KEY POINTS:
Education and a campaign against family violence are the priorities for Waitakere Mayor Bob Harvey over the next three years.
He was speaking at last night's inaugural meeting of the council, where he and Deputy Mayor Penny Hulse were officially sworn in.
Mr Harvey - elected for an unprecedented sixth time - said the Mayoral Taskforce Against Family Violence he co-chairs with Maori Party co-leader Pita Sharples would continue.
"Family violence is not okay anywhere so I ... tirelessly will continue to take the lead in putting an end to this scourge," he told councillors and about 150 of their family and friends gathered for the ceremony.
Low educational achievement levels in the area were also worrying, Mr Harvey said. He noted that only 19 per cent of school leavers in Waitakere left with university entrance (compared with 37 per cent in the Auckland region) and that 14 per cent left school with few or no qualifications.
"I know there are many people who are as concerned as I am and there has been some significant work recently looking at how we might achieve better education outcomes in the city."
The Waitakere Education and Learning Plan being released next month would focus on strategies and actions needed to achieve a"top-notch" learning environment in the city, Mayor Harvey said.
Ms Hulse was elected to the Waitakere City Council in 1995 after being a member of the Waitakere Community Board. Mr Harvey said that Waitakere had been well served by strong women in the role of deputy mayor, including Carolynne Stone and Dorothy Wilson, and Ms Hulse would carry on that tradition.
