Watts

Minister of Local Government

Request for Ministerial Advice on Rotorua Lakes Council’s Co-Governance Initiatives

Good morning, Minister.

Reynold Macpherson: Why Rotorua district does not have 50-50 co-governance

Between 2013 and 2023, Rotorua Lakes Council was prevented by Parliament and law from adopting a 50/50 co-governance model. In my view this outcome aligns with local preferences and broader trends in New Zealand and other democracies, such as the United States and Canada, where debates over governance models and minority and majority rights continue to evolve. 

This article outlines three key reasons for Rotorua’s reversion to pluralistic majoritarianism and situates them within the wider national and international context.

Point of Order: The legality of the mayor’s secrecy motion has gone unquestioned

Malcolm Harbrow, an admirably dogged campaigner against governmental secrecy on his No Right Turn blog, has drawn attention to something the mainstream media missed.

He has focused on the legality of Rotorua mayor Steve Chadwick’s actions at a stormy meeting of the Rotorua Lakes Council.

RNZ is among the media which reported on the meeting, where a motion to move into confidential session over the controversial Rotorua District Council (Representation Arrangements) Bill triggered a a councillor’s immediate resignation.

No Right Turn has provided a link to the council’s livestream recording of the meeting (from 4:15 to 8:15), so we can see for ourselves what happened.

It then notes that RNZ‘s focus is on the resignation, but something has been missed – the mayor’s secrecy motion:

Roger Partridge: A victory for democracy?

A week is not just a long time in politics. It is a long time for democracy.

Last Friday, Attorney-General David Parker released his advice on the Rotorua District Council’s proposals to rearrange local voting rights. The proposals found their way into a Government bill that passed its first reading earlier in the month.

To strengthen Māori representation on the Council, the bill proposes changes to the way the Council’s ten members are elected. Three would be voted for by voters on the general roll. Three would be elected by voters on the Māori roll. The remaining four would be voted for by all voters, whether on the Māori or general rolls.

However, there are only 21,700 voters on the Māori roll for the three Māori ward seats but 55,600 on the general roll for the three general ward seats. Consequently, voter representation under the proposed arrangements would not be proportional.

As Attorney-General, Parker was obliged to advise the Government on whether the bill is consistent with the rights and freedoms affirmed by the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act 1990.

Not surprisingly, he concluded it was not.

Point of Order: Mahuta and Robertson are flushed with enthusiasm as they pump revised Three Waters plans back into the political pipes

The Labour Government is again using a Friday while the Prime Minister is on leave to dump information, ACT Leader David Seymour claimed in a press statement today.

He referenced an announcement on Friday last week setting out the next steps on He Puapua, the government’s programme for extending the meaning of “Treaty partnership” and discriminating in favour of “indigenous” people as “special”.

Today, the government has released its decision on Three Waters.

Just one thing. Local Government Minister Nanaia Mahuta and Infrastructure Minister Grant Robertson certainly have announced the Government’s Three Waters plans.

But when Point of Order checked The Beehive website at 3.30pm – well, it still wasn’t there.

In his statement, David Seymour noted that Three Waters and He Puapua involve major constitutional reform.

David Farrar: Parliament votes to end “one person, one vote”

Parliament (well Labour and Greens and Māori Party) voted last night to end the concept of one person one vote in New Zealand.

By 77 to 43 they voted for the first reading of the Rotorua District Council (Representation Arrangements) Bill.

This bill over-rides the existing electoral law which requires wards to be roughly the same size, so that a vote in one ward is worth as much as a vote elsewhere. The same law applies at a national level with a 5% tolerance.

But what this bill does is legislate for 22,000 voters on the Māori roll to elect three ward Councillors and 56,000 voters on the general roll to elect three ward Councillors. This means the votes of people on the general roll will be worth 39% of the votes of those on the Māori roll – which is of course restricted to those who have had at least one Māori ancestor.

Reynold Macpherson: Argument Against Co-Governance Replacing Democracy

I refute some claims made in an article based on a Rotorua Lakes Council press release and published on the Rotorua Daily Post Weekend on 5 March in regard to council representation.

The Council decided its position on November 19, 2021. The fifth and crucial decision was, it was asserted, to meet the purposes of the Local Electoral Act with an interim representation model that falls short of the council’s preferred position, however, preserves the principles of voter parity. The decision was made with the slimmest possible majority, which, in my opinion, suggests marginal legitimacy.

Reynold Macpherson: Rotorua’s Gerrymander for the 2022 Local Elections

Introduction

Gerrymandering[1] is manipulating representation structures to create political advantages for selected individuals and/ or groups. Redistricting enables politicians to pick voters by juggling ward structures in a district.

Rotorua Lakes Council (RLC) has mobilized bias towards co-governance in its Representation Review and towards getting incumbents re-elected. It has been gerrymandering electoral outcomes favorable to its Māori Electoral Population (MEP) which constitutes 28% of the total electoral population. Incumbent elected members have agreed to transfer three General Electoral Population (GEP) seats and one MEP seat into a newly invented At Large ward with four seats that all can vote for. This redistricting tactic will significantly widen the voting base of popular incumbents and double the voting power of MEP voters.

Reynold Macpherson: Rotorua's Representation Review Biased Towards Co-Governance

Introduction

New Zealand’s central government ended local referenda on 1 March 2021[1]  that had retarded the introduction of Māori wards. Rotorua Lakes Council (Council) decided on 21 May 2021 to introduce a Māori ward to elect a member or members to Council. 

Council also decided to establish a Representation Review. It specifically authorised consultations with mana whenua and wider stakeholders with a view to reinforcing co-governance:

4.     That Council agree to carry out a wider review of Council’s governance framework, including the purpose, membership and powers of Council’s committees and community boards, and a discussion with Te Arawa and the broader community about the possibilities of strengthening co-governance. [2]

Reynold Macpherson: Rotorua's Warped Economic Development Strategy

This opinion piece is offered to see if other district and regional councils are responding to the Covid Depression with economic development strategies that are unbalanced, divisive and misappropriating ratepayers’ resources. 

Rotorua Lakes Council’s framework is shown to be based on a fake collectivism, Te Arawa’s Vision 2050 replacing its obsolete Vision 2030, a simplistic dualism of short-term ‘economic recovery’ and long-term ‘economic development’ instead of pragmatic ‘economic reconstruction’, the Mayor’s co-governance agenda, a false virtue of ‘partnerships’ when they range from worthy intergovernmental projects to crony capitalism, unfulfilled political promises dating from 2013, deliberately marginalising ratepayers, and practices that violate the Auditor General’s eight elements of good governance.

Mike Butler: How Rotorua council included racism

Rotorua, population 65,901, is the city known for geysers, the bathhouse, the gondola and luge, the lake, and Maori culture shows for tourists. A Maori culture show with a difference has bubbled away for a year as mayor Stephanie (call me Steve) Chadwick has pushed through a proposal to have local tribal appointees sit and vote on committees. The Rotorua Lakes Council is so inclusive that it has included racism in its representation.

What used to be known as the Rotorua District Council approved on Tuesday, in an eight-to-five majority, an arrangement in which two representatives nominated by a new elected Te Arawa board will sit on the council's two main committees with voting rights.