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 Sharnay Ormsby Cocup-Hughes: “I ‘m not just going to say I’m standing for Māori, I’m standing for all people that have lost faith in our current council system that want to see change and that want to see difference,” she said (Listen to the full interview below:) Aaron: You’re one of three candidates running for the Tai Runga Takiwaa Maaori Ward. Is this your first foray into politics?
Sharnay Ormsby Cocup-Hughes : No, it’s not. I first got into politics at 18 when I was elected to my first community board. I was the youngest in the Waikato to be elected and that goes back six years ago now.
Aaron: And which community board was that? Sharnay Ormsby Cocup-Hughes : Taupiri Community Board Aaron: How was that as an 18 year old and what was that like going on the board? Sharnay Ormsby Cocup-Hughes : Well some of the older people in the village wanted to get some new blood into the community board and this lady, her name was Elva Gouk and she asked me if I would stand or consider it.
At that time I was already a busy teenager. I had just founded my own youth group in the community and I had a lot of things going on. I think the elections were coming up on my 19th birthday so I had a whole year to think about it because it was the second year of the term and it was just about over anyway. When I turned 19 I ended up putting my name forward and I got the highest polling votes for a female and the second highest out of all the candidates.
Aaron: Wow. Has that been a good experience? I guess it must have been if you’re looking to move to a councillor position.
Sharnay Ormsby Cocup-Hughes : Oh yes it’s probably been one of the busiest experiences of my life, I would say because I got to look at it through a lens where others don’t get to see. Along those lenses you also get to see the failings as well but it’s been a great experience. It’s given me a lot of experience in politics, not only that, but in governance as well. I’ve gone on to some other amazing places from my council experience and just having that sort of background has, I guess, built my portfolio that I have today.
Aaron: You’re from the Taupiri area and is that where you whakapapa to? Sharnay Ormsby Cocup-Hughes : Yes. I’m born and bred in Taupiri; my whānau live in Taupiri; we’ve got a homestead in Taupiri. So yes, Taupiri is where I come from.
Aaron: So this new ward covers half of the Waikato district. Have you seen the rest of that part of the district?
Sharnay Ormsby Cocup-Hughes : Yes, I have. I was fortunate enough to do most of my high schooling in Ngāruawāhia. I went to Ngāruawāhia High School right up to year 13. I have a lot of whānau actually from Raglan, my Ormsby name, that’s where a lot of our whakapapa go back to. So Whāingaroa the district, a lot of my whānau are there, my marae is Waingaro marae which is not far from Raglan and the other little districts in between.
A lot of people do know who I am and I was sort of struggling whether or not I go jump on the Māori wards or into the general ward. But I just said to myself, you know what? It’s the first time and it’s a special moment for Māori, for us to even have this opportunity to have wards and I’d only be true to myself if I stand. I’m just going all in really and whether or not I get elected or not, I am still happy to know that whatever my outcome of the election, I’ve already nabbed a position on the top of the community board. If I have to do another three years to prove myself, then I will, because I know in the next three years – I’ll be coming.
Aaron: Have people said to you, you’re a bit young? Especially coming on at like 18, 19?
Sharnay Ormsby Cocup-Hughes : Not really. Because if you consider my experience, I would have done six years on a community board and a governance position. That’s six years. Some of the people that get elected this year wouldn’t have had any experience in a governance role. So even if I don’t get elected this year and I do another three years on the Taupiri Community Board, by the time elections come around, I would have had nine years in a governance position. I just think some people don’t achieve that until they get further in life and I’ve achieved it at such a young age. Even if you search me up and you read my story, that is just me hands down. I would give the shirt off my back for anyone that’s in need. I’ve been volunteering since I was sixteen years old. I’ve always been told that I’m a young person in an old body. Because of my old withered ways. I’ve always been told that I’ve got an old soul.
Aaron: What else have you been doing through the last few years, aside from being on the community board?
Sharnay Ormsby Cocup-Hughes : So at 18 again, I was first elected to my stepson’s Taupiri School board of trustees. I’ve done nine years there and just two years ago I was made chair of the board of trustees. Again, I don’t know anyone younger or the same age as me that has ever been a chair at such a young age. It was such a breathtaking experience, if I’m honest, because the majority of the people that I sit on board with are probably ten, 15, 20 years older than me. To have to be their boss sometimes, it does get a bit intimidating.
