With controversy raging around the motu about the continuation of Māori wards, we thought we’d find out what a Māori ward councillor does and what it’s like to be the first person to hold this role in our part of the world.
Tilly Turner is the inaugural councillor for the Tai Runga Takiwaa Māori Ward, elected after the Waikato District Council established Māori wards for the 2022 election.
For the 2025 election, her seat, along with several others within the council, is uncontested – meaning no-one else has stood to represent the ward.
However, at the election the council will also be holding a referendum about whether it should continue to have Māori wards at all. Because Māori wards within Waikato district were established by council resolution, it is now required under the Local Government (Electoral Legislation and Māori Wards and Māori Constituencies) Amendment Act 2024 to hold a referendum on whether they should continue.
That’s why Tilly has decided to stay on as Tai Runga Takiwaa Māori Ward councillor, despite the lure of retirement. She wants to make sure that Māori wards do continue in the Waikato district and that Māori keep their voice and influence at the council table. “I couldn’t hand on that complexity and fight to someone new to council business,” she says.
Tilly says her past three years as councillor have been interesting. One of the more surprising elements has been the lack of general public understanding around why Māori haven’t previously chosen to be involved with the council, which she explains stems from the history of raupatu (land confiscations) in the region and the lack of trust this created.
“There was never any trust because it was the councils of the day that actually administered the lands that were confiscated, and so people had a real distrust of what’s going on at the council,” says Tilly.
Having spent three years at the job, though, Tilly says she has a new appreciation for everything the council does, especially in terms of the region’s infrastructure, and the significant impact this has for local people.
At the beginning of her term, one of the first jobs she faced was to work with the region’s other Māori ward councillor to figure out how to foster Māori engagement with the council.
Tilly says, “Knowing the history, we had to ask … How does that happen? How do we engage and who do we engage with?”
The first step was to approach Tainui tribal leadership for guidance, where one of the big issues discussed was whether it was best to work with hapū or marae. Although as Māori ward councillors, they are legislated to work with hapū, Tilly explains that the history of land confiscations in the Waikato creates difficulties, with hapū boundaries no longer being totally clear.
The decision landed on marae. “Marae don’t move. That was the good thing about them,” says Tilly.
Following that, the councillors worked to set up a Māori partnerships team in the council and establish the Toituu Marae forum to begin connecting with the 40 regional marae and their people. Toituu Hapori was also established for working with Māori from other iwi living within the Waikato district and also Pacifica people.
Since then, Tilly has worked with the local ward councillors to address the concerns of Māori district-wide. She believes that the local councillors have the best insight into what is happening within their wards, and her role is to bring the councillors and the marae together, and negotiate for the Māori perspective to be heard.
If local ward councillors hear concerns from Māori people or marae in their wards, then they will bring them to Tilly and they will work together to resolve them.
She feels there is now significantly more engagement by Māori with the council, with around 90% of local marae actively involved with council processes and making submissions on matters that concern them.
Tilly thinks this reflects a “huge growth in engagement from the community at large” and that the efforts to engage Māori are working.
“I think the fact that I’m involved, and we’ve had this election, and Māori are stepping into these places, they’re confident to come and ask us: What does that mean? What does the council do, and so?”
Tilly says that many Europeans don’t understand about the history of the Waikato, and finds she is often called upon to explain to other council members exactly what happened and why the legacy of distrust by Māori is there.
She admits it has taken her 18 months, herself, to get her head around council business and all the areas it is involved in.
“It’s a big beast. It’s huge. A big business,” she says.
Now things are starting to come together for her, though, and she says it is the same for her people.
Tilly is unopposed as the Tai Runga Takiwaa Māori Ward councillor in the forthcoming election, and will serve another three years in the role, regardless of what happens in the associated referendum.
She thinks that the foundations of good engagement with Māori have now been established, and the relationships between marae and the council are now being “normalised”. A big issue for the future will be the region’s resources and how they are cared for, for example addressing the pollution of the Waikato River.
“We used to draw drinking water from the river; there was no purification. We had no purification systems because we never polluted it. But nowadays you just cannot do that because there’s so much pollution,” she says.
Tilly believes not knowing the region’s history can make people fearful of Māori involvement and plans for managing natural resources.
She says, “[The fear] is just because of ignorance more than anything else. If they understand, we own the river in name only, and we’re not there for a financial gain. We’re there to make sure that the resource will be fulfilling for our grandchildren, and our grandchildren’s grandchildren. So for many generations forwards, but if you don’t look after this part, you’re not leaving anything for the generations to come.”
With respect to the current debate about Maori wards, Tilly says that so far her discussions with the community on the issue have been “really, really positive”. She talked about the wards and her role at the recent Raglan Community Board meeting, and has given similar talks to other community boards.
“That’s all I can do,” she says. “I don’t want people to be afraid of [the Māori wards], and there’s nothing written anywhere from a Māori perspective, so I thought I’m going to front all of these things and talk about it.”
She thinks Māori are very community minded, and that’s a strength they can offer councils.
“We are a communal people. We always look after the multitudes, the full hapori, not just the individual, so I can see we’ve got so much to offer council.
“When I look at how we do things in this country, I think that we’ve missed somewhere the importance of local input. They call it localism, but really that’s about community, connecting with community and that’s what Māori do really well.”
Tilly is hopeful that people will vote to retain the Māori wards in the referendum, because Māori have “a lot to offer into the future and for the benefit of the community too”.
She’s also a supporter of responsibility for community jobs returning to local communities, rather than being contracted out to large corporations, pointing to Extreme Zero Waste in Raglan as a great example of a local enterprise taking care of the community’s needs.
“That’s a true community effort where you have your community taking responsibility for [its] waste and turning it into a circular economy.
“There’s so much benefit that belongs in Raglan because they’ve done it the way they’ve done. You’ve got employed people who are employed there full time, who don’t have to move out of town to look for work.”
For Tilly, that community focussed approach reflects the way Māori operate too. “You look within yourselves, to figure out how can you solve that? How can we do that collectively?”
Tilly says she’s had a “good three years” as a Māori ward councillor and ultimately that’s why she decided to stand again, even though, now she’s in her seventies, she had been considered retiring.
“I wanted to finish what we’ve started. The foundations with Toituu Marae and Toituu Hapori were there, and we had a team that was progressing that movement quite nicely. So I thought it’s time to get somebody younger In. But then the referendum came and I decided to stay on and hold that referendum space.”
Tilly says she’ll definitely be retiring at the end of the next triennium, though. In the meantime, she has another three years as the Tai Runga Takiwaa ward councillor to look forward to, and is very grateful for how Māori wards are supported and valued with Waikato District Council.
“The kind of dialogue we have with one another, and the respect we have for one another where Māori wards are concerned. I’m very privileged to have that kind of engagement within the Waikato district,” she says