
It's Time To Make A Stand!
Four councillors are elected in the Puatahanui general ward, covering the north of Porirua, five in the Onepoto general ward, covering the citys east and west, and one in the Parirua Mori Ward.
Passionate about what happens in your community? Keen to make a difference? Nominations are open for local elections!
Anyone interested in standing for mayor or councillor in one of Porirua's three wards has until midday 1 August to get their nomination in. Four councillors are elected in the Pāuatahanui general ward, covering the north of Porirua, five in the Onepoto general ward, covering the city's east and west, and one in the Parirua Māori Ward (by those on the Māori electoral roll).
Porirua's Deputy Electoral Officer Jack Marshall says it's an exciting time to get involved to help shape your community.
'Porirua is such a diverse community and people from all walks of life and experiences put their hand up to represent the city,' he says.
'Standing for Council is an opportunity to show that you are Porirua proud, and if elected, you'll be part of a team making decisions that shape Porirua's future.
'We want the process to be as straightforward as possible, so we're here to help answer any questions potential candidates might have.'
All the information on standing for Council can be found at poriruacity.govt.nz/elections
To be a candidate you must be 18 or over, a New Zealand citizen and be on the general or Māori electoral roll. You don't have to live in the ward you're standing for, but two people over 18 who are on the electoral roll in that ward must nominate you.
For those thinking of standing, there are two candidate information sessions where you can hear about the job from the elections team, Council staff, and previous elected members. They are on from 10-11am on Saturday 12 July and 7-8pm on Monday 14 July, in the Helen Smith Room at Pātaka. A NZ sign language interpreter will be at both sessions, and one session will be recorded to view online if you can't make it.
Voting documents will be posted in September, with voting closing at midday on Saturday, 11 October.

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The Spinoff
4 hours ago
- The Spinoff
This Wellington sea wall shows how our heritage rules are broken
The government wants to make it easier to remove protections on heritage buildings – but more change is needed. The Oriental Parade sea wall is a long, concrete barrier that curves around the stretch of Oriental Bay. It's a critical piece of infrastructure, first built in the 1920s to protect the adjacent houses and roads from storm surges. Its purpose is just as vital today – arguably more so, given the threat of rising sea levels due to climate change. But there's a problem: the sea wall is subject to heritage protections, because it is recognised as ' an important early civil engineering structure ' with ' a distinctive form and profile.' Those protections mean that any maintenance on the sea wall requires an expensive and lengthy resource consent application, and must use like-for-like materials in a way that recreates the original appearance. At a practical level, that means repairs are more difficult and expensive than they would otherwise need to be. That costs the council (and ratepayers) money. The Oriental Bay sea wall is not the only piece of heritage-protected infrastructure in Wellington. There's also the Evans Bay sea wall, the Lyall Bay sea wall, the Island Bay sea wall, the Seatoun Tunnel, the Karori Tunnel, the Northland Tunnel, the Hataitai Bus Tunnel, the Kelburn Viaduct and the retaining wall on Carlton Gore Road. All of these structures were significant engineering achievements at their time and are worth acknowledging. But they're all still in active use, and to most people, their value is practical, not historic or aesthetic. The heritage protections are a hindrance to their core purpose. Wellington is not the only city facing overly onerous heritage restrictions, but the issue is particularly salient in the capital because it has a greater number of heritage buildings (575 on the current council register), many of which have suffered earthquake damage. Wellington City Council has spent $380 million strengthening its heritage buildings over the past five years, mostly on the central library and town hall. Other publicly owned heritage buildings, such as the Gordon Wilson flats and Dixon St flats, have become prominent ruins. Several private building owners want their heritage protections removed so they can do simple renovations. Oh, and the city now has heritage protections on a rusty oil tank. Wellington City councillor Ben McNulty has been leading the charge on heritage reform. During last year's District Plan debate, he attempted to remove the heritage listings from 10 buildings (all of which were requested by the owners), including the Gordon Wilson flats and the rusty oil tank. After that move failed for process reasons, McNulty and Wellington mayor Tory Whanau wrote a letter to minister for RMA reform Chris Bishop asking for new legal powers to remove heritage protections. 'The decisions made by previous generations of heritage advocates are resulting in expensive legacy issues. Whilst the Council technically can remove properties from heritage listing under current legislative conditions, in practice it is an uncertain and risky pathway to delist a heritage building,' McNulty and Whanau wrote. The protection process There's a common misconception that Heritage New Zealand Pouhere Taonga is responsible for imposing heritage protections – but that's not quite right. Heritage New Zealand identifies buildings for the national heritage list and advocates for their protection, but the actual legal restrictions kick in once a council 'schedules' the building in its District Plan. Many councils also employ in-house heritage experts to identify sites of local significance that aren't recognised by Heritage New Zealand. Most of Wellington's heritage sea walls fall into this category. Giving a building heritage protection is a relatively simple process and, in the past, it has been mostly uncontroversial. It's only years later, when the building owner wants to renovate or demolish it, that the heritage protections become a problem. But once a council has made a heritage decision, undoing it isn't so easy. Removing heritage protections requires a change to the District Plan, which involves an extensive process of public hearings and can be challenged in the environment court. Once a building has been heritage-scheduled by a council, its protection becomes a 'matter of national importance' under the Resource Management Act. This is an extremely high bar which planners and courts must consider and often trumps all other considerations. What could – and should – change Bishop has proposed creating a streamlined process to allow councils