Aaron: So you must be mid-twenties now I’m guessing? Sharnay Ormsby Cocup-Hughes : Yes I am. Also another special one I just got on to, coming from the Waikato where there’s never been anyone from the Waikato elected, I got elected co-chair coach straight off the bat for the Rainbow Youth Foundation.
Aaron: Is that a nationwide organisation? Sharnay Ormsby Cocup-Hughes : Yes. I don’t know if you watch Treasure Island but the guy that won it donated $100,000 to that organisation.
Aaron: I didn’t see that. That’s a lot of money. Sharnay Ormsby Cocup-Hughes : Yes. So that’s the organisation that I’m proud to be co-chair of and it’s such an amazing, amazing, amazing executive board to be a part of. It’s just given me a different insight for our rainbow community so I also bring that to the table, having worked alongside rangatahi, schools and networking with our rainbow community. I have that sort of experience under my belt of what I can bring to our districts that others may not have.
Aaron: What are the issues facing the Māori community in your area at the moment and how much of that can be dealt with at the council level?
Sharnay Ormsby Cocup-Hughes : What do I think is bothering our districts at the moment? I think this is going to come across sad but I have to be honest. I feel like in terms of getting more rangatahi, more young people to step forward into positions like community boards or governance roles, we don’t do enough.
It’s sad to say but six years down the track, I’m still one of the youngest in a position like I’m in. If you have a look at other districts like the Kapiti coast, where I have many, many, many, many good friends that are in the same position that I’m in, the majority of those districts are trying to get Rangatahi to come forward, trying to get Rangatahi on our board.
I feel like at Waikato District Council, we lack that and I don’t know why we lack that. I don’t know if it’s because we’re still behind in time. But I feel like if we don’t start getting these young people coming forward, then we’re going to fall into a cycle where we’re going to have the same people running all the time for positions and it doesn’t really empower or build a successful council. It just has the same old people and then after a while people start getting sick of the same system.
That is the reason why I put my hand forward because I think it’s about time that we see change in our district and change in the support that is given. That is one of the reasons why I’m standing because I’m sick of how things have been since I’ve been in Waikato District Council for the last six years. I just want to see change. I want to see change not just for Māori people but for all people in the Waikato district.
Aaron: I must admit quite a few people I’ve been talking to lately have been saying we need to be doing more for youth. I had about three conversations in the last week about that. Tell us about stuff that you’ve done on the community board.
Sharnay Ormsby Cocup-Hughes : We’ve done a lot of stuff. We were heavily involved with the new expressway there. It’s just gone through Taupiri. That was one of our biggest I would say because we sort of didn’t know how it was going to go down, whether or not Taupiri would get missed and it’s been like a big journey for that.
We also had a couple of significant pā sites open up in Taupiri where the village are allowed to go and visit these monumental homes that have been specially placed for our Māori people. We also had the new BP gas station open, the McDonald’s going in, Taco Bell. Those were big things for the Taupiri area and we’re also still under construction for a big housing development happening which would see over 300 new families come into the district. Although it takes away their rural living, it also brings new people into our district and we are moving in that sort of era. More housing is coming in, which is good because it bumps up our schools, our kindergartens and also brings more money into the community, brings more whānau and just adds to the Waikato district.
Aaron: Speaking of housing, you know housing is an issue here. What about over your way?
Sharnay Ormsby Cocup-Hughes : I think housing is a nationwide problem unfortunately. We don’t have enough housing to house all of our people and it’s a sad thing when you come to the point that the majority of people are living in cars or tents or even overcrowded housing.
It’s something that I think, not only does a council need to do more, but our government too and that’s who I would say is more responsible for that sort of issue is our government. We need more housing, not just housing, but safer housing that is better built so that those whānau can stay in them for a long time and they’re not having to go to emergency housing or motel to motel or to whānau’s doorsteps because they’ve got nowhere else to go.
Aaron: You say housing is a government issue and most people will agree but it’s also really clear that the government is not doing anything substantial about it. If you’re on the council, do you think you can do something about it there?
Sharnay Ormsby Cocup-Hughes : I actually do think we could because if you look at Taupiri, for instance, we’re getting new houses built, although they’re not for our people that probably need it more. We are sort of ticking off a barrier because we are bringing more homes in and that’s just from a developer that’s from Taupiri that saw that we needed more homes and has pretty much given a fix for their problem but they’re not social housing.
