News

Murray Chong was in charge of the Mayor’s Office for 40 minutes last Monday morning as Max Brough was out of town, and his answers to the questions for the day did not go down well with other Councillors. And rightly so.

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Just to let everyone know we have now had an official response from the Ombudsman about our Water CCO complaint.

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As many of you will be aware we had discussions with a Law Firm when the closed meeting was arranged by the NPDC on 10th October, on the day before the election.

Over the last month we have been investigating and evaluating information regarding the appointment of the new Water CCO Board and new Water CCO Chief Executive.

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Sarah talks about Ratepayers groups and The Taxpayers Union spreading misinformation and disinformation, saying we are pretending to be everyday people but instead suggesting we are "far right" political groups with an agenda.

We call Sarah out about some of her comments.

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Max won more than twice as many votes as his nearest rival, David Bublitz.

The majority of the voters in New Plymouth gave Max Brough a strong message that they like his policies and direction.

Click on the blue heading above to learn more about some of his plans.

Click on the blue heading above to see the final results for the election. This includes the number of votes per day and the full breakdown of candidate votes and which officials were elected for 2025.

It is time for hundreds – if not thousands of us – to speak up and be heard – and ask the authorities who look in to inappropriate practices with Government Agencies to look at what has been done in New Plymouth in the last few days.

Click on the blue heading above to find out what we need you to do.

This Annual Report is audited by a Government Auditor – to check that what the Council says the figures are – the Auditor agrees with.

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The Alliance has been having an interesting few weeks with the outgoing elected officials at the NPDC. We had 2 attempts to speak for 5 minutes before a Council meeting. We didn’t manage to get put on an agenda – yet speaking at a public forum can only be denied on a few grounds.

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And in this meeting – which will be closed to the public - they will make a very important decision – appointing the board members for the new Water CCO. Apparently, there is urgency to make this happen as the new entity has to be fully in place in JUNE 2027 !!!

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It’s weird when you get involved in finding information about the Council, often over your morning coffee, and you’re looking for one thing, in this case a meeting date and time, and while looking for that, you discover a very tiny bit of information that is actually quite big.

This is one of those bits of information and a result of the Sports Hub project.

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They did a great job, did some good research on the candidates, and asked some great questions. There was a bit of humour thrown in - and a bit of jeering here and there from the crowd – from both sides.

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Here at the Alliance we have been making no secret that we need a majority of 8 people sitting around the NPDC Council table who will say no to the constant spending on projects we do not need at this time.

RNZ Local Democracy Reporting, in one paragraph of an article in the Daily News – which has absolutely no connection to the death threat event which occurred for Sam Bennett on Thursday 18th September - tries to imply – somehow – that the Ratepayers Alliance and the Taxpayer’s Union had some sort of influence on the alleged death threat Sam Bennett received last week.

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A few misleading things have been said in the last few weeks by officials who have been part of our Council over the last term.

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The New Plymouth Ratepayers Alliance was hammered in the media after our Second Mayors event, and scolded by David Bublitz, a would be Mayor in 2025.

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The second New Candidate event was held on Monday 15th September.

This event had 8 Candidates standing for the District Wide and Kaitake Ngamotu General Wards, and one Candidate from the North Ward.

And the Taxpayers Union made a highlighted 10 minute version of our Mayoral Event - which is very interesting to watch.

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Why are the Daily News, RNZ and David Bublitz saying such awful things about our team and our supporters ?

Because we ask very difficult questions ! We ask questions that expose the information behind the spin !

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This one consultation – if people don’t make a lot of noise to stop what is proposed – this will alter the future of how Local Government is managed in New Plymouth. The NPDC is planning to introduce a Council Bylaw which makes it possible to Co-Govern New Plymouth with IWI and pay them for that involvement – in all our suburbs.

Why did you not know the NPDC was consulting about this right now ?

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With 32 new people standing in 2025 we have 2 groups in new candidate events.

The first event was on 4th September with roughly half of the new Candidates, we will meet the other half on 15th September.

Click on the blue heading above to see the video.

BEFORE YOU VOTE – please try to get your head around how STV voting works – it is truly complicated.

With our “What to Know Before You Vote” series - today - we cover STV Voting.

The Short Version of STV Voting:

The STV Voting system is very complicated

Practice on a piece of paper before filling in your voting form

DO NOT tick the boxes

Write a number - Rank people in the order you want 1, 2, 3 etc

You don't have to put a number next to every name

Only vote for someone if you want them to be voted in as a Mayor or Councillor

If you vote for people you don't want, your votes for them can be transferred to other people on your list - so only vote for someone you want on Council.

Click on the blue heading above to find the longer version with more detail and a video