to remove heritage protections by a simple majority vote. This would be much faster and harder to challenge than the current system, as it would leave the final decision in the hands of the environment minister rather than the courts. Wellington City Council supported the streamlined delisting process in its submission on the RMA reform bill. Heritage New Zealand opposed the change, with chief executive Andrew Coleman writing that 'there is insufficient evidence to justify them and they have not been fully worked through'. The streamlined process would help to address some of the more egregious issues with the heritage regime, but it's really just a stopgap measure. Both the council and Heritage New Zealand agree that more is needed. The big issue that needs to be addressed is that pesky matter of 'national importance'. See, heritage isn't the only thing considered to be of national importance under the RMA. There's also: coastal environments, lakes and rivers, outstanding natural landscapes, areas of significant native bush, Māori connections to ancestral lands and water, protected customary rights, and risks of natural hazards. Many other relevant matters aren't listed, but might be locally important on any given decision: urban growth, access to housing, costs of repairs, safety risks, property rights, and, in the case of the heritage sea walls and tunnels, the ability to maintain and operate essential infrastructure. Under the current law, there is no guidance for how planners and courts should weigh up these competing matters. This means we end up in situations like the Gordon Wilson flats, where there are many obvious negatives of letting a decaying ruin continue to stand, but its heritage protections leave it stuck in a quagmire. There needs to be some kind of government-level directive which makes it clearer how each other those matters should be weighed against each other. Heritage protections aren't an inherently bad thing. The problem with the current system is that they are too blunt and inflexible. We can protect the buildings and structures that we collectively value, but we need to acknowledge that those protections have trade-offs – and sometimes, those trade-offs simply aren't worth it.


Otago Daily Times
5 hours ago
- Otago Daily Times
Focus on what youth need and say, not censorship debate
Claims of censorship overshadowed what Youth MPs actually said, Josh Henderson writes. Youth Parliament 2025 involved 143 people from various backgrounds and communities across New Zealand, and it truly shone through with the quality of speeches, questions and input all around the parliamentary premises. Let me be clear, I don't have an opinion about this supposed censorship of our speeches. A lot of us don't. We came here to represent our communities, our livelihoods and future career pathways, and that's what we did. The reality of it is, the claimed "censorship" was realistically just an error on the Ministry of Youth Development's part, which they have now admitted. The error made by the ministry was brought to their attention by the media and they have admitted fault and I am sure they will work to fix that for next time. That should have been the end of it. There was no need to denigrate and bring down the Youth Parliament like a group of Youth MPs did at a press conference. It got so bad, the media were questioning whether they should wrap it up or not. What happened that day on the Parliament steps was not the Youth Parliament most of us were in and saw. We weren't here to engage in a debate on Parliament's steps as to whether or not there was censorship at this event. We were here to listen and speak. We heard some absolutely phenomenal speeches across the chamber, varying from mental health, education, farming, rural communities, Māori and Pasifika rights, and many many more. Young people were given a voice, and they were not heard. An event which was supposed to give young people a say, a seat at the table, a voice for their communities, was turned on its head. The media was focused on an idea of censorship that was simply a mistake. There was no coverage of the important issues affecting young rangatahi today. To clarify the censorship debacle, as I was one of the Youth MPs who did have their original speech edited, I was absolutely confused at first. The changes weren't making much sense to me, and being forced to say "I believe" or "In my opinion" in every sentence was not the power my speech was going to hold. I took it into my own hands, and emailed the ministry seeking clarification. I received the same copy-paste email that was made mention of in the first press conference in return, that told me the changes were not mandatory and instead up to me. I chose to adopt some of the changes they made, and left the rest as it was. The media attention on this issue of censorship really tainted the experience for a number of Youth MPs who wanted to have their voices heard, and put together incredibly powerful speeches in the debating chamber. I put these press conferences to the back of my head, and actually listened to what Youth MPs had to say about what matters most to them. I heard an incredibly impassioned speech on mental health from Taiko Edwards-Haruru, from Gustav Schwind on bullying, Terangitūkiwaho Edwards on Māori environmental rights and Jorja Simmonds on homelessness. Add to that the speeches from Daniel Matthews and Fletcher Brown on education and trades, from Neeve Smith and Sylvie MacFarlane on farming and rural healthcare, and Isabella White on sexual assault, plus so many other great speeches that I'd run out of words to name, you have one of the most talented and passionate Youth Parliaments in history. Do you notice a trend here though? Have you heard about any of those speeches? Have you seen any of them in the mainstream media? No? I wonder why. Youth Parliament 2025 was overshadowed by this overarching idea of censorship, leaving out the speeches that put questions into our heads, leaving out the ideas that made us think, and leaving out the people who put the time and effort into being in Wellington and speaking out about what mattered most to them. Young people have historically never had a seat at the table, they've rarely been represented in Parliament and cannot vote until they're 18. Youth Parliament is realistically their only opportunity to have their say and express what they need to thrive and strive to succeed. If that chance is being overshadowed, they don't get heard. I would hope the media look at this and start to push for coverage of Youth MPs' speeches and move past the censorship issue of an event that has now ended. These Youth MPs are returning to their communities to continue their work, so it's only fair to give them the right coverage on the issues that matter to all of us young people. • Josh Henderson is the Youth MP for Gerry Brownlee.


