New Zealand's first wahine Māori regional council chair - Northland Regional Council's Tui Shortland Photo / Michael Cunningham
New Zealand's first wahine Māori regional council chair - Northland Regional Council's Tui Shortland Photo / Michael Cunningham
Northland Regional Council has selected New Zealand's first wahine Māori regional council chair. (
In a Te Tai Tokerau first, Tui Shortland (Ngāti Hine, Ngātiwai, Te Rarawa) was selected by her fellow councillors today to head the nine-member council for the next three years.
"I feel really excited," Shortland (46) a first-time regional councillor, said after her selection at the inaugural meeting of the 2022-2025 council held in NRC's Whangārei chambers.
In her election material Shortland had said; "With your support I will strongly represent Māori interests to prioritise addressing growing inequalities of our region, clean air and freshwater, restored biodiversity and coastal habitats for a stable climate".
Shortland was the first of two nominations for the top job at Tuesday's meeting, her nomination from Crs Rick Stolwerk and Peter-Lucas Jones.
The second was for Hokianga farmer Joe Carr, who has returned as a councillor after a six-year absence, representing NRC's huge Far North General Constituency.
Carr was nominated as chair by fellow councillors and farmers Geoff Crawford (Hikurangi Swamp) and John Blackwell (Kaipara).
However, Carr told the meeting before voting took place, that he did not wish to be selected.
He said after the meeting he would have been happy to be chair, but had forgone the role in support of council unity.
Meanwhile, councillors also elected second-term councillor Jack Craw as the council's deputy chair.
The new 2022-2025 NRC council lineup - from left Marty Robinson, John Blackwell, Peter-Lucas Jones, Joe Carr, Geoff Crawford, Tui Shortland, Jack Craw, Amy Macdonald and Rick Stolwerk
Shortland, lives at Te Haumi in the Bay of Islands and stood in NRC's first-time Te Raki Māori Constituency.
Her fellow constituency representative Peter-Lucas Jones said Shortland, importantly, had been supported in her development towards her new NRC leadership role by kaumatua and kuia, the marae of Te Tai Tokerau.
She has had a lengthy, multi-pronged international and local career focused on indigenous perspectives across areas including climate change and biodiversity considerations for freshwater, land, oceans and air.
This involvement has ranged from practical hands-on-the-land working with managing whanau maara (family land) to international United Nations biodiversity and climate change policy development in areas including writing part of the introduction to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCC)'s 2015 Paris Agreement.
She has also been part of the international indigenous forum on biodiversity, a collective of representatives connected to the United Nations Convention on Biological Diversity.
Shortland's selection comes after a 20-year involvement with NRC in various planning and regulatory roles.
Among these, she was as a founding member of the regional council's Te Taitokerau Māori and Council Working Party (TTMAC) established in 2014.
Shortland managed the Ngatiwai, Ngati Hine and Ngati Rehia environmental portfolios for 15 years.
Her board experience includes Ngati Hine Forestry Trust, a Northland land trust with an estimated worth of $30 million and interests in property, kiwifruit, manuka and pinus radiata.
Shortland has a moko kauae (woman's chin tattoo) that speaks of Hine-te-iwaiwa, the Māori goddess of the domain of women and spiritual guardian of weaving, childbirth and cycles of the moon.
She said it acknowledged the woman's perspectives of working to resolve issues and create unity among different points of view, weaving these together in a tapestry.
Meanwhile, Craw (70) comes to his new role after a lengthy career in biodiversity and biosecurity. He chaired NRC's biosecurity and biodiversity working party in the 2019-2022 term.
Craw also formerly worked in biosecurity at NRC. His career has included time in Australia where he managed the weed and pest control work for the state of Victoria through the Keith Turnbull Research Institute.
He has also been Auckland Council's group manager biosecurity. Craw has worked on fighting kauri dieback and has been part of the creation of a new national policy statement for the kauri invader destroying large chunks of the native taonga.
Craw has also worked as a biosecurity consultant for the British Government in the Pitcairn islands, working to eradicate goats, and for the United Nations in Niue, developing community solutions for managing feral pigs. Craw has also worked in the sector in Hawaii, Fiji, Vanuatu and Kiribati.
He said it was "a great honour" to be selected as deputy chair.
"I am looking forward to tackling climate change," Craw said.
He was also looking forward to getting to work on the huge avalanche of central government changes facing the regional council.
■ Local Democracy Reporting is Public Interest Journalism funded through NZ On Air
