Latest news with #localelections
RNZ News
10 hours ago
- Politics
- RNZ News
Rotorua Lakes Council sets ‘ambitious' 50% turnout goal for 2025 elections
Rotorua wants to hit 50 percent voter turnout in this year's local elections. Photo: LDR/Chris Gorman Rotorua Lakes Council has set an ambitious goal of lifting voter turnout above 50 percent in October's local election . Less than half of eligible residents voted last time, a gap council leaders say must close if the community wants real influence over looming big-ticket decisions. Rotorua was among the stronger-performing districts in a disappointing national turnout in 2022. According to the Department of Internal Affairs, Rotorua's final voter turnout was recorded as 47.9 percent. Kaikōura led the country with 64.3 percent while South Taranaki recorded just 27.6 percent. The result improved on the previous three local elections and was above the national average of 41.5 percent. But it still meant fewer than half of eligible voters had their say. Reaching the 50 percent milestone is now the target, something only 20 of the 65 councils managed in 2022. Rotorua Lakes Council chief executive Andrew Moraes. Photo: LDR/Andrew Warner Council chief executive Andrew Moraes admitted it was "an ambitious target" but said it was vital. "Hitting 50 percent would buck national and international trends," Moraes said. "Rotorua is the 14th biggest council in the country. If we achieve a big turnout, it is good not just for us but for the sector, showing people are engaged with our work." He acknowledged the goal may be "quite challenging", with incumbent mayor Tania Tapsell seeking re-election and removing the attraction of a guaranteed new council leader. Moraes released the council's pre-election report much earlier than usual and has been taking his message to marae, community groups and resident organisations across the district. "Look, I have not set the target based on past trends," he said. "I just want improvement. It is up to the people to vote." Rotorua voter turnout was above the national average in 2022. Photo: LDR/Supplied The pre-election report outlined the major challenges facing the next council, including rates affordability, funding of public facilities, tourism infrastructure, sports fields, revitalisation of the central business district, and water reforms, alongside navigating new planning laws. Major projects already under way or planned include the museum restoration, wastewater and sewerage upgrades, organic waste collection, and stormwater works. Moraes said the election was a "huge opportunity" for the public to make a "positive difference" in their community. "I am building an organisation focused on delivering what the public wants," he said. "If voters choose the representatives they want to set the direction, I will ensure the next council can deliver on their priorities. That is my promise to the people of the district." To vote, residents must enrol . Electoral Commission data shows about 89 percent of eligible Rotorua voters are currently enrolled, slightly above the national figure of 88.62 percent. August 1 is the final day to enrol to receive voting papers by mail. After that, voters will need to contact the council for alternative options. Overall enrolments close October 10. Voting runs from September 9 until noon on October 11. - LDR is local body journalism co-funded by RNZ and NZ On Air
RNZ News
2 days ago
- Politics
- RNZ News
Concerns not enough candidates for local elections as nominations draw close
File photo. Photo: RNZ / Nate McKinnon Regional and Unitary Councils Aotearoa is concerned there aren't enough candidates putting their names forward for the 2025 local elections. With nominations closing tomorrow, several councils across the country do not have enough candidates to fill the positions that need to be filled in certain electorates, or have vacancies that will go uncontested. As of Wednesday afternoon across the country's 16 regional and unitary councils, 47 regional council seats either wouldn't have an election, or would trigger a by-election because of the lack of candidates. Te Uru Kahika was calling for more New Zealanders to put their names forward for the 2025 local elections. New Zealand's longest serving regional council chair and current chair of Bay of Plenty Regional Council Doug Leeder was encouraging people who were considering standing to go for it. "This is about democracy being exercised by people in the community," he said. Regional and unitary councils make critical decisions that affect the environment, public transport, water quality, land use, flood protection, and climate resilience. "If you want a say in how your region prepares for climate change, manages rivers and lakes, or invests in public transport, this is your opportunity to step up," he said. "Councillors don't need to be experts, but they do need to be people who can listen, think about the issues, and want to make their communities and environment a great place to be. Leeder said if there was not enough candidates to fill a council's vacancies then a by-election was called. Leeder could not recall that happening in his 24 years in local government. Leeder himself will not be standing for re-election. Across the 16 regional and unitary councils Horizons Tonga Māori Regional Constituency and the Tasman District Council's Te Tai o Aorere Māori Ward have no candidates. While all 16 councils have constituencies or wards with either less nominations than vacancies or uncontested vacancies. A number of district councils also appear to be a few candidates short. Election management services company is tracking candidates for a number of councils. As of Wednesday afternoon data published on its website showed no nominations had been received for the Mayoralty vacancy at the Rotorua Lakes Council, while Central Hawke's Bay District Council, Chatham Islands Council, Hurunui District Council, Manawatū District Council and Selwyn District Council all had just one nomination. Several council at large or ward vacancies, as well as community boards also had less candidates than vacancies or were uncontested. Among them is Carterton District Council which had four nominations for eight council seats and Chatham Islands Council which had three nominations for eight council seats. In 2022 Local Government New Zealand (LGNZ) also noted "concerningly low" nominations in some parts of the country. On Tuesday, LGNZ chief executive Susan Freeman-Greene said electoral officers were reporting that overall candidate nomination numbers were generally on par with the same time last election. "[We] know from past elections that many candidates choose to wait until the final week to submit their nominations," she said. "We strongly encourage candidates not to leave things to the last day, to allow time for information to be checked and any issues resolved." Nominations close at noon on Friday, 1 August. Sign up for Ngā Pitopito Kōrero , a daily newsletter curated by our editors and delivered straight to your inbox every weekday.
