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Rotorua mayor Steve Chadwick says other councils are keen to see what lessons from her council’s partnership with Te Arawa could be applied to their own areas.
The partnership won a supreme award at last month’s Local Government New Zealand Awards.
Ms Chadwick says the previous advisory committee set up had tangata whenua feeling they were shut out of the places where the main decisions were made.
The partnership, developed after long consultation with the iwi and community and implemented over the past year, allows Te Arawa to place representative on each of the council committees.
"The conversations just changed. It's great, it's quite different. The members are outstanding contributors. They give some perspectives especially on issues like waste water treatment, discharge, all sorts of issues that we haven't really considered, we're thinking and behaving quite differently now," she says.
Steve Chadwick says the Rotorua model may not work for everybody, but other councils know there has to be a better way to engage with Maori than what they are doing now.
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