I feel like that’s what we probably need more of is social housing, but it is heading in the right direction because by having this developer build the homes, hopefully some of our whānau won’t be sleeping in cars. But I do think that it does need to be really looked at from all sorts of levels of council and governments. We do need to do more. If we don’t do more, we’re going to find ourselves in a pretty tricky situation that I don’t think any of us would want to be in.
Aaron: Aside from housing, what else are people telling you are issues in your community at the moment and the wider Māori community for this southern part of the district?
Sharnay Ormsby Cocup-Hughes : I would say a lot that gets talked about all the time (and one of the reasons why I started my own youth group at a young age) would be the youth crime rate, the vandalism in communities, the burglaries.
Children not going to school, children not having a sense of wanting to stay in high school or feeling like the community is just not listening to them, no opportunities given – those sorts of things. I feel like they don’t just relate to youth, they relate to the whole sector. I feel like that’s one of the big issues, especially for Māori. We all know that Māori have one of the highest crime rates here in Aotearoa, it’s sad to say, but it’s a true fact. I just feel like if we gave more time to our rangatahi and looked at what they’re doing and why they’re doing it, instead of making broken promises all the time. If we actually stuck to our tohu and made changes that they saw appropriate, we may see our rangatahi change. I’ve been trying to do that since I was 16. I did it good for five years and then I saw that it was a battle that I couldn’t win on my own – that I actually needed more people coming forward and helping. It’s sad when you come to that realisation that you actually need more people to help. I couldn’t do it on my own, but I was fortunate that it has touched 40 young rangatahi lives back when I was doing that kaupapa and many of them have gone on to be parents themselves, own homes, have beautiful jobs. When I see them, I know that a little bit of recognition is because I cared enough to help them when they were in a time of need.
Aaron: What do you think a council could do in that realm? Like a youth hub in each community or something like that? Is that something a council could do?
Sharnay Ormsby Cocup-Hughes : I believe so. I believe that we need to have more youth hubs and safe havens for our rangatahi to come to. I know that a lot of people like to express themselves in forms of graffiti art so we could look at getting those people that are talented doing murals in our towns so that there is no graffiti all over the place. Instead of looking at it as graffiti we can look at it as art, because some of those people that are doing graffiti around our district are some of the most creative artists that we have. But because we don’t invest enough time or money into the situation, we go on to think that they’re just making our town look ugly but that’s a person that’s got artistic talent. I think if we invest in those sorts of things, we may start to see the cycle change.
Aaron: Do you know what it was about you or what inspired you at the young age of 16 that caused that to happen?
Sharnay Ormsby Cocup-Hughes : Well I woke up one day thinking I’ve got to sixteen and I thought, no one’s doing anything for us. We’re getting all these promises made but nothing’s happening. So I got together with a few young people in the town at the time because we were in a bad situation; we had a high crime rate, we even made the Waikato Times because of how many times houses in Taupiri were getting broken into. A group of us got together and at the time there is a walkway up in Taupiri by our sacred maunga and it is a public walkway but not many people know about it.
We started actually clearing the walkway track and little by little we got more and more rangatahi involved and soon the community started to notice a change. When they noticed the change, they noticed that the youth were now investing their time into volunteering. Once I introduced them to volunteering, we’ve seen a big shift happen in Taupiri. The rangatahi had more pride because they had people that they didn’t think they would even get a handshake from, come up to them and say, “You guys are doing an amazing job.” I think it was because they were hearing all these amazing things that made them work even harder. We did that project for over five years. We won some amazing awards out of it. I took a group down to Parliament where our youth group actually won a special youth award. Waikato District Council also ran a youth awards where our group took out the “Champions of the Earth” and I got the “Like a Boss” category winner. I would say over 10,000 volunteering hours were put in, all free. We had no money at the time, we just used tools from home and people donated tools for us to use and we sort of paved our own way.
Aaron: And that just started from you getting together with some people you knew basically?
Sharnay Ormsby Cocup-Hughes : It all just started just off from, if no one’s going to help us, then we need to make the change. That’s where it all started from me from a young age. I’ve always been a person that will help and that is exactly what I’ve been doing ever since. I’m helping, helping, helping, helping.
Aaron: We’ve got these two new Māori wards and it all happened quite fast in the end. How exciting was this for you?
Sharnay Ormsby Cocup-Hughes : It was really, really exciting. Local government holds a conference every two years and I was fortunate enough to attend the one down in Gore. At the time, when I was attending other districts’ like Wellington and Rotorua, they had already voted in Māori wards and I was getting semi-excited because I was like, “yes!” The shift is coming, it’s here, it’s happening.