Otago Daily Times
5 hours ago
- Otago Daily Times
Trying to make official information request add up
It must have been the timing. How else to explain the lack of outrage from our law-and-order-obsessed government about Statistics New Zealand deciding not to fine anyone for not taking part in the 2023 census? The decision was announced a few days after the 2023 election so perhaps our soon-to-be Beehive dwellers had bigger things on their mind. In the normal course of events, between 30 and 60 people are usually prosecuted for refusing to participate in a census, an offence with a maximum fine of $2000. Such prosecutions focused on those who were threatening to census staff and those who actively encouraged others not to participate. But after the 2023 census, it was discovered the requirements of the request for data section of the Data and Statistics Act had not been met, so there was a risk charges would have been challenged. Not a good look for a department we would expect to act with precision at every turn. It was a small illustration of the shemozzle censuses have become here. In 2018 we had the failed experiment of the online census and in 2023 costs ballooned again amid other issues including whether people's privacy was properly protected in some instances. However, taking the step of abolishing the traditional census in favour of, as yet not fully explained (or costed as far as I can tell) gathering of administrative data and surveys, is an extreme response. It might be a relief to some to know they will be no longer obliged to fill out the five-yearly questionnaire. We might have sometimes struggled to find the forms days after they had been delivered and decipher them through the tea/coffee stains, muttered about the purpose of some questions and, in my case, been stumped trying to explain something as basic as the rooms in my house. But do we really know the impact of not having such detailed door-to-door gathering of information? Information from the traditional census has been used to help decide how resources should be distributed in health, education, and other major government agencies, and for determining electoral boundaries. Questions have been raised about the information to be used in the next review of boundaries, due in 2028, when the revamped census will not eventuate until 2030. Authorities on matters statistical, including the redoubtable Len Cook (former chief New Zealand and United Kingdom statistician) and Massey University sociologist Professor Paul Spoonley have expressed serious reservations about the census scrapping and the likely quality of the alternative. Mr Cook has gone as far as calling for an independent review of the census change by the Royal Society of New Zealand to assess the scientific integrity and validity of the new approach. Among concerns are that Māori and Pasifika, undercounted in the last census, and low socio-economic and rural areas will be adversely affected by the changes. We do not know what gaps there will be in the administrative data — information already collected by government agencies. Details about anybody who rarely comes into contact with a government agency will be scant. Will it be a case of "not knowing what you don't know"? Those of us with experience of wrestling information out of government agencies might wonder how good all of their systems are at collecting data accurately and passing it on as might be required. A recent experience of mine at Te Whatu Ora Health New Zealand, involving the Official Information Act, is a case in point. I have been waiting since early April for information about waiting times for urgent, non-urgent and surveillance colonoscopy waiting times at Southern, after I pointed out they were absent from a web tool listing all other areas' waiting times. In late May I was told the data had not been submitted after issues following transition to a new patient information care system. Late last month, still no joy. I was told responding to my request had "taken much longer than anticipated, for which we offer our sincere apologies. The time taken is not what we aspire to." Good grief. In the new-style census, annual surveys are supposed to fill in some of the blanks from the administrative data, but we do not know what questions these will ask. It is unlikely sample sizes will be large enough to drill down fully into small communities. Will those people reluctant to participate in the census because they did not trust the system, be any more enthusiastic about these surveys? It seems the surveys will be compulsory to complete, if you are chosen, and subject to the up to $2000 fine if you refuse. If the new system turns out to be a dud and about as reliable as commentators trying to guess the score of the next All Blacks' test, what next? • Elspeth McLean is a Dunedin writer.