As part of the Morning Show’s coverage of the 2022 Local Elections, Aaron will be interviewing candidates standing for positions on the Raglan Community Board as well as the Waikato District and Regional Councils. Below is a transcript of Aaron’s interview with Ra Puriri.
(Listen to the full interview below:) Aaron Mooar: You’re running for mayor and the new Whaingaroa councillor ward? Ra Puriri: Yes I am. Aaron Mooar: I say it’s a new ward, but it’s pretty similar to the old Raglan ward. Just extended a little bit. So why did you decide to run?
Ra Puriri: Because I’m interested in change. So as you know, a group of us had a really interesting experience with the airfield over the summer, and out of that experience I observed a lot of things, face-to-face, first hand. Things that troubled me. So, as that part of it wound up and the occupation moved off the airfield, I decided I’m going to run for mayor, because then at least some people have to listen to me for at least 10 minutes, and you can’t be dismissed if you’re mayor. So I thought, well right, I’m going to try this.
Aaron Mooar: So what’s the connection? What are the things you learned about, determined about council from that experience?
Ra Puriri : That’s a good question. I was really troubled by some of the cultural, system things I noticed. You know how some of the council employees treated people, treated the public, not answering their questions, somewhat dismissive in many ways.
And I was troubled by the lack of engagement, when the council was invited to come and sit down and korero and talk.
Aaron Mooar: Did they not come and sit down and talk? Ra Puriri: No. We reached out to the mayor, to Gavin Ion, to the people at the top, because we thought this is a huge issue, instead of working our way up from the bottom. We reached out and no one was willing to come. We asked, we even said, look, let’s just meet privately, have a coffee in Ngāruawāhia. No one needs to know that we’ve even met. And let’s talk through this. Never got a response. So that was disappointing.
Aaron Mooar: Do you think it’s because some of the local Māori leadership, they’ve been quite clear that they didn’t support what you guys were doing. Do you think that the Council preferred to talk to them?
Ra Puriri: I think so. I think that’s one of the sad things that I’ve experienced. If you weren’t in the right… Aaron Mooar: But our local leaders would have been quite … that’s what they would have preferred to happen.
Ra Puriri: Well, it was kind of a mixed message. You know, it’s relative. Some of the local leaders were occupying the airfield.
Aaron Mooar: Were they? Ra Puriri: Oh yes, some of the local people, owners of the land, were occupying the airfield. It wasn’t just me. You have to remember, it was a community occupation in essence, because hundreds and hundreds of people crossed the airfield fence during the summer. Hundreds. We had a petition with over 600 signatures. There’s a petition, a parliamentary petition with almost 300 signatures. So this wasn’t just a small group of outcasts, so to speak. If you use that label. It was the entire community and people from all across the council. People from Hamilton would come.
Editor’s Note: Please read the this response to the protest action by chairperson Rākaunui 1B Ahu Whenua Trust (Ngā uri o Amiria Mahikai – Papahua 1 owners) Monika Newton-Karekare for clarification here.
Ra Puriri: Let’s say it was at least 50 per cent. If we want to be even, I would say at least 50 per cent or more of the local community supported what was happening. And the interesting thing is the community board voted, so they are the voice of the people, they voted no to the fence and you know what happened to that vote? So that vote was completely ignored and it’s perhaps one of the most significant and important votes in the history of our community. So the board says no, we don’t want— Aaron Mooar: About a fence? Are you seriously saying a fence is the most significant thing to happen in our community?
Ra Puriri: Yes, I am. It’s everything about the fence and what it stands for. It’s 75 years without a fence. Then one day you wake up and there’s a fence stopping you from accessing land that the entire community has used or has shared for 75 years. So it was what the fence represented. It blocks people. It stops people. It restricts people. When you don’t have a say in whether that fence should be there or should not be there, that’s when people rise up. That’s what you saw in the summer. You saw hundreds and hundreds of people say, no! I’m climbing the fence with my kiddies, with my children, with my dogs and walking across and climbing it again. And that’s my vote or my support because you ignored the people.