RNZ News
3 days ago
- Politics
- RNZ News
What you need to know about Auckland's licensing trust elections
The Trusts chief executive Allan Pollard. Photo: Supplied/LDR Aucklanders are being urged to vote for trustees for the five alcohol licensing trusts in the region, as the local elections loom. The local elections will be held from September 9 - October 11, and while most of the attention will be on city councillors and mayoral hopefuls, voters will also decide who will lead their licensing trusts. Auckland has five licensing trusts, with only two - Portage and Waitakere, collectively known as The Trusts - having the authority to grant liquor licences in West Auckland. Established in the country in the 1960s and 70s, the trusts model was set up as a community initiative to control the sale of alcohol and decide how surplus profits are returned to the community. The Trusts chief executive Allan Pollard said people often didn't realise that licensing trusts were included in the local elections. "Licensing trusts are just the tip of the niche election iceberg," Pollard said. "When local elections roll around in, between these and the general election, you might think that's more than enough democracy to fill your brain. "But in reality, there are a number of other things you can vote on that most Kiwis don't realise are on the table." Voting numbers for licensing trusts haven't been strong. In the last local elections, less than 50 percent of registered voters selected their trustees. Pollard said voter turnout for the last Waitākere Local Board election was 15,661 votes, approximately 40 percent of eligible voters. He hoped that would change come September. "Fundamentaly we all want what's best for the community. People come at it from different angles and that's democracy and at the end of the day, people will decide." He also hoped more young people would step up and consider being nominated for one of the 35 trustee positions vacant in the five licensing trusts. The other trusts are Mt Wellington, Birkenhead and Wiri in south Auckland, who all manage and own hospitality venues and commercial real estate assets. Together with proceeds from gaming machines, licensing trusts provide funding to community groups in their districts. "New Zealand is home to a unique system of licensing trusts - community-owned entities that hold exclusive rights to sell alcohol in certain areas," Pollard said. While alcohol monopolies exist in other parts of the world, what makes the NZ model different was that it was truly democratic and community-led, he said. "In West Auckland, we're mandated to operate off-licenses, hotels and taverns. A responsibility we take seriously weighing community benefit against accessibility and alcohol harm. "Then, surplus profits from those retail and hospitality operations are reinvested back into the community." Pollard said the West Auckland trusts granted $1.1 million to 52 community-led initiatives across the district this year. Nominations for the local elections, including licensing trusts, close on 1 August. Voting opens on 11 September and closes at noon on 11 October. Final results will be announced on 13-17 October. LDR is local body journalism co-funded by RNZ and NZ On Air.
