Local Election 2025 for Tasman District Council

Local elections have already started and voting finishes at midday 11 October 2025. There were a good number of meet the candidates events held throughout the district and we made an effort to see them all. Candidates appeared in a speed dating like scenario with all other candidates and were asked to perform well under pressure. Some meetings had preset questions and most allowed questions from the floor.

Tasman Democracy Inc. has a focus on democratic decision-making at council level in accordance with statutes. We are member-based and make up our mind. We try to be as fair as possible but also honest. Just as some groups promote their views on topics like Maori wards, we are happy to share our thoughts on the candidates and what we expect from politicians.

Key features

What we consider relevant is what we can see in public meetings or in public records. We are happy for elected officials to also use social media or other information channels like blogs to inform constituents about current topics and their work around the council table in addition to that. We consider it irrelevant if a councillor tells us that there are robust discussions when those are behind closed doors. We also consider it irrelevant if councillors tell us that there is a lot happening. We believe that nothing happens unless it’s public. Otherwise, it’s gossip and cannot be relied upon.

We consider it extremely important that candidates have the ability to face various people of various backgrounds, as long as those interactions remain civil. We consider it irrelevant whether or not a councillor has other paid work or a further residence so long as he or she performs well for the public office of a councillor.

We consider it a full-time job to be a Mayor for one council. We consider it unusual to stand for several Mayoralties across New Zealand and have some reservations as to the suitability of such a candidate as there might be a lack of commitment. We have also strong reservations towards the incumbent mayoral candidate (regardless of his experience in this office) who considers his office is half-time only because of various other commitments including farming. We do not think that further work commitments contribute positively to the full-time role as a Mayor of a district.

For new candidates without prior council experience, we consider it a nice-to-have if candidates have procedural knowledge about council processes. But we consider it a must-have for candidates to be approachable and open for questions from the public during the pre-election period in order to understand what their thoughts are and whether they are open to listen to input and concerns from the public. They must have a fundamental understanding of what local political decision-making actually means as they will make decisions which affect everyone in the district - financial, socially, environmentally and economically.

We consider it relevant to disclose whether there is a political affiliation with any party. We believe it is not a problem to learn from those with experience in the political world, especially around procedural knowledge, but the candidate must be seen to stand up for his or her own views. In short: disclosure yes, reason for caution no.

We consider it a must-have that candidates seeking re-election are well-versed around procedures and topics in local government and that they are able to defend their previous decisions or at least explain why they decided how they did. We consider it very important that current councillors were seen to be prepared during that last term and happy to speak up. We consider it very important that new candidates show awareness that reading a lot is a fundamental requirement for the office and that critical thinking is equally required of them. And they should be able to clearly articulate why they decided to stand.

We have noticed that candidates are often asked to share their stance on Maori wards. We think that this is a personal decision at this point as the council has already decided back in 2023 to retain the Maori ward to which the current government responded that a referendum is required. This will determine the way forward for the term from 2028 regardless of any personal view of any candiate on the topic.

So outstanding that it deserves mentioning here: Kit Maling (current councillor for the Richmond ward seeking re-election) was asked whether he would consider receiving communications from us (members of Tasman Democracy Inc.) who are currently banned from contacting him and some other councillors. This decision was made by the CEO Leonie Rae because she had concerns for staff wellbeing following some of our communication via email, which usually ends with “thank you very much” and “kind regards”. However Mr Kit Maling responded that he is not going to receive communication from us as we aren’t part of his ward and because we took the Council to court over a tiny home.

Firstly, the oath requires all councillors to represent the whole district, no matter of the wards structure, and secondly, it was the Council who took two of our members (in their private capacity) to court over a tiny home parked on their property without even issuing an abatement notice first. It is deeply concerning that an association with a community group is enough for certain councillors to not engage with certain constituents. Besides, even if it was the case that a constituent initiates proceedings against a council, this constituent or group thereof does not lose the right to get access to elected representatives. We strongly disagree that a candidate with such a mindset would be suitable for a public office requiring an oath to represent everyone equally.

There is information for voters coming from many angles, perspectives and sources. The information booklet that comes with your voting papers where candidates are given limited space to make themselves known, some media articles (again with limited space and preset questions), through various social media channels and through personal experience and interactions. There is also a webpage policy.nz which compiled information on candidates who want to share information there. Some candidates seeking re-election may have already used that platform in the previous election which may assist voters to compare those statements with what happened during this current term and whether the candidate has lived up to his or her promises.

A relatively new group was recently featured in local free press. Unfortunately, the article did not disclose that Benjamin, one of the three residents working on educating voters on the candidates, is actually the partner of Kerryn Ferneyhough, a candidate standing for the Motueka ward. Such a close relationship does in our view require disclosure. We have also noticed some content about Mark Greening where the group was distributing a summary of his work through the eyes of incumbent Mayor Tim King which we think is not what voter education is about in our view.

