Invercargill won't be getting a Māori ward. Councillors voted against it this week, and the push from local iwi to leave things as they are made it an easy call.
Council manager Michael Morris told the meeting that feedback from Te Rūnaka o Awarua and Waihōpai Rūnaka was overwhelmingly against establishing a ward. Ngā Hau E Whā also came out opposed once it was made clear that people on the Māori roll would only be able to vote for a single Māori ward candidate and the mayor.
Mayor Tom Campbell didn't mince words. He said the views of rūnaka and mata waka had been respected in the past and deserved "particular weight".
"If their view is clearly that they do not wish to go down this track, then to me that's a slam dunk answer," Campbell said.
Hard to argue with that. When the communities a Māori ward is designed to serve are telling you not to bother, the case for pressing ahead collapses pretty quickly.
Under the current arrangement, both Te Rūnaka o Awarua and Waihōpai Rūnaka can each appoint one mana whenua representative to council. It's not a perfect setup — those appointees don't get voting rights at full council level due to legislative constraints, and they're paid $5000 less than the base rate for sitting councillors. Mike Bain currently holds the Waihōpai Rūnaka seat. Te Rūnaka o Awarua has left its seat vacant since informing the council in February it was reviewing its external representation arrangements.
Had a ward been created, it would have covered the whole city and been open to anyone — Māori or non-Māori, local or not. Council can revisit the question every three years.
The ward decision wasn't the only one on the table. Councillors also decided to stick with First Past the Post voting rather than switching to Single Transferable Vote. Under FPP, voters tick their preferred candidates and whoever gets the most votes wins. STV uses a quota system where voters rank candidates and votes can be redistributed if someone is elected or eliminated.
Both changes — the ward and the voting system — would have locked the council in for the next two elections. Either could still be triggered by a citizen-initiated poll if 5% of the city's electors pushed for one. That would cost the council around $200,000.
For now, the status quo holds.