Sky News
20-07-2025
- Politics
- Sky News
Reform UK is on the march - and the most popular party on TikTok. There's just one problem
Reform UK is on the march. Following a barnstorming performance in this year's local elections, they are now the most successful political party on TikTok, engaging younger audiences. But most of their 400,000 followers are men. I was at the local elections launch for Reform in March, looking around for any young women to interview who had come to support the party at its most ambitious rally yet, and I was struggling. A woman wearing a "let's save Britain" hat walked by, and I asked her to help me. "Now you say it, there are more men here," she said. But she wasn't worried, adding: "We'll get the women in." And that probably best sums up Reform's strategy. When Nigel Farage threw his hat into the ring to become an MP for Reform, midway through the general election campaign, they weren't really thinking about the diversity of their base. 1:48 As a result, they attracted a very specific politician. Fewer than 20% of general election candidates for Reform were women, and the five men elected were all white with a median age of 60. Polling shows that best, too. According to YouGov's survey from June 2025, a year on from the election, young women are one of Reform UK's weakest groups, with just 7% supporting Farage's party - half the rate of men in the same age group. The highest support comes from older men, with a considerable amount of over-65s backing Reform - almost 40%. But the party hoped to change all that at the local elections. Time to go pro It was the closing act of Reform's September conference and Farage had his most serious rallying cry: it was time for the party to "professionalise". In an interview with me last year, Farage admitted "no vetting" had occurred for one of his new MPs, James McMurdock. Only a couple of months after he arrived in parliament, it was revealed he had been jailed after being convicted of assaulting his then girlfriend in 2006 while drunk outside a nightclub. McMurdock told me earlier this year: "I would like to do my best to do as little harm to everyone else and at the same time accept that I was a bad person for a moment back then. I'm doing my best to manage the fact that something really regrettable did happen." He has since suspended himself from the party over allegations about his business affairs. He has denied any wrongdoing. 0:40 Later, two women who worked for another of Reform's original MPs, Rupert Lowe, gave "credible" evidence of bullying or harassment by him and his team, according to a report from a KC hired by the party. Lowe denies all wrongdoing and says the claims were retaliation after he criticised Farage in an interview with the Daily Mail, describing his then leader's style as "messianic". The Crown Prosecution Service later said it would not charge Lowe after an investigation. He now sits as an independent MP. 1:04 A breakthrough night But these issues created an image problem and scuppered plans for getting women to join the party. So, in the run-up to the local elections, big changes were made. The first big opportunity presented itself when a by-election was called in Runcorn and Helsby. The party put up Sarah Pochin as a candidate, and she won a nail-biting race by just six votes. Reform effectively doubled their vote share there compared to the general election - jumping to 38% - and brought its first female MP into parliament. And in the Lincolnshire mayoral race - where Andrea Jenkyns was up for the role - they won with 42% of the vote. The council results that night were positive, too, with Reform taking control of 10 local authorities. They brought new recruits into the party - some of whom had never been involved in active politics. 6:11 'The same vibes as Trump' Catherine Becker is one of them and says motherhood, family, and community is at the heart of Reform's offering. It's attracted her to what she calls Reform's "common sense" policies. As Reform's parliamentary candidate for Hampstead and Highgate in last year's general election, and now a councillor, she also taps into Reform's strategy of hyper-localism - trying to get candidates to talk about local issues of crime, family, and law and order in the community above everything else. Jess Gill was your quintessential Labour voter: "I'm northern, I'm working class, I'm a woman, based on the current stereotype that would have been the party for me." But when Sir Keir Starmer knelt for Black Lives Matter, she said that was the end of her love affair with the party, and she switched. "Women are fed up of men not being real men," she says. "Starmer is a bit of a wimp, where Nigel Farage is a funny guy - he gives the same vibes as Trump in a way." 'Shy Reformers' But most of Reform's recruits seem to have defected from the Conservative Party, according to the data, and this is where the party sees real opportunity. Anna McGovern was one of those defectors after the astonishing defeat of the Tories in the general election. She thinks there may be "shy Reformers" - women who support the party but are unwilling to speak about it publicly. "You don't see many young women like myself who are publicly saying they support Reform," she says. "I think many people fear that if they publicly say they support Reform, what their friends might think about them. I've faced that before, where people have made assumptions of my beliefs because I've said I support Reform or more right-wing policies." But representation isn't their entire strategy. Reform have pivoted to speaking about controversial topics - the sort they think the female voters they're keen to attract may be particularly attuned to. "Reform are speaking up for women on issues such as transgenderism, defining what a woman is," McGovern says. And since Reform's original five MPs joined parliament, grooming gangs have been mentioned 159 times in the Commons - compared to the previous 13 years when it was mentioned 88 times, despite the scandal first coming to prominence back in 2011. But the pitfall of that strategy is where it could risk alienating other communities. Pochin, Reform's first and only female MP, used her first question in parliament to the prime minister to ask if he would ban the burka - something that isn't Reform policy, but which she says was "punchy" to "get the attention to start the debate". 0:31 'What politics is all about' Alex Philips was the right-hand woman to Farage during the Brexit years. She's still very close to senior officials in Reform and a party member, and tells me these issues present an opportunity. "An issue in politics is a political opportunity and what democracy is for is actually putting a voice to a representation, to concerns of the public. That's what politics is all about." Luke Tryl is the executive director of the More In Common public opinion and polling firm, and says the shift since the local elections is targeted and effective. Reform's newer converts are much more likely to be female, as the party started to realise you can't win a general election without getting the support of effectively half the electorate. "When we speak to women, particularly older women in focus groups, there is a sense that women's issues have been neglected by the traditional mainstream parties," he says. "Particularly issues around women's safety, and women's concerns aren't taken as seriously as they should be. "If Reform could show it takes their concerns seriously, they may well consolidate their support." According to his focus groups, the party's vote share among women aged 18 to 26 shot up in May - jumping from 12% to 21% after the local elections. But the gender divide in right-wing parties is still stark, Tryl says, and representation will remain an uphill battle for a party historically dogged by controversy and clashes. A Reform UK spokesman told Sky News: "Reform is attracting support across all demographics. "Our support with women has surged since the general election a year ago, in that time we have seen Sarah Pochin and Andrea Jenkyns elected in senior roles for the party."
