Former MP Brendan Horan eyes Whakatāne council role in elections
Horan was a list MP for NZ First and was stood down in 2012 he took large sums of money from his late mother's account. He was cleared of any wrongdoing in 2016 following a two-year police investigation.
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NZ Herald
13 hours ago
- NZ Herald
Love this City: Love the Waitākere Ranges!
Harrumph, say NZ First's Shane Jones and Hobson's Pledge. They call it 'co-governance'. But that wasn't how most people in the room saw it. And the room was packed, with dozens of people filling the public gallery and spilling into a second room. Members of the iwi were there, many carrying photographs of those who had gone before. Students from Kelston Girls' College turned up and made a strong contribution to the singing. Members of other iwi, the local boards and many others. The deed formalises a partnership between the iwi and the council that has been a long time coming. Even the final formal presentation and debate took much of the day. The council also voted to establish a forum to give effect to the partnership. That didn't find favour with everyone: the vote was 15-7. These decisions were made by the council's policy and planning committee, which comprises the mayor, all the councillors and two members of Houkura, the Independent Māori Statutory Board. As reported last week, the Waitākere Ranges and Whau local boards had already endorsed the proposals. The original Act of Parliament allowing for the deed was passed into law in 2008, which prompted a 'confession' from one of the Houkura members seated at the council table. Tau Henare, a National Party MP back then, said he remembered 'someone had stood up and said we don't need this bill, it can be looked after in the Annual Plan'. Henare looked ruefully at the crowd. 'Silly man,' he said. 'That man was me.' Tau Henare: "That silly man was me." Photo / RNZ Greg Presland, chairman of the Waitākere Ranges Local Board, reminded the councillors that much of the land on the western edge of the city had been 'taken without agreement'. 'It's impossible to read the history without understanding the enormity of the loss.' His local board colleague Sandra Coney explained that the heritage area, which includes the regional park, was the largest indigenous forest in the city, by far. At 17,000 hectares, it's the same size as the Hunua Ranges, but that forest has a lot of pines. She also gave the council a short history lesson: when Auckland was looking for a 1940 centennial project, options were put to a public vote. A harbour bridge? A new children's hospital? The people chose what became Auckland Centennial Memorial Park, in the heart of the ranges. Always been special, always will be, that was her message. And now the tangata whenua were being recognised. Councillor Alf Filipaina told her, 'Sandra, it's always good to see you as one of the OGs.' Original gangstas, he explained for the benefit of anyone unfamiliar with the term. Filipaina and Coney are both inaugural members of the SuperCity's governing body in 2010. Coney stood down in 2016 and is retiring from the local board this year. Filipaina is seeking another term. (The governing body has four other OGs: Sharon Stewart, who is retiring, and Christine Fletcher, Mike Lee and Wayne Walker, who are standing again.) Deputy Mayor Desley Simpson wanted to make sure everyone understood a few things properly. 'Is this a co-governance arrangement?' she asked. No, explained senior council official Michelle Chen. The new body will be an 'advisory forum'. It will not have decision-making powers, which stay where they are currently. The council owns most of the land and will remain in charge of it. 'Will this affect public access?' Simpson asked. No, said Chen, who also explained that the heritage area would include public land managed by the council and Crown land managed by the Department of Conservation (DoC). It won't include other public land, such as Watercare areas and schools. And it won't include private land. The deed provides the iwi with various ways to engage with the area: helping to create a vision, a strategic plan and specific workplans, and helping to monitor progress. The Heritage Area Forum will provide a mechanism for all this, and will consult widely and hold its meetings in public. It will have three members from the local boards, two from the governing body of the council, five from the iwi and one from DoC. That's a slight change from the original proposition, designed to pacify opponents of iwi getting too much of a say in things. The iwi is in a minority on the forum. Despite this, councillor Ken Turner, who represents the area and said he had lived there all his life, was not convinced. He described the deed as 'not all bad, now', so he would vote for it, but he could not support the plan to set up the forum. Julie Fairey suggested that supporting the deed was like buying a car, while setting up the forum was like taking the car for a drive. 'Why would you buy a car and not want to drive it?' She was perhaps remembering that Turner is a mechanic by trade. Mike Lee asked, 'Is the balance of the committee right, given the council owns most of the land?' Wayne Walker elaborated on that. 'Why not have more council AC members? Is the council providing all the funding?' Richard Hills, chairing the committee, said, 'We pay for it now. We own it, we're going to keep owning it, so of course we'll keep paying for it.' He added, 'Why are certain people so upset about what is essentially just working together? Kanohi ki te kanohi.' Richard Hills: 'Why are certain people so upset about what is essentially just working together?" Jo Bartley said, 'My eye keeps twitching whenever I hear certain people speak around this table. What are you scared of? Recognising tangata whenua's connection to the land?' Shane Henderson said he also didn't understand the opposition to the forum. 