Max Brough has won New Plymouth's mayoralty in a landslide and enjoys a solid majority of conservative councillors. Photo: LDR / Te Korimako o Taranaki
Taranaki voters have chosen to remove Māori seats from all council tables in referendums held as part of local elections.
At the next election in 2028 there will be no Māori wards in New Plymouth, South Taranaki, Stratford or across Taranaki as a region.
Most Māori candidates lost bids to win council general wards or community board seats, repeating the entrenched historical voting pattern that sparked the creation of local seats elected from the Māori electoral roll.
The results are preliminary as they do not include votes made after Thursday or special votes - but numbers in the government-mandated referendums are not close.
About 58 percent of voters for New Plymouth District Council (NPDC) and South Taranaki District Council (STDC) voted to remove Māori wards, rising to 63 percent in Stratford District.
Across the rohe, 58 percent also voted to remove Taranaki Regional Council's (TRC) Māori constituency.
The winning 'remove' tallies are:
- NPDC 10889 vs 7880;
- STDC 3540 vs 2689;
- SDC 1900 vs 1134;
- TRC 16,023 vs 11,520.
Taxpayer Union-aligned Max Brough won New Plymouth's mayoralty in a landslide with half the vote - his closest challengers David Bublitz getting 20 percent and sole woman candidate Sarah Lucas 15 percent.
Brough will have plenty of conservative support in the chamber to implement his promised rates cap and "immediate internal rebalance", with him and ten right-wing or centrist councillors facing four left-leaning opponents.
Gina Blackburn won NPDC's north ward - the first Māori woman elected to a general council seat in the district.
Dinnie Moeahu is back for now having re-won his New Plymouth district-wide seat - but he's fallen from first to fifth in popularity and was unable to persuade voters to back Māori wards despite having put most of his effort into the 'keep' campaign.
Moeahu leads defeated Labour-aligned ally Amanda Clinton-Gohdes by just 149 votes, so that could change in the final count - either way the left-right balance at the table would remain unchanged.
Sitting mayors Phil Nixon and Neil Volzke have been returned in South Taranaki and Stratford.
Dinnie Moeahu barely holds his New Plymouth seat pending final results but couldn't convince Taranaki voters to back Māori wards Photo: LDR / Te Korimako o Taranaki
Te Waka McLeod will again represent New Plymouth's Te Purutanga Mauri Pūmanawa ward after she won double the votes of Peter Moeahu.
Leanne Horo comfortably re-took STDC's Te Kūrae ward against Caroline Waiwiri, her rival from the last election - although the gap narrowed.
David Chadwick is ahead in Stratford Māori ward with 37 votes, but he's not secure with Karley Hemopo on 34 and Hemi Haddon on 28 - a turnout so far of just 28 percent of Stratford's 350 voters on the Māori roll.
Te Aroha Hohaia was elected unopposed in STDC's Te Hāwera ward last election: this time she and Ngawai Hernandez-Walden missed out on the five available seats.
Nicola Ngarewa is sitting second-last in TRC's New Plymouth constituency, which will see returnees Susan Hughes KC, Tom Cloke and Craig Williamson joined by former National MP Johnathan Young and John Maxwell.
Tama Blackburn did not match his wife Gina's success at NPDC in TRC's North Taranaki constituency, placing fourth out of five.
In that contest even the woman President of Taranaki Federated Farmers Leedom Gibbs could not beat two men from the agricultural economy: fertiliser boss and incumbent Mike Davey and newcomer Lee Kennedy, a Farmlands store manager.
Donna Cram beat Neil Walker in TRC's South Taranaki constituency, but both the farm-lobby councillors will be back at the table after gaining more than double the votes of third-placed climate campaigner and horticulturalist Urs Signer.
None of the TRC contests are close.
LDR is local body reporting funded by RNZ and NZ on Air