Aaron Mooar: So Ra, the fence is still there though, aye? How are you feeling about that? Ra Puriri: The fence and I have a troubled relationship, but I try to be kind, I try to be kind to the fence. I don’t blame the fence and let’s be clear, I don’t blame the people. What I’m passionate about, what I try to be really, really tough on is the principles, and soft on the people. And so I try to be respectful to the local Māori leadership. For people that disagree, it’s OK that we disagree. But what’s important is how could we change the process? How could we give more autonomy, for example, to community boards? Should they not have the last say in certain matters in our community?
Aaron Mooar: Well, we should talk about that, but first I just want to look at, like I wasn’t surprised that the council staff thought they had to proceed with health and safety precautions. I mean, you weren’t honestly that surprised that that’s what they did?
Ra Puriri: I was and I’ll tell you why. Aaron Mooar: Because they were saying, like we had one of the managers here saying, now that we’ve got this report and this legislation, if there is a death on the airfield, I would personally probably be going to jail. And that sounds pretty heavy, but undoubtedly they’d be in the gun one way or another. That’s how the legislation works. So should you be that surprised that the bureaucrats went for the bureaucratic solution?
Ra Puriri: Well, you shouldn’t be surprised, but you should be absolutely troubled. Because what you should do is ask, ask a whole bunch of questions when someone responds in that way. As if, I didn’t have a choice, someone was twisting my arm up my back and I didn’t have a choice. I was forced to do that. That’s baloney.
So the truth is, the safety brief that was issued by the CAA in 2019 after the two pilots crashed in Masterton. The two pilots didn’t do the regular checks when they were landing or they tried to land at the same time and unfortunately both of them died.
So that notice was issued to all pilots. It wasn’t issued to airfields or managers of the airfields. It’s a one page sheet, a red thing, with ‘Warning’ and it basically said, please do your safety checks when you take off and land. If you don’t, you might die. I’m paraphrasing, but that’s what it said.
Aaron Mooar: Yeah. Ra Puriri: It did not say anything else. And in my opinion, what happened was the council took that notice as a pretext; as a pretext to privatise and close the airfield to the public use, the shared use that we’ve enjoyed ‘safely’ for 75 years. Not one accident.
Aaron Mooar: You say they used it as an excuse, as if they had an agenda. Ra Puriri: Yes, as a pretext. Aaron Mooar: I don’t believe that they had the slightest bit of interest in the airfield. Ra Puriri: Well, they didn’t, but the pilots certainly did. So, there was a group of pilots, they didn’t like the idea of being inconvenienced if someone was walking around on the airfield, because they would have to spend a little more gas and 5 minutes to circle around and come back and wait for that person to cross and then they could land.
Aaron Mooar: So you’re saying the pilots in a back-room decision got the council to put a fence up.
Ra Puriri: In my opinion, yes, that’s what happened. Aaron Mooar: But you don’t have evidence or anything. Ra Puriri: No, it’s tough to get evidence. That’s my opinion. I mean, if we had transparency and had access to emails, to minutes, which actually we’re supposed to, I could answer that question, because I believe there is evidence, just no one knows where it is or it’s not made available to the public. But what’s important is, I got the safety report from the CAA for the last 20 years. And in the last 20 years, there’s been 90 incidents at this airfield, 29 accidents, two deaths.
Aaron Mooar: Two deaths at our airfield in the last…? Ra Puriri: Twenty years. So it’s a plane landed in the mud flats. Aaron Mooar: Oh, right. Yeah. Ra Puriri: Coming in to the airfield. Aaron Mooar: Yeah, I was visualising the actual airfield itself. Ra Puriri: But the most important statistic is there’s been 11 accidents where planes have run through the end of the airfield. So they’ve run out of grass, crashed through the fence. Some of them have gone 100 meters through the fence, so they’re going at a pretty good speed. And after each of those incidents, nothing was done. No changes were made to improve pilot or public safety. So if you were really concerned about public safety, there would have been some investigation into why did this guy run out of runway? How come he crashed through the fence? Someone might get killed. Maybe we should make some improvements or changes. There was zero! No changes by the CAA or by the council.
