Submission to the Hawkes Bay Representation Review 2021

Federated Farmers submitted seeking to preserve the councillor for the Mohaka-Wairoa constituency, which is at risk because the removal of Maori Roll voters leaves only 5,691 General Roll voters left.  This makes the ratio of voters per councillor skewed to -62%, which is well outside the Govt requirement for representation ratios to be within +/-10% compared to other wards. As a comparison, urban Napier councillors have to represent 17,980 voters each.  Federated Famers submits that Mohaka-Wairoa is considered a community of interest and deserves it’s own councillor, due to its predominant extensive sheep & beef farming land uses, steep terrain, unique resource management issues and solutions, connection to Wairoa as the main town, and the Wairoa District Council boundary.