Council suspends mana whenua role

The Invercargill City Council has been urged to become a place Māori want to work alongside after a rūnaka requested its mana whenua seat be disestablished.

Yesterday, the council voted to put Te Rūnaka o Awarua’s seat into abeyance following a request in February from rūnaka general manager Andria Cross.

Ms Cross said a stocktake on external representation arrangements had resulted in a decision to relinquish the positions on the city council and Bluff Community Board.

There were more cost-effective ways for the rūnaka to work with the council, and the relationship did not begin or end with the roles, Ms Cross said.

The request drew a strong response from Cr Andrea de Vries — a member of both Waihōpai and Awarua Rūnaka — who advocated for Māori participation yesterday.

"He kapua pōuri kei rungai i tēnei whare.

"There is a dark cloud over this house today," Ms de Vries said.

"The Māori community and tangata Tiriti may be feeling quite disheartened about the proposed reduction in Māori voice at that table and I can really empathise with that today."

Ms de Vries said it was important the council considered how it could ensure Māori contributions were valued, appreciated and enabled.

Her vote went towards putting the seat into a temporary hiatus — as opposed to revoking it — and "ensuring that we work very hard to become a council that Māori want to work with going forward".

Cr Ria Bond said she felt "quite aggrieved" when she found out Awarua’s intention and had pain in her heart because of the effort Māori had gone to in getting around council tables.

"I felt hurt in my heart that this had happened and rapidly tried to figure out what we could do to save this," she said.

Invercargill Mayor Tom Campbell responded to the Awarua letter, saying the council was disappointed by the rūnaka’s decision but respected it.

Mana whenua roles were established in 2021 as part of a representation review process but do not include voting rights at full council because of restrictions in the Local Government Act.

The Awarua position was previously held by Pania Coote, who unsuccessfully ran for council last election.

In the build-up to that event, Ms Coote said voting restrictions connected to the mana whenua roles had shown the "limits of symbolic inclusion".

Mike Bain replaced the Rev Evelyn Cook as the Waihōpai Rūnaka representative at yesterday’s meeting.

In September, Mrs Cook gave an impassioned valedictory speech where she took aim at casual racism, sexism, misogyny and a lack of respect around the table.

She later criticised the council’s decision to pay mana whenua representatives $49,275 for the current term — about $5000 less than the base rate for councillors.

• LDR is local body journalism co-funded by RNZ and NZ On Air.