So in May, when the last plane ran out of runway onto the grass, someone in my family was walking on the beach at the end of the runway with her two friends. And the plane turned to the right and was heading to the beach towards these three women. And the wing was hitting the fence. And if it wasn’t for the fence post stopping the plane, you can imagine the tragedy that would have happened.
Aaron Mooar: So you like the fence. Ra Puriri: Right. Thank you fence! Aaron Mooar: Sorry, I was being facetious. Ra Puriri: That’s a good point. But the fence saved what could have been an awful situation. So they dropped on the ground, they were screaming, one ran one way because the plane was coming at them. So yes, thanks to the fence, it stopped. In June, she called me, saying “Ra, this is what happened.” I contacted the council and the CAA. So, I filed the report, asking: Shouldn’t something be done? Shouldn’t we investigate what happened? Was she on her phone? Was she a learner pilot? How can you run out of runway at this airfield in a small plane? Nothing was done. The council never did an investigation. No one called me. The CAA did nothing.
Then two months later, I was walking on the airfield from across on the beach side, going back to the gate with my granddaughter, I’m holding her hand, and sometimes it’s hard to hear or see planes. You know, when the sun’s in your eyes, or it’s noisy. You know, we were halfway across the airfield, walking.
Aaron Mooar: So when was this again? Ra Puriri: This is in June. So in May was when the plane was heading to the beach. So one month later, I’m walking across holding her hand. I hear a plane, I can barely hear it, and I look and there’s a plane coming in landing, and I’m thinking to myself, he’ll fly around because that’s what the rules say. I held my granddaughter’s hand and we stopped. And he landed between me, my granddaughter, and the fence or the gate.
He landed in the middle. And I thought to myself, you dirt bag. I wanted to go over and jump on the plane and break his wing. It was a small plane, I thought, what are you doing? You just landed between my granddaughter, myself and the fence. I’m in the middle of the airfield. I just took my granddaughter home. I just walked away, because I didn’t want to talk to them. Aaron Mooar: So we’ve established that it hasn’t been safe and I think a lot of people agree that, well, we’re very aware that it’s not the people walking across the runway. It’s the pilots that have made it unsafe. Yeah, we’re aware of that, but if you were mayor and the situation had arisen; does the mayor even have the power to tell the staff, to back off on an issue?
Ra Puriri: I think the council does. So, my understanding is that the staff are supposed to implement the will of the council. So, if the council as a body says to the staff: this is not safe. Why are we not investigating these incidents? Let’s shut the airfield down for three months and let’s sort this out. This is not good that people’s lives are put at risk.
Aaron Mooar: But say we’re in that situation that we were in, where the council staff are saying we’ve got the report that recommends we put a fence around the airfield or we do certain safety improvements? Then, what do you do as mayor?
Ra Puriri: Well, if I was mayor, I would have challenged the report, because I think it was inaccurate and he left out the 20-year safety report he didn’t include the 90 incidents, the 29 accidents or the 11 planes that crashed through the fence. He left it out for a reason, because it would not have supported this idea that a fence would make it safer. Because the fence does not make it safer. Because where are people now walking to get to the beach? They’re walking across the most dangerous section of the runway.
Aaron Mooar: But you’re saying that the guy doing the report had a personal agenda to put a fence up rather than do a proper safety report, which I think that’s … I would have to interview him now and say, how do you feel about being accused of that?
Ra Puriri: I’m not accusing him. I’m saying this as my opinion and I would say yes, I think he should come and sit in this chair and answer, because his report, look at what his report has done. But maybe that’s not necessary, because look at what has happened. The council has actually made a very wise and smart decision to now change their course, and move in a direction to return the land to its rightful owners. Now that’s historic.
Aaron Mooar: But you know the Council had already decided to do that? Ra Puriri: No, not before the occupation. Aaron Mooar: Yeah, they had. I keep notes from every Community Board meeting and on the March 2021 meeting, first of all in the agenda staff are recommending to council that the process begin, that they investigate how the land could be returned, because – there’s all sorts of legal technicalities. So that was in March and at that same community board meeting, a council staff member was directed to begin that process. So, they’d already decided in March of 2021, before anyone even knew what was coming with all this … [actually]that’s the same day that the fence announcement was made, but they’d already decided to begin that process at that time.
