Pita Tipene is throwing his hat into the ring to stand as a councillor for Northland Regional Council at the coming local elections.
Tipene (Ngāti Hine, Ngāti Te Tarawa) is standing in the council’s Te Raki Māori constituency, which he says Northlanders should poll to keep at the October elections.
Tipene (64) is standing to be one of nine Northland Regional Council (NRC) politicians – who in turn choose their own council chair after the local elections, in contrast to district councils whose mayors stand for that position from the outset.
The former Waitangi National Trust chair was last month granted a Companion of the King’s Service Order for his 30 years of service to the Māori community through governance and leadership.
Kawakawa’s Tipene grew up on a farm in the remote central Northland rural community of Motatau, the ninth of 11 children.
He said governance was about listening and hearing, facilitating the collective wisdom of the team. It was about being able to move forward through times of often many disparate views by gathering these together then making decisions, that not all would necessarily always be happy with. But moving forward was the goal in making constructive progress.
Tipene’s honour followed receiving the Tai Tokerau Māori Business Leader Award at the Te Taitokerau Māori Business Excellence Awards in March.
He said regional councils have an important part to play in sustainably managing the environment.
Tipene disagreed with recent comments from Regional Development Minister – and former St Stephen’s School student peer – Shane Jones that regional councils should go.
He said regional councils had an important role in economic development, but not at the expense of the environment, and in community resilience through civil defence functions.
But he said that it was time for a review of how they operated given changes to the Resource Management Act on which they were predicated.
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Tipene said Māori have a key role to play in Northland’s sustainable environmental management.
“It’s really important for Northland to prosper, and for our environment to be sustainable we need all people including Māori to be involved in that, alongside everybody else.”
“I hope I can weave the people within all our communities together,” Tipene said.
The Te Kahu o Taonui (Northland Iwi Chairs) member is already closely involved with local government – co-chairing NRC’s Te Ruarangi Māori committee and Far North District Council’s Te Kuaka – Te Ao Māori Committee.
LDR is local body journalism co-funded by RNZ and NZ On Air.