'It strengthens the Treaty partnership and it gives more democracy to all Aucklanders.' Presland noted that, back in 2008, public opinion in Auckland was 80% in favour of iwi involvement in preserving the ranges. 'Latterly, there have been two camps,' he said, 'but that seems largely to be based on the perception it will affect property rights.' Which it doesn't. Tau Henare took up this theme when he talked about a string of dog whistling. 'It doesn't affect private property, that was always a dog whistle. It doesn't mean co-governance, that's another dog-whistle from people who have no understanding of what this is about.' Mostly, the debate was respectful. There was a big audience in the room, after all, who had turned up in good faith and expected to be treated respectfully. But in the end, it was leading Te Kawerau ā Maki member Edward Ashby who nearly lost it. Ashby sits on Houkura, but had recused himself on this issue, and has been deeply engaged in the struggle to get the Deed of Acknowledgment signed since 2008. 'I'm looking forward to the day my forehead will heal, from where I've been banging it against the wall,' he muttered, before declaring, for the benefit of anyone who wanted to stop the whole process, that the deed was promised in the act. 'People who say different can take those views and stick them where the sun don't shine.' 'It's an honour to be in the room with all the iwi here today,' said Angela Dalton. She talked about 'Ed's relentlessness and resilience' and said, 'It is an historic day.' 'It's for the park,' said Ashby. 'It's not for the iwi, it's for the outcomes for the regional park.' Councillors Sharon Stewart and John Watson joined Lee, Turner and Walker in voting against the forum. The mayor and all others voted in favour, while Maurice Williamson was absent. But it's not over. DoC and the iwi must now formally declare their support, which both are expected to do. Then it will come back to the governing body of the council, which does not have Houkura members, for a final decision on the forum. Growing for everyone Auckland Council helps to organise 104 community gardens around the city. How many public community gardens do you think there are in Auckland? That's public land where locals can grow food? The answer is 104. A massive number. The programme is run by the council's community innovation team, in part as a response to growing poverty in the city. As Te Tāpui Atawhai Auckland City Mission has recently reported, one in four children in Auckland is food-insecure: on a daily basis, they don't receive enough nutrients to thrive. It's one in three for Māori children and one in two for Pasifika children. The City Mission distributes 2000 food parcels a month, and many marae, church and other agencies and community groups run food banks too. But while it's necessary, no one thinks that's a good way to address poverty. The council is involved in a more sustainable solution, 'where communities are inspired and enabled to share kai grown in their own backyards, on church land, on approved council sites, and even in the ocean, where rangatahi are being taught how to dive and fish for kaimoana to feed their whanau'. Sunita Kashyap, the manager of community innovation at the council, says: 'We face a significant inequity challenge that we need to tackle together as a community. Growing and sharing kai is a mechanism for people to lead climate and wellbeing action from the ground up, creating a future where communities thrive together - now and for generations to come.' The council's climate plan, Te Tāruke-ā-Tāwhiri, backs him up. One way to look at the climate crisis is as a 'force accelerator': it makes every bad thing worse. Poverty is an obvious example. The climate plan argues for 'the importance of supporting locals to plant food forests and grow vegetables, protecting soil and reducing food-related emissions while creating a resilient, low-carbon food system'. The Tumoana Dive Programme, teaching kids to harvest kaimoana, has been running since 2012. Led by Donovan Busby, it starts with safety training. 'The rangatahi are taught how to be lifeguards first in a 5m-deep pool in Henderson,' says Busby. 'They develop confidence before they go near the ocean. We mitigate the risks first, and it becomes a lot easier. 'At a practical level, we're giving them tools so they can provide kai for their whānau. Rangatahi are gifted a rod and tackle, and the Henderson and Massey local boards supply them with wetsuits. They treat their wetsuits like taonga.' It's not just about fishing. Through the programme, the kids 'deepen their connections to whakapapa, build their indigenous knowledge and life skills, embrace their potential, and rise as leaders in their communities'. There's a Gardens for Health video. You can find out more at OurAuckland . More Barnes dancing People walking every which way: a Barnes dance on Queen St. Photo / Jason Oxenham A Barnes dance is what happens at a lights-controlled intersection when all the pedestrians cross at once. The name doesn't come from social dances in a barn, although the allusion to that phenomenon is intentional. Barnes dances are named after New York traffic superintendent Henry Barnes, who introduced them to the city in 1962. He called them pedestrian scrambles. New York's freeway overlord Robert Moses didn't approve because they held up traffic, but New Yorkers loved them. 