Ra Puriri: Well, it was done under pressure is my point. They didn’t wake up and fall off the bed one morning saying, oh, let’s change our course. It was the protest and the push back against the fence started in November, December, January, February.
Aaron Mooar: So I’m saying six months before that they’d already decided to begin the process. I’m sure the increased pressure increased the timeline. It made things happen more rapidly.
Ra Puriri: The occupation in my opinion is the straw that broke the camel’s back. Whether you think that’s good or bad, the outcome is now going to where it should have gone 60 years ago, 50 years ago, 20 years ago.
Aaron Mooar: Oh, certainly, yeah. Ra Puriri: So, I’m celebrating, yeah. Aaron Mooar: And I have a question about why that part of the land wasn’t returned when the golf course was, but that’s the history now.
Ra Puriri: Yeah, I think everyone deserves credit for what has happened, not just a small group of people who are saying, well, we should have all the credit. No, the entire community is responsible for this council shift. It had to be forced. It wasn’t voluntary. Absolutely not. It was not voluntary.
Aaron Mooar: But it said in the agenda that that’s what the staff are recommending in March. Ra Puriri: Recommending it and doing it at two different things. Aaron Mooar: And then the Community Board asked for it to happen. Ra Puriri: Well, that’s great. But what I’m saying is everything contributed, even the occupation was a huge contributor. And the council seeing hundreds of people every weekend. They had security guards watching, they had a camera watching. They realised; we can’t stop this. We have to follow through with some action, some substantive decision, which they’ve done and I applaud them.
Aaron Mooar: Which they have done. Well, we should move on because we haven’t got enough time to talk about everything else now. You’re running for mayor, but you’re not that well known in the rest of the district. How do you handle that? Are there meet the candidate events happening?
Ra Puriri: Actually, there’s quite a few scheduled. Alan Vink has one tomorrow. The community board has one, I think on the 18th. There’s one in Tamahere. On Saturday, there’s several scheduled and I’m going to each of them.
Aaron Mooar: So what are you telling those people who don’t know you, from other communities, about why they should elect you as mayor?
Ra Puriri: I’m telling them that I’m interested in change and what I mean by changes. I’m interested in, for example, running the council like a business. I’ve noticed this attitude that sometimes the council staff treat the ratepayers money… They don’t treat it like their own, like it’s not coming out of their back pocket. It’s this kind of mindset of OPM, other people’s money and so things … you know, a storm drain that doesn’t get fixed for three years, that would have cost $500 to fix it three years ago, results in the land slipping down on to someone’s house on Norrie Avenue, it’s going to cost maybe $20,000. If it was their money, that wouldn’t happen. So I think there are systems and processes within the staff. Or they could better manage the staff and make them more accountable to the people. So, how do you set up a system so that the council is thinking, if this was my money, what would I do? Or how would I react to a complaint if it was my money? I think that’s the attitude that’s missing. All across the council.
So I’m determined to make some changes to that, to the systems. Where that kind of attitude becomes natural and normal. You know, it’s something we deal with every day in the private sector, but in the public sector, and in bureaucracies it seems to disappear, and I think that could be brought back in a nice, kind, smart way. You don’t have to hit people over the head. You’re tough on the principles, soft on the people. I think council staff can do better. I think they have the capability and the mana to work together differently. Internally and with the public, where some amazing things could be done that haven’t been tried before.
Aaron Mooar: So there’s something I want to dive into there, because normally I’d start the interview by asking what your background is and things like that. So just tell us a bit about your background, the stuff that’s kind of relevant, like maybe jobwise or family-wise that’s relevant to running for council or mayor, and what you’re talking about with wanting to change how council operates.
Ra Puriri: I was born in New Zealand. My father was a plumber and had a small plumbing business.