I was so excited and it was a no brainer. I knew that we would get those wards in at Waikato District Council. When I heard that it was coming into effect, I was super excited because it’s not about having our own people stand forward, it’s about having different diversity voices on council and not just the same voices all the time. I think that’s what I was more excited about is that now Māori have a voice and that is not going to be taken away. I think that’s a big change for the council. I’m excited to see how it’s going to happen in the next three years and what’s going to come of it. Super excited, really excited.
Aaron: It’s interesting to look at the big picture of this because we have the treaty and it’s a partnership. And a partnership is 50/50. Do you think one day that all of our governments will be 50/50? Is that something that you contemplate?
Sharnay Ormsby Cocup-Hughes : I wish I could say that one day I’ll see 50/50 but the reality of our situation is that it will probably never be 50/50. Māori will probably always get the back seat. That’s how it’s been ever since the treaty was signed. I still feel like as of today, Māori have still got the less hand than what we should have been given. We should have really had 60 and the other parties been given 40. But in this aspect it’s like a reverse. We’ve been given, I would say 20, and the other party be given 80. My only hope is that for the future, that it is a partnership and it is a 50/50 agreement, but I can’t hand-on-my-heart say that I will see that in my lifetime. I can only wish that for my future generations to come and that maybe one day we will see the change.
Aaron: How effective do you think two Māori council positions out of 13 will be? Sharnay Ormsby Cocup-Hughes : Two is a start. It’s a big start. If you think about the last three years, we had none. So to have two is a step in the right direction and hopefully, over time, we can see that number grow. But there’s always the chances of other Māori getting into the general roles too which is a bonus. So that’s a start. I’m not going to say it’s the best, but it is a start and we are moving in the right direction. I guess all we can do from there is keep working on that and building it and letting people see that having these wards have been a success. And by that, that’s how we can measure up whether or not it’s working or not.
Aaron: Do you think that if you win the Tai Runga Takiwaa Maaori Ward, is your role purely advocating for Māori? Or is there a wider responsibility to the whole district?
Sharnay Ormsby Cocup-Hughes : I wouldn’t just say it’s about Māori, it’s about every individual because we all make up a district whether or not we’re Māori, whether or not we’re other ethnicities, we all matter. I’ve made it clear from the day dot that I stood, that I not only stand for Māori, I stand for all people that have lost their voice in a council that has either overpromised and under-delivered.
I’m not just going to say I’m standing for Māori, I’m standing for all people that have lost faith in our current council system that want to see change and that want to see difference. I’m a young person standing and I have that against me at the moment because people would think I don’t have the experience. But in actual fact, I’ve done so much volunteering. I’ve been on so many different boards around our district and to be honest, I just want to see whether I can fill those boots. Am I good enough? That’s been one of the biggest scariest realisations is that at the moment I’m going against two strong wahine. They are older than me by so much. But I just keep having the faith that if our communities want change, then they will vote me in. Age is just the number. And amongst all those I go against, I have enough experiences too.
An important part I should mention too, this year on the 21st of May, I actually went into Waikato Hospital. I had surgery on my back and it didn’t go good. I had nine surgeries in 13 weeks. I came straight out of hospital into campaigning. I’ve been asked the question: How do you do it? How do you come out of hospital for 13 weeks, have nine surgeries and still stand in front of a crowd and have the faith that no one would ever realise the battle you’ve just been through. And I think it’s the people, it comes back down to the people. I didn’t want to be at home moping around and thinking, what could have been. I’ve got the hugest heart, so I thought, you know what? Instead of moping around home and feeling sorry for myself because of the situation I’ve just been through, I’m going to invest in everything I have into standing for this year’s awards, and that is exactly what I’ve done.
I’ve gone all in. I’ve told my wife, even if I’m not successful, I’m happy with that. I’ve come to the terms that I’m happy if I don’t get in because at least our community will know who I am now. And come next three years. Then maybe I might just get my shot. And if I don’t get it in the next three years, well, then I’ll just keep trying. I’ll never give up.
Aaron: I have to admit, I didn’t really know anything about you before this conversation but it’s been really interesting hearing about all the things you’ve done and how you started on this journey so young. So thank you for your time this morning.
Sharnay Ormsby Cocup-Hughes : And thank you so much for giving me this opportunity. I really, truly appreciate it. https://raglanradio.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/06/RCR-Candidates-cover-sharnay.jpg