New mayors and councillors around the motu are lining up to take their places at the council table. Photo: LDR / SUPPLIED
Preliminary results in several tight council elections will be announced on Monday, with the final count, including special votes, to be confirmed on Friday.
Voters have re-elected mayors in Auckland (Wayne Brown) and Christchurch (Phil Mauger), while new mayors take the top job in Wellington (Andrew Little), Hamilton (Tim McIndoe) and Dunedin (Sophie Barker).
Eastern Bay of Plenty
Former Green Party MP Nandor Tanczos has claimed victory in Whakatāne's neck-and-neck mayoral race.
He's been a councillor in the town for three terms and said there were still 500 special votes to count but that won't change the result.
The preliminary results have put him 90 votes ahead of incumbent mayor Victor Luca, who was narrowly ahead at the weekend.
"There's a bit of a narrative that a lot of mayors have been kicked out because of rates. I've been really clear with our community that rates are not coming down, no matter what anyone says," he said.
"Rates will continue to rise and it will hurt for the next 10 to 30 years and the reason is not for the so called nice-to-haves but it's the need for real spending on water infrastructure particularly, as well as inflation and interest and also increased responsibilities coming from central government that we're not being funded for."
Whakatāne district councillor and former Green MP Nándor Tánczos was surprised to learn he had been reported to police for a hate crime because of his comments on genocide. Photo: LDR / SUPPLIED
Tanczos said he would look to control costs in council, be more efficient and increase productivity.
"The first thing is bringing the councillors together to work as one team. We've got a lot of talent sitting around the table and we've got some new councillors as well bringing some fresh thinking, so the first thing is to get us all on the same page working together for a common purpose."
Tanczos said local government faced some big challenges in the next three years.
"I'm really looking forward to the new role as mayor. I think there's a lot we can do. I'm really excited about it."
Waikato
It is a close race for the second Waipā-King Country seat on the Waikato Regional Council, with incumbent Stu Kneebone 62 votes behind Liz Stolwyk.
The initial count on election day had Kneebone ahead by 107.
Garry Reymer is the other Waipā-King Country elected member based on results.
Special votes are still to be counted, with the final numbers expected between 16 and 19 October.
Kneebone is a five-term regional councillor. Stolwyk would become the fourth new regional councillor for the 2025-28 triennium, joining Garry Reymer, Gary McGuire and Keith Holmes.
There are no other changes in the results reported on Saturday, with Kataraina Hodge, Tipa Mahuta, Angela Strange, Chris Hughes, Ben Dunbar-Smith, Jennifer Nickel, Warren Maher, Robert Cookson, Noel Smith and Mich'eal Downard returning.
Northland
The Whangārei mayoral race has a new front-runner with councillor Ken Couper edging in front of incumbent Vince Cocurullo by just over 300 votes.
Snow Tane says he'll ask for a recount if final results still show only five votes between him and Jonathan Larsen for mayor of Kaipara. Photo: RNZ/Peter de Graaf
In Saturday's progress results Cocurullo was ahead by 67 votes but the rivals have switched places in today's preliminary count, which includes votes cast on the final day.
Couper now has 12,003 votes to Cocurullo's 11,696.
Meanwhile a recount is likely in Kaipara for Northland's tightest election race, if the razor-thin margin between the three leading mayoral candidates is confirmed in the final results.
According to preliminary results, current deputy mayor Jonathan Larsen is just five votes ahead of iwi leader Snow Tane, and 31 votes ahead of two-times former mayor Jason Smith.
Tane said if the result is still that close in the final results he will ask for a recount, and he expects the other candidates will do the same.
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