Aaron Mooar: w e haven’t got that much time. Ra Puriri: My parents moved to Los Angeles in the 70s, so we grew up in Los Angeles. So they come from a trade background where innovation and change and keeping on top of the little things is critical. Otherwise you go out of business. But for the last 20 years I’ve worked in the software engineering space where the same principles apply. You know, if you don’t pay attention to the little things, they become huge problems and they can bury a business. So I want to bring that same kind of thinking or mentality to the public sector, to the Council staff. Focus on the little things first, and community engagement and getting information to people is the number one priority.
In my view, the mayor is the number one public advocate for the people. By default, I think the mayor should always take the people’s side every single time, because there’s 400 other people who are on the other side, so to speak. So I think if I’m elected as mayor that would be my objective, is to be the public advocate, for taking care of those small issues so they don’t turn into big problems.
Aaron Mooar: So in terms of a system, like a bureaucratic system, how do you change that? But what expertise do you need for that?
Ra Puriri: Well, I think you have to reinforce that learning is the key to the council. So I asked if they have an innovation and change committee at the council. I just assumed there probably is because all businesses have a person or a committee that’s really focused on innovation and change, because if you don’t, you won’t be in business. And I came to find out there is no such committee at the council.
So the first thing I would do is I would select one or two people and create an innovation and change committee that helped each committee within the council to craft some innovation and change principles. So you might have some foundational principles. For example, I’d tell them to read a great book called ‘Getting to Yes’. It’s all about innovation and change and then develop a structure for each committee to really drive innovation and change within the council.
Aaron Mooar: Do you think the rest of the district wants innovation and change? Ra Puriri: I have a feeling everyone wants… There’s a feeling that it’s time for change. I think the biggest indicator of that is the fact that 70 per cent of people don’t vote. Seventy per cent of people don’t feel like their vote matters, or that no one listens to them. That’s been a wake-up call to me, when I’ve asked people, why don’t you vote? Well, my vote doesn’t matter.
Aaron Mooar: We’ve got a couple minutes. Just before we go, we were going to talk about the community board and its lack of power to actually direct things to happen. It’s an advisory board. Just quickly, you want to change that and what can be changed? How can it be changed?
Ra Puriri: I would be an advocate to the council, to the other counsellors, that we give some level of veto power to every community board. I trust the people on the community board. You know, it’s a lot of work. They don’t get hardly any pay. Most of it’s voluntary time. They’re really good people. They know what their community needs. So I think they should have some level of veto power over local interests. Maybe it’s the parks, maybe in Raglan it is the airfield. But let’s decide. Let’s pick one or two things for every community and say this year you will have veto power. What does that mean? That means if the council is advocating no on a certain matter, and the board votes, yes, that’s the end. There’s no consultants, there’s no more meetings and there’s no more korero. We go with the board’s decision, and then there’s some awesome learning and change, because the council will change. They’ll go: What could we have done better to convince the board that they should have followed our recommendations? They’ll go back and there will be some tremendous change in learning. The board and local people will say: now what can we do to make this work? What can we do as a community that supports the board’s decision, and all get together to make their decision a good and fruitful decision? So there’s learning all the way around. I think that would be a wise thing to experiment with. To give them that kind of power.
Aaron Mooar: Can I just check, Alan Vink, was your partner in the work with the airfield. Is he involved with your campaign?
Ra Puriri: Yeah, he’s an advisor and we have a radio show. Aaron Mooar: As I know. Ra Puriri: So we talk about the campaign for a few minutes every Saturday. So yeah, he’s been a good sounding board to bounce things off. My son is the campaign manager, Rakau, he’s been a huge help. I have a surfboard, with vote for Ra. I take it with me when I go to other communities. I go and stand in front of the Countdown.
Aaron Mooar: Is that the one by the BP? Ra Puriri: That’s one, but I have others. Aaron Mooar: Actually, you should just mention there’s a website where people want to check out more about what you’re saying.
Ra Puriri: rapuriri4mayor.com Aaron Mooar: Thanks for your time, Ra. Ra Puriri: Thank you. https://raglanradio.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/06/RCR_Candidates_Ra.jpg