Of note is that there are only very few candidates signs out around the district - especially compared to the neighbours in Nelson and Marlborough where candidates advocate way more than those standing in the Tasman district.

Also, quite a large number of councillors do not seek re-election: one from Golden Bay, the Deputy Mayor and councillor of 30 years from Lakes Murchison Stewart Bryant, two councillors for the Moutere-Waimea ward and long-term Councillor for Motueka, Barry Dowler. Only two out of four Golden Bay Community Board members are seeking re-election and only one from the current Motueka Community Board. In addition, David Armstrong had retired one year early. Inevitably, there will be change.

Some candidates have never worked in local politics and may only be known to some through various other activities - do these tell people enough about whether or not a candidate will bring the required skills to the table where the job is to make political decisions? Others who have political experience - have they proven to possess the skills the are needed for a role of an elected representative in local politics?

All councillors will have to have consideration to the needs and wants of the ward he or she will be representing whilst at the same time having to fairly balance these against overall priorities of the whole district. This is a huge balancing act each councillor is facing when tasked with making good political decisions. It does require good judgement and communication skills.

Community board members will also have to have a good understanding of what their role is and what it is not. As we have seen with the Motueka Community Board who has worked relentlessly on making a recommendation to Council on the district’s tiny home rules this term - their recommendation didn’t even make it to Council table despite four workshops behind closed doors. We are still waiting on an official statement from Council as to why that happened. Unofficially, there appears to be an issue with them not having the delegation to make such recommendation.

Given the dire financial situation of this particular council it will be a tough decision between further rate hikes to keep up with infrastructure costs (maintenance and newly built) and losing more current ratepayers to other districts, or less infrastructure and upkeep with less demographic change in respect of the current population. What is the direction for the district preferred by the majority of the district for this coming term? This is really the crux for this upcoming term.

We want to put together useful summaries for voters in this district to make up their minds. This summary here is to give an overall impression about the meetings and the reoccurring topics. There will be specific summaries for each ward and one for the mayoral candidates.

Meet the candidates

What was noticeable in the in-person meetings was that people who attended were mostly older folk, not many in their early 20s, 30s, 40s. It is a shame that those meetings therefore were unable to represent the whole demographics. Maybe younger people get their information elsewhere? Maybe politics is a thing of the past? But, there were also some young folk spotted who sparked some hope! Otherwise, overall audience across the district between approximately 30-50 people per meeting. Interesting mix of communities and questions. Most meetings were around two hours long.

The top of the list in terms of numbers of community group organised meetings were for the Moutere-Waimea ward: Two meetings in Upper Moutere and further meetings in Redwood Valley, Wakefield, Brightwater, Motueka Valley, Mapua.

Least attendance was for the Upper Moutere community association meeting which was also combined with a regular meeting of this association and was held the day after the first meet the candidates was organised at the same location by a different community group. Hard to know how many of the around 20 people were there for the candidates and how many for the AGM. The chairing was unusual with a school-like character which we perceived not quite appropriate for a local politics meeting.

Wakefield was very much the strongest with focus on its village, like a new community hall. It felt like a good advertising for one of the candidates.

The Brightwater meeting chair was outstanding as he kept the meeting well in order by reminding both audience and candidates to stay on track with questions and answers. The chair stood out as he was able to do so with respect and the right dose of being firm but not authoritarian. He was also knowledgeable on some topics like the Waimea Dam and could set answers straight when needed, which helped the public to understand. He also had a great skill of paraphrasing a question where appropriate which helped some candidates to get the gist.

The Redwood Valley chair was making the point to the candidates that his community was after precise answers not just broad promises. That was a good expectational frame to set and helped some candidates to stay on track and not waste people’s time.

Some meetings were very structured and on time, like Mapua, others more open with no specifically prepared questions like TCG in Upper Moutere who were logically more challenged to stay on time and provide equal time to all.

The Motueka Valley meeting must have forgotten to invite all candidates and therefore a number of them did not come which was very unfortunate.

Golden Bay: Takaka and Collingwood, held on the same day, but one in the afternoon, the other one in the evening. Those two meetings were by far the most attended ones with over 100 people in the audience each! Interesting feature in Takaka: questions had to be written onto a piece of paper and were then selected by a person who was probably part of the organisers. Unfortunately, we are therefore unsure if the questions were the most pressing for the Golden Bay population or simply the most interesting or convenient for the organisers.

Lakes Murchison: Tapawera and Murchison. Tapawera had only few questions to their ward candidates and candidates were asked a few prepared questions by the chair. Murchison was distinct in the sense that there was a strong apparent rural identity and strong, honest character of those asking a question or making a comment. No cotton wool.