'Barnes has made people so happy they're dancing in the streets,' wrote one reporter. Thus, 'Barnes dances' was born. And so, according to Barnes himself, was the phrase 'dancing in the streets'. He believed it was the first recorded use of the term; Marvin Gaye and others wrote the song in 1964. Anyway, Auckland has some, and it's getting another one. Auckland Transport is about to trial the phase on the intersection of Victoria St and Nelson St, to match the existing Victoria St Barnes dances on Queen St and Federal St. The move is linked to a larger innovation, to allow cyclists to use the pedestrian phase legally on all three Victoria St intersections, without having to dismount. This has been trialled successfully in Dunedin and Christchurch, and will be trialled for a year in Auckland. It comes at the same time as the long-awaited opening of the last section of the Victoria St cycleway. This runs from Albert Park to Federal St, where it joins the rest of the cycleway to College Hill, and is part of the larger makeover of Victoria St, also nearing completion, called Te Hā Noa. All good news, but I can't help thinking AT planners must be stuck in a well somewhere. Have they been into the city? On the existing Barnes dance intersections, most cyclists and scooterists already use the pedestrian phase, because it's safer for them. Why 'trial' the new approach only on some Barnes dance intersections, when it's already the norm on all of them? Ah, but is it dangerous for pedestrians? It doesn't have to be. The rule of the road is, or should be, that the most vulnerable get the most protection. Cyclists should always give way to people walking and not ride fast or too close when going past. And now the full Te Hā Noa cycleway is open, everyone on Victoria St will be safer. Stitching for Palestine Stitch for Palestine, this Saturday at the Ellen Melville Centre. Feeling helpless in the face of the horrors of Gaza? Stitch for Palestine is a group of Auckland women, including Palestinians, who stitch together as a way to share their solidarity. They're having a session this Saturday, 10am-2pm, at the Ellen Melville Centre in the central city. Dorita Hannah from Stitch Palestine says it will be 'a communal art project that brings people together to create a Palestinian flag made from 20 keffiyehs with hand-embroidered patterns'. 'Through the timeless art of tatreez, we will celebrate the richness of Palestinian culture, share stories and uncover the meanings woven into every symbol.' Hannah adds that they're not experts. 'But the collective act of this living artwork in-process is stitched not only with thread but with conversation, connection and care.' Everyone's welcome. To sign up for Simon Wilson's weekly newsletter, click here, select Love this City and save your preferences. For a step-by-step guide, click here.
Otago Daily Times
13 hours ago
- Otago Daily Times
Rural minister on ‘listening tour'
Minister of Rural Communities Mark Patterson speaks at an open forum in Gore, joined by NZ First outreach adviser Kym McDonald. PHOTO: ELLA SCOTT-FLEMING Industry, energy, genetic engineering and artificial intelligence were the hot topics at an NZ First minister's open forum in Gore yesterday. Minister of Rural Communities Mark Patterson held a public meeting at the Gore Town & Country Club on Friday afternoon to connect with the issues of Southland. The minister said, though it sounded a bit "namby pamby", he was on a "listening tour" to gather feedback for his party to use to build policy for the next election. In his opening speech, he spoke of the similarities — and differences — of the coalition government, its endeavour to get rid of the "red and green tape" and the last government's mistakes. The three parties agreed "pretty much" on the bigger picture, but NZ First were more at the "interventionist" end, making things happen, he said. Interventions included the $1.2billion Regional Infrastructure Fund developed by himself and Shane Jones. The economy, inflation and cost-of-living crisis were the fault of the previous Labour Party government, he said. "[It] is a sort of direct impact of some really, really bad-quality spending towards the tail end of the last government." Southland had been going "gangbusters" in terms of industry growth, Mr Patterson said. Datagrid NZ's proposed data centre in Makarewa would be a "massive opportunity" for Southland. But he received pushback from the crowd, one member of the community expressing concerns about the "enormous" amounts of power such centres needed. Data centres generated a lot of heat which took power to cool down, and had surges needing random bursts of power, which all cost, the man said. He did not want to see that cost subsidised by the general public. Mr Patterson said he was apprehensive at first about the centres too, but he had come around. There was potential for 500-600 jobs, as the project sized up, 10ha of greenhouses using the industrial heat and up to 3500 jobs in auxiliary surrounding businesses. "That's the modelling they've put to us." Concerns around the proposed deregulation of genetic engineering and modification were also brought up, as were Mr Jones' recent comments denouncing the proposal. Mr Patterson said Mr Jones had made comments on the proposed deregulation of genetic engineering at a meeting in Hutt Valley last week, but the crowd's applause had drowned out some of his qualifying remarks. The Gene Technology Bill, which passed its first reading in Parliament last December, remains a contentious issue. Mr Patterson said NZ First supporters remained sceptical and that the party had received significant public feedback on the matter. Dr William Rolleston, a strong supporter of the Bill who was attending the meeting in Gore, recalled Mr Jones' warning about not allowing "Frankenstein" into the environment. Addressing public concerns about consumer and health authority reactions to GMO use in farming, Dr Rolleston assured that no genetic modifications had faced health authority objections and emphasised that farmers grew GM crops only where there was market demand. "Farmers wouldn't grow GM crops if they didn't think there was a market for it," the doctor said. Mr Patterson declined to comment further, citing the Bill's current status before the parliamentary committee.
