Mayor knew district inside out

Former Rodney Mayor Sir Gordon Mason with his wife Lady Tui. Photo / NZ Herald.

Sir Gordon Mason, OBE, local body leader. Died aged 89.

It seems most unlikely that the Rodney area will ever again acquire a local leader as familiar as Gordon Mason was with its people, their livelihoods, the rolling countryside and its sea coasts.

From 1960 he spent 32 years in local body politics. Chairman of the Rodney County Council and later mayor of the new Rodney District were his particular influences. He could also claim a contribution in local body politics nationwide through the Counties Association and during the merging of that and the Municipal Association to form the Local Government Association in 1988.

But Gordon Mason was always more a man born in the area who came to run a carting business and later farm at Kaipara Flats.

"I had a great knowledge of the entire county because I had been travelling round it for years," he explained on retirement in 1992.

Even a decade earlier the 1496km of roads in the county were then only 24 per cent sealed. In such a rural area the things that mattered most in the Mason years were these roads, the numerous single-lane bridges, water supplies and sewerage plants.

And it is salutary that even 40 years ago Rodney thought itself a council lacking finance, with Mason complaining of calls to reduce local government spending, while having to make provision for extra responsibilities imposed upon them. He also noticed "a growing tendency to remove from local authorities any real power to make decisions and to place responsibility more firmly in the hands of regional or central government".

He once said he entered local body politics out of frustration with authorities who appeared to ignore "anything north of the Harbour Bridge".

During his local body career the headlines given to Mason tended to emphasise an enduring and steady influence - "Chairman for Third Year", or "Mr Mason again at Helm". A far cry from the disputations that affected the Rodney Council in some of the times after he stepped down.

At the time of his knighthood, just after he retired from politics, he observed that the award was "better than just being put out to grass".

When asked more recently by the Mahurangi Matters publication if the knighthood had changed anything he replied: "It was certainly an honour ... but it can have its drawbacks. Tui [his wife] and I noticed that when we travelled the price of everything went up when they saw the "Sir".

Sir Gordon Mason is survived by Lady Tui, his wife of over 65 years, children and descendants.