About 200 people packed into Dargaville's local election meet the candidates gathering last night, in one of Northland's most hotly-contested council wards.

Thirteen would-be Wairoa General Ward councillors are vying for three seats in the Kaipara District Council (KDC) ward - 4.3 times more candidates than available positions.

The crowd filled the Lighthouse function centre to the brim, on the outskirts of Dargaville, a town of just 5000 people, in what was one of the region’s biggest candidates meetings.

Kaipara’s four Mayoral candidates were also present - former Mayor Dr Jason Smith, current Deputy-Mayor Jonathan Larsen, councillor Ash Nayyar and businessman and iwi leader Snow Tane.

Nayyar and Tane are also standing as Wairoa General Ward councillor candidates along with Tangiteroria’s Jan Beatty, Aranga’s Matthew Brajkovich, Redhill’s Neil Doherty, Omamari’s Rodney Field, Dargaville’s Brian Jackson, Wero Te Kino, Dargaville’s Gordon Lambeth, Joesephine Nathan, Ash Nayyar and Pera Paniora, Te Kopuru’s Kurt Richards, Dargaville’s Snow Tane and Gordon Walker also from Dargaville.

The lineup was noticeable for its very small number of women with just three female candidates.

Multi-faceted concerns over Dargaville’s water supply security, roading and local infrastructure spending, council politics plus Dargaville's town hall and the local racecourse were among the hot topics of the evening.

Kaipara’s simmering Māori ward issue also manifested in various ways, with some of the evening’s candidates answering questions on this topic.

Their answers included strategically not putting themselves on the line as to whether they wanted to bring back a Māori ward, and saying they were in favour of doing so.

The two-hour meeting opened with a karakia from Te Roroa kaumatua Rex Nathan and ended with New Zealand’s national anthem in Māori and then in English.

The Dargaville Community Development Board-hosted meeting was chaired by Te Kopuru farmer Chris Biddles.

It was heavily curated with candidates answering only written questions they’d seen prior the meeting, rather than spontaneous questions from the crowd.

Kaipara’s four would-be Mayors kickstarted the candidate panel presentations, answering the same randomly-selected common question around fluoridation from a Baylys Beach resident.

This question’s genesis was around what the Mayoral candidates saw KDC’s position on fluoridating its reticulated water supplies to be - in light of Its drinking water operations heading out of direct council control towards a region-wide inter-council company, along with Far North District Council and Whangārei District Council which had been mandated to add fluoride to its water.

Meanwhile, the councillor candidates all answered a common question around what they would do for the ward’s economic development and community wellbeing, ensuring rural communities and smaller settlements were not left behind.

Proffered responses included events, tourism, boosting Kaipara Harbour water transport links, clinics with local residents, encouraging communities to develop existing skills and successful projects, and better council communication.

The 2025 Wairoa General Ward roughly follows the footprint of its predecessor called KDC’s West Coast Central Ward, which disappeared as part of a 2021 representation review ahead of bringing in Te Moananui o Kaipara Māori ward from 2022-2025.

In August 2024, KDC then decided to abolish the Māori ward at the end of this current election term.

Wairoa General Ward’s three councillors will make up 30% of KDC’s nine politicians for the coming 2025 to 2028 election term.

Local election voting began on September 9 and ends on October 11 at noon.

-LDR is local body journalism co-funded by RNZ and NZ On Air.

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