NZ Herald
a day ago
- NZ Herald
Foreign buyers ban: Nicola Willis says decision on investors purchasing property in New Zealand coming within weeks
In an interview with Bloomberg today during a trip to New York, Willis was asked whether foreigners could purchase real estate in New Zealand. 'Not currently. That is excluded. Our Government, which is comprised of three parties, has been in discussion about loosening those regulations so those who get an Active Investor Visa may in future be able to purchase a property in New Zealand. 'Those talks have been under way and you would expect that a decision would be made by our Cabinet in the coming weeks.' Willis said New Zealand was 'surrounded by a big, fat ocean' and 'we have huge amounts of land'. 'It is beautiful. I think the world should be looking at New Zealand. We have great prospects.' Finance Minister Nicola Willis, who's currently in the United States, says a decision is coming within weeks. Photo / Mark Mitchell The minister said the Active Investor Plus Visa was 'working' and the Government had been 'delighted by the response'. 'Hundreds of people have applied for those visas within the first few months, pledging over $1 billion in New Zealand funds.' She said New Zealand is a 'safe, secure place in a world that increasingly is less so' and people 'like the idea of having that residency in New Zealand'. 'They can see that many of our investment opportunities are currently under-capitalised. Investing in New Zealand is a good bet.' The Government made changes to the Active Investor Plus Visa earlier this year, introducing two categories in which foreigners can invest. This provides a pathway to residency for investors after keeping their funds invested for a particular period of time. The Growth category requires a minimum of $5 million in either direct investments or managed funds for three years, while the Balanced category requires at least $10 million across a variety of options like bonds, new property developments, and philanthropy for five years. As of August 8, 267 applications had been received under the new settings for 862 applicants. Most of these were in the Growth category. Of the applications received, 164 have been approved in principle. Thirty-two applicants have been granted residence visas. The applications amount to a potential total minimum investment of more than $1.6 billion. So far the total committed investment is about $200 million, with the majority going into managed funds and bonds. NZ First leader Winston Peters denies his party is softening its approach. Photo / Mark Mitchell Last month, in an interview with the Herald, Peters denied NZ First was softening its approach to the current foreign buyers ban, but said the Government was considering settings to allow some investors to purchase property here. However, he maintained that foreigners not contributing to the economy, should not be able to purchase property. Peters also remained critical of previous National policy to tax foreigners purchasing property valued at more than $2 million. 'The idea that for $2 million you could come into this country and get a key and that's your investment was a nonsense,' Peters said. 'We said so before the election. We also debunked the costings for it, and were joined not long after that by economists who said that New Zealand First was right.' He said that if someone was putting $15 million into New Zealand, they should be able to buy a house, but 'not a $2m house'. Immigration Minister Erica Stanford has previously expressed a desire for those with an Active Investor Plus Visa to be able to purchase land here. 'They want to be able to have a base here, they want to invite their friends here and show off their home and raise their children here and, yes, that is a barrier. That is why those conversations are being had at the moment,' she told Q+A earlier this year. Seymour told the Herald in July that if NZ First changed its historical position, 'there wouldn't be any complaints from me'. 'I'd be there with bells on, because I think allowing our friends around the world to come to our country, bring their money, and live here is generally – and there are exceptions – but generally, a win-win for New Zealand.' The foreign buyers ban was introduced in 2018 when Labour was in a coalition with NZ First. Classifying residential housing as 'sensitive' in the legislation meant non-residents and non-citizens couldn't purchase existing residential homes. Rumours have swirled for months that the Government is eyeing changes to the ban, with Peters suggesting on several occasions that he is open to considering an adjustment. Jamie Ensor is a political reporter in the NZ Herald press gallery team based at Parliament. He was previously a TV reporter and digital producer in the Newshub press gallery office. In 2025, he was a finalist for Political Journalist of the Year at the Voyager Media Awards.