Richmond had two meetings for their ward candidates and one for the mayoral candidates. One was structured following a suggestion by Councillor Mark Greening which provided for general time to present themselves, answer questions but then to sit down with a voter and have a chat in a separate room. The other meeting was organised by the Richmond Rotary Club branch which appeared very tailored and was chaired by a former Nelson City councillor who also admitted to have used AI for wording the questions. We are unsure as to why wording a simple question requires a former elected member to use AI assistance. We think it was also somewhat misplaced to ask procedural questions to candidates new to local politics and to make flood recovery achievements a scoring opportunity for the incumbent mayor.

The Motueka Ward had a total of three meetings but they were only organised relatively late. There were two for all mayor and ward candidates, and one specifically for community board candidates It was the ward which had the second biggest audience after Golden Bay with around 50/60 people attending each ward/mayor candidates meeting and around 30 for the community board candidates. People had lots of questions.

The community group who organised the most meetings across the district was Tasman Community Group (TCG) who advised that costs were met exclusively from their members which is something we find outstanding and shows a real commitment to make candidates visible for voters. They organised one meeting in Upper Moutere, one in Richmond and two in Motueka.

Forest and Bird also organised various online events but attending them didn’t work for us due to some technical issue and so we only decided to watch parts of the Motueka recording. Due to a very limited scope of interest of that group we did not look too much into them.

The mayoral candidates had without a doubt the busiest schedule of all candidates and were invited to nearly all meetings across the district. Quite understandably though as this leadership office it the most important of all the elected representatives.

In terms of the topics which were presented to the candidates we noticed clear and reoccurring concerns around current council spending (including overspending like for the dam). The benefits of the Waimea Dam for the whole district was of interest as the whole district is asked to pay for the debt incurred from its construction. The general debt and the increased rates were a concern which was voiced in a number of meetings. Strategic visions was of interest - where are we going to go as a district for the coming term? Criticism around the current council culture and council communication was presented to the candidates. It became clear from various questions and answers that there is need for consensus around what is a necessary project versus vanity issues going forward. Those projects spanned from various community halls, the Motueka pool to cycle ways. Some candidates were quite clear that the financial situation was very dire requiring significant tightening the belt whereas others (mainly incumbent seeking re-election) were more of the view that rates will increase further, current spending is however carefully balanced. Another topic of interest was the current level of transparency, or the lack thereof, with many confidential workshops. It was promising to see that many candidates were clearly supportive of opening up the confidential workshops to the public going forward.

Current Council Business

The period leading to the election is considered to require a caretaker approach from the outgoing council. It means that decisions with high significance which may be controversial, should be left to the newly elected council.

Council also acknowledges that the period leading to the election is usually characterised by heightened scrutiny by the public - the Audit and Risk Committee learnt as early as June this year that this heightened public scrutiny is considered “a risk” by council staff. Not a joke. Just read the agenda of that meeting.

However, there was a confidential session to progress the disputed Plan Change 81. Councillor Mark Greening was raising an issue (or tried to) and was told his raised hand wasn’t seen in time by the Chair Kit Maling and will not be considered. When contested, the online session suddenly stopped and the meeting was only resumed quite some time later without any comment as to what happened.

Also of interest is that the current members of the CEO Review Subcommittee (Mayor Tim King, Deputy Mayor Stewart Bryant and Cllr Meckenzie) attested high performance of the current CEO Leonie Rae and presented their decision as part of a confidential session to the full council. The problem is that the current terms of reference of that subcommittee appear to limit this subcommittee to only make recommendations, and not make final decisions. Councillor Mark Greening raised the issue, but we haven’t seen a decision yet. But this is a really big issue right before the election especially given the continuous concerns around council culture and various issues around council’s management.

On 1 October the Audit and Risk Committee is being asked to approve further financial delegations to the current CEO from 1 million to 6 million. This is a 600% increase in trust. Quite exceptional and we are concerned that this is a bit too exceptional to be approved just before an election.

New Council Business

Right after being elected the new Council will have to approve the annual report of the last financial year by 31 October 2025. That decision was made in March this year by this current council which considered it more feasible for the new council to resolve on political decisions made by others for the financial year. Each council has 4 months each year to adopt their annual report, latest by end of October. Some councils choose to do so in July, August, September or early October. But not the Tasman District Council - only after the new councillors will have taken their oath of office which will be around 25 October - will this decision be made.

Another important early decision will be around the committee structure for the next term and each committee’s terms of reference. A very important decision which will set the scene for how council is run over the next three years. Currently, we have a number of committees with very limited delegations like the Operations Committee. We also have seen significant reporting going confidential in this term, like health and safety reporting or corporate service reporting. We used to have a corporate services committee at some point in the past and way more consistent reporting coming to council. It would be good to have some of the past consistency back.

We wish every candidate well and hope many in the district will spare some time for making their voices heard.