Time's Running Out To Take A Stand And Shape New Plymouth District's Future
There are currently 25 confirmed nominations, compared with six at the same point in the previous election.
So far there are:
6 nominations for Mayor
5 nominations for five Councillors at large (across the whole district).
9 nominations for six Councillors in Kaitake/Ngāmotu ward (New Plymouth city to Ōkato)
0 nominations for one Councillor in Kōhanga Moa ward (Inglewood and surrounding area)
1 nomination for one Councillor in North Ward (Waitara up to Waitomo District Council border)
1 nomination for one Councillor in the Te Purutanga Mauri Pūmanawa (Māori ward).
Nominations for our five community boards, which each have five members:
0 Inglewood Community Board (Inglewood, Egmont Village, Tarata)
1 nomination for Clifton Community Board (Tikorangi, Urenui, Ōnaero, Tongaporutu)
2 nominations for Waitara Community Board (Waitara, Brixton, Lepperton)
0 nominations Kaitake Community Board (Ōākura, Ōmata, Ōkato)
0 nominations Puketapu-Bell Block Community Board.
Find out more, including details on how to stand and nomination papers on our Vote 2025 website (npdc.govt.nz/vote2025).
Fast Facts:
Nominations to stand close midday 1 August.
Voting papers start being delivered from 9 September
Voting closes midday Saturday 11 October.
This election, councils with Māori wards, including NPDC, will run a poll to decide if they will have Māori wards for future elections. Results are legally-binding.
Progress results are expected in the afternoon of 11 October, 12 October for preliminary results and 17 October for the final results.
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Newsroom
2 hours ago
- Newsroom
Attorney-General rules her own Govt's voting crackdown breaches human rights
Electoral law restrictions announced last week are in breach of the Bill of Rights Act, Attorney-General Judith Collins KC says in a report belatedly disclosed to Parliament. She indicates more than 100,000 people may be directly or indirectly disenfranchised by rules banning enrolment in the final 13 days before an elections. Young people, and areas with larger Māori, Asian and Pasifika communities, are likely to be worst affected. Denying voters the political franchise is a heavy price to pay, she says, when there are alternative, less restrictive measures that could have addressed the same problem of speeding up the vote count. But Justice Minister Paul Goldsmith has hit back. 'Allowing late enrolments, however well intentioned, has placed too much strain on the system,' he tells Newsroom. 'I don't accept that we are disenfranchising people by requiring that they are first enrolled. Many countries do this, such as Australia.' Professor Andrew Geddis, at the University of Otago, says the Bill of Rights notice ought to have been attached to the bill when it was presented, according to the wording of section 7 of the Bill of Rights Act. This would have allowed ministers to be asked about it, when the proposal first came out. 'However, it doesn't seem to have been,' he says. 'Instead, it quietly went up on the Ministry of Justice website just in time for the weekend.' 'Heavy price' for administrative convenience In its Regulatory Impact Statement, the Ministry of Justice did not recommend the option of closing enrolment earlier. 'Its impact on reducing special votes is uncertain, while its impact on democratic participation could be significant,' officials said. The Attorney-General's Bill of Rights inconsistency notice goes further, concluding the proposal for a 13-day registration deadline appears to constitute an unjustified limit on section 12 of the Bill of Rights Act, which says every New Zealand citizen aged 18-plus has the right to vote in Parliamentary elections. 'The accepted starting-point is the fundamental importance of the right to vote within a liberal democracy,' she says. 'A compelling justification is required to limit that right.' Citing Electoral Commission and Ministry of Justice data, she says about 3400 people would have their eligibility to vote directly affected by the law change. These include people returning from overseas after being away for an extended time, and people who become New Zealand residents or are released from prison during the registration period. But many more will have their right to vote indirectly affected, by being in effect excluded from the franchise by the practicalities of the operation of a 13-day pre-election registration deadline. There has been an expectation, since 1993, that electors can register as late as the day before polling day, or more recently, on polling day. Indeed, the trend (with accompanying publicity campaigns) has been towards greater flexibility as to when people may register to vote. In the 2023 general election, the special votes included more than 97,000 people who registered for the first time during the voting period, and nearly 134,000 people who changed electoral districts during the voting period. 'This gives some indication of the number of people who may be affected, and the farther out the registration deadline from polling day, the greater the disenfranchising impact is likely to be.' There were other options the Government could have embraced, Collins says, that would impose 'less onerous limits on the right to vote'. For instance, it could have reverted to a deadline of the day before election day (which was the rule from 1993 to 2020) or a deadline of three, five or seven days before polling day. The notice to Parliament also finds the announced law changes breach the rights of sentenced prisoners, by reinstating a ban on them voting. For most of New Zealand's history, sentenced prisoners have been denied the right to vote. In 1975, the Rowling Labour government gave them the vote but that enfranchisement was brief – the National government repealed it two years later. The Electoral Act 1993 allowed for a limited prisoner franchise, though those serving a a sentence of three or more years were excluded. That was repealed in 2010. Then in 2020, the Ardern Labour Government restored prisoners' ability to vote, after jailhouse lawyer Arthur Taylor took a successful case to the Supreme Court. Like the Attorney-General, the court said the ban was inconsistent with the Bill of Rights Act. Goldsmith has now announced it will (again) be repealed. And he isn't wavering, in the face of the Attorney-General's notice. 