Meanwhile Ms Court also claimed the council needed to rebuild relationships that had been damaged "of late". The Far North needed government subsidies for water, roads and sewerage; and policies made in Wellington were hurting the district, and the Far North needed the ability to open doors to influence those policies.
The six mayoral candidates generally followed common themes, although there were differences in their top three priorities.
For Mr Carter they were restoring a community focus, creating employment; business and regional development; for Ms Court empowering the community boards, collating a 30-year infrastructure plan, rebuilding relationships; for Mr Harris restoring stability to the council, economic development, developing a youth policy; for Mr Porter recognising the place of the Treaty of Waitangi, creating "good' communities, encouraging Maori participation; for Ms Watson working to achieve purity of land and water, innovative ideas for dealing with (and exploiting) rubbish, addressing youth issues; and for Mr Brown lifting the district's economic performance, youth employment, working better with Maori.
There was common support for enabling communities to pursue their aspirations, Mr Harris saying he believed the council's role should initially be hands-on, then hands-off, benefiting communities and saving money in the process.
Mr Porter said Northland was one region and all who lived there were connected. He also saw investing in children as a means of building strong communities.
Ms Watson wanted to restore community involvement to the council, pursue innovative means of attracting investment and creating jobs, easier access to sport and an end to threatening tourists.
Mr Brown described the coming election as a very important one. The unitary authority proposal could be seen as a threat or an opportunity, but either way it needed to be discussed. The benefit for Kaikohe, particularly if Dargaville was incorporated, would be that it would once again be the district's hub, while a unitary authority would compel Wellington to see the Far North as an entity in its own right.
There was an urgent need to get the district's youth ready for jobs and to get jobs ready for them, a task that would be addressed by a regional development fund, a prospect that a major New Zealand bank and another in China were showing interest in.
Ms Court spoke about communities helping themselves, with encouragement but not necessarily funding from the council, as Kerikeri had done. She also recalled leaving the council offices in tears after seeking help as a solo mother who could not pay her rates, and promised that no one would be reduced to tears or made to feel like a second-class citizen under her mayoralty.
Mr Carter spoke of restoring pride and respect within and for the council and the people it served, and of a council that would work with communities to help them achieve their aspirations. Six weeks' campaigning had revealed that communities throughout the district were finding the council less of a help than a hindrance; what they wanted was a council that would work with them.
He also feared that the council had a hidden deficit by way of roads that were failing, a general lack of asset maintenance and deferred capital projects.
