November 03, 2023
Rally talk as Māori wards disappear from view
Auckland councilor Kerrin Leoni says the city’s Māori population needs to let the council know how it feels about the rejection of Māori wards.
She says last week’s vote was lost because two councillors in strongly Māori areas, Daniel Newman in the south and Ken Turner in the west, voted no.
She says the council has until the end of November to change its vote to meet the deadline for a change in time for the 2025 local government election.
“I’ve had a lot of people in Tamaki Makaurau contact me and say they’d like to organise some sort of rally for Māori to come together regardless of the fact the wards may not go through for the 2025 election, that there are strong Māori in leadership who fully tautoko and support this,” Ms Leoni says.
Opposing councillors pointed to the existence of the Independent Māori Statutory Board, but that does not give Māori representation on the full council, and councillors who are Māori can’t claim a mandate to represent Māori interests.