Yahoo
20-07-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
Nigel Farage Makes Light Of Concerns Over A Reform Mayor's Huge Pay Rise. No One Else Is Laughing.
Nigel Farage just laughed and insisted he had 'no idea' when asked about how a Reform UK mayor just received a huge pay rise – and was instantly torn apart on social media. Reform UK has made no secret of its ambitions to win the next general election, and is currently leading in the polls. So far, it has an outright majority over 10 local authorities after a major victory in May's local elections. But, judging by the Reform leader's response to a development in Scarborough council, handling any more than that may prove difficult. On the BBC's Sunday with Laura Kuenssberg, the presenter asked for his response to reports that Scarborough town council have given its Reform mayor, Thomas Murray, a 600% pay rise. But Farage immediately hit back: 'I've no idea! Whether what you say is true or not, I've no idea.' 'Is that the right thing to do in principle?' Kuenssberg asked. 'I've no idea, it's a town council – 600%, what is it from what?' Farage said. She replied: 'A payment of £500 up to £3,500 –' 'I don't know, is he or she doing it as a full-time job? I've no idea,' he said dismissively. But Kuenssberg kept pushing: 'In principle is that the right thing to do?' He replied: 'What we could do is get multi-millionaires to stand as candidates everywhere, and indeed our [government waste] DOGE team are doing the work, unpaid, right? 'If people have got resources and they want to do it for free, that's great. I don't know the Scarborough circumstances.' The Reform-run council defended the hike, which was approved in a meeting last Wednesday, saying the mayor should not be left 'out of pocket' for an unpaid position considering it involved an increase in responsibilities. They also noted that savings had already been made elsewhere – ignoring the irony that Reform has reportedly promised to give council taxpayers 'better value for money and reduce excessive expenditure'. #bbclaurak: What about Scarborough town council Nigel Farage: I've no ideaLK: Scarborough TC have given its Reform mayor a 600% pay-rise... is that the right thing to do?NF: I've no idea... I've no idea... — Haggis_UK 🇬🇧 🇪🇺 (@Haggis_UK) July 20, 2025 His responses impressed very few people on social media as the public raged over his 'unserious' reaction – and even accused him of 'running' from problems... Yeah if you can't keep a handle on 10 councils, you probably shouldn't attempt four nations, 350 constituencies and 26 government departments. — A-Aron (@aaronlspence) July 20, 2025 Unserious, irresponsible, and dangerous. — Luke Warner (@LukeVWarner) July 20, 2025 Nigel Farage is a fraud. — Alistair Manhire (@AlistairManhire) July 20, 2025 Doesn't know. Doesn't care. Never has done. Complete fucking charlatan. Will this country ever move on from this reductive gobshite? — Adam Abbott (@adrock73) July 20, 2025 Firstly, why is he getting still more air time? Secondly, what do you expect? Nothing is ever down to him. Not me mate, big boy done it and ran away. — Barbara Nadel (@BarbaraNadel) July 20, 2025 Farage also seemed dismissive of other, much larger, questions about money elsewhere in the interview when he was asked how much it would cost to privatise 50% of the water industry – one of Reform's major policy proposals. He just said it 'doesn't need to be a big sum of money.' So commentators on X quickly drew attention to the way Kuenssberg scrutinised Reform's economic credibility... Brilliant scrutiny of Reformonics from @bbclaurak'So you don't know how much it would be…'No… — Vicky Spratt (@Victoria_Spratt) July 20, 2025 Whenever a policy requires more detail than can fit on the back of a beer mat, Farage is lost. — Jon Hollis (@JonHollis9) July 20, 2025 More of this kind of scrutiny on Reform's economic credibility, rather than on the poll ratings, please. — Theo Bertram (@theobertram) July 20, 2025 Straight out the Trump playbook - say something that sounds good but have no way of backing it up. I understand that people are disillusioned with existing establishments parties, but to just blindly start following and voting for Farage will be a catastrophic mistake. — Stuart Wright (@weebaldy79) July 20, 2025 Related... Nigel Farage Says Some Afghans Airlifted To UK Are 'Sex Offenders'. But There's No Evidence That's True Even Some Reform Voters Think Nigel Farage Is An 'A******e', So What Is His Appeal? Nigel Farage Gets Schooled By Keir Starmer As He Tries To Stir The Brexit Pot