'Citizenship brings rights and responsibilities,' he says. He rejects the inclusion of prisoners' rights in the Bill of Rights Act. 'People who breach those responsibilities to the extent that they are sentenced to jail temporarily lose some of their rights, including the right to vote.' Speeding up the vote count On the wider matter of when people are allowed to enrol, the law says an eligible voter can enrol right up to and including election day, at any voting place in New Zealand. According to public advice from the Electoral Commission, if people enrol early, then voting will be faster. The commission says that those who enrol before Writ Day (about a month before election day) will have their names on the printed electoral roll at the voting place. They'll also be mailed an EasyVote card, making it faster for the person issuing voting papers to find them on the roll. 'You can still enrol after Writ Day – but you may need to fill in an extra form when you go to vote.' Goldsmith justifies barring people from voting if they don't enrol more than 13 days out from election day, saying it should enable votes to be counted faster. 'The final vote count used to take two weeks – last election it took three,' he says. 'If we leave things as they are, it could likely take even longer. 'If you want to vote, you need to be enrolled. People have a whole year to get organised. I have every confidence New Zealanders can manage.' Ockers and 'drop kicks' Goldsmith says many countries require people to be enrolled before voting. Australia required people to be enrolled 26 days before the last election, and before 2020, New Zealanders were not able to enrol on election day. 'Those people were not disenfranchised, they were simply required to be enrolled. It is not difficult.' However, the Attorney-General points out the High Court of Australia has ruled on a voter registration deadline that departed from previous settings. She endorses that court's comments, that restricting the impact on the franchise of restricting the voter registration period is a 'heavy price'. Delivering a 2010 judgment on behalf of a seven-member panel of the High Court, Chief Justice Robert French had said the heavy price imposed on the constitutional mandate was disproportionate to the benefits of a smoother and more efficient electoral system, to which the amendments were directed. Last week, Deputy Prime Minister David Seymour said only 'drop kicks' enrolled late to vote. Goldsmith reiterates his unhappiness with the Act leader's comment. 'I said last week, Mr Seymour's comment was unhelpful. The purpose of the change, and a large number of other changes, is to take pressure off the system, so that the Electoral Commission can do its job effectively and efficiently.'
NZ Herald
9 hours ago
- NZ Herald
Letters: Warriors defensive woes, voting reforms, David Seymour and dropkicks, passport name-changing
It is just too easy for opponents to exploit the frailties we have here. Alan Walker, St Heliers. Voting reforms How are the changes to voting going to make it harder to cast a vote? The election date is announced months in advance, so people have no excuse to not enrol to vote. Also, by making it illegal to have entertainment or food offerings within 100m of a voting station is just common sense, votes must be cast freely and no inducement should be offered. It seems the only ones complaining are the ones who use this as an election-day strategy. Mark Young, Ōrewa. David Seymour and dropkicks David Seymour has again demonstrated his gift for insult, this time calling tardy voting registrants 'dropkicks'. Such boorish, sneering, self-righteous language, while not surprising coming from Seymour, really shows what a massive dropkick he is. Brian Dwyer, Welcome Bay. Passports It is so hard to understand what the Government is trying to do in changing the order of name on our New Zealand passports. The use of te reo is a source of pride in the unique embracing of our heritage through our original language. Other countries praise us for it. There are no obvious nay-sayers except certain voters who are dwindling in number as they 'get' the unique lustre of 'Aotearoa New Zealand'. In that order. Christine, Northcote Point. What's in a name? I am a New Zealand citizen living in South Dakota. I recently had my New Zealand passport renewed and noticed the Māori word for New Zealand was placed above the English word on the passport. I was somewhat mystified and offended by this change, as I view myself as a New Zealander, not an Aotearoan. I presume this renaming order is a manifestation of 'woke' ideology derived from the previous Government under Dame Jacinda Ardern. I find this form of 'virtue signalling' distasteful and not becoming of the Commonwealth country New Zealand is. To the three leaders of the current Government, congratulations are deserved on their sensible and appropriate name reversal on the front of the New Zealand passport. Quentin Durward, South Dakota, US. Cost of living We are currently in Perth and there are five different supermarket chains to shop at, plus a whole host of independent stores. One greengrocer in particular, Spud Shed, is 17 stores strong. Many of these are open 24 hours, offering an exciting shopping experience for the customer. It is a lot easier to shop around here to keep them honest. Some purchases included red capsicums for $1.75 each, two for $4 cabbages, $5 blueberries, and large 500gm strawberries for only $4.99. Two chips of cherry tomatoes for $3, and a block of Aussie butter for $6.79. Their in-season Sumo mandarins are magic, but it is not all beer and skittles in the produce world; we spotted our gold kiwifruit for $12.99/kg, and we miss our glorious New Zealand apples dearly. However, one thing is for certain, our New Zealand grocery retail needs some serious competition. Glenn Forsyth, Taupō.
NZ Herald
a day ago
- NZ Herald
Shane Te Pou: Tāmaki Makaurau byelection a chance to test out campaign machine
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