{"id":73065,"date":"2025-10-12T02:28:08","date_gmt":"2025-10-12T02:28:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/73065\/"},"modified":"2025-10-12T02:28:08","modified_gmt":"2025-10-12T02:28:08","slug":"pretty-rapt-wairoa-mayor-craig-little-ahead-but-waiting-on-final-tally","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/73065\/","title":{"rendered":"\u2018Pretty rapt\u2019: Wairoa Mayor Craig Little ahead but waiting on final tally"},"content":{"rendered":"

\u201cThis is my fifth term, and historically all around the country, when you have been in for a long time, people want change and it\u2019s quite normal to be booted out. <\/p>\n

\u201cI feel pretty lucky to still be here. I have had a lot of good people supporting me in the community and now I have to make sure I do the hard yards to repay them.\u201d <\/p>\n

Asked why he thought voters continued to support him, Little replied, \u201cwell it\u2019s not for my good looks\u201d. <\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019ve had really tough times and I think people have seen that l stand up and I won\u2019t be silenced. I\u2019ll always fight for our community. <\/p>\n

\u201cBut honestly, I don\u2019t want to go through another campaign ever again.\u201d <\/p>\n

He said his focus this term would be on river protection. <\/p>\n

\u201cOnce the flood protection is in place, it will put positively back into the town and people and businesses can start getting on with it. <\/p>\n

\u201cAffordability is also another big issue. We need to talk about what the community wants and how we are going to get it. <\/p>\n

\u201cThree waters is another huge thing for this term.\u201d <\/p>\n

He said he was over the moon with the elected councillors. <\/p>\n

\u201cWe had a lot of good people standing but unfortunately, there are only six jobs. If I get confirmation [for the mayoralty], I\u2019ll be quite blessed to have this council. They\u2019re just good, good people.\u201d <\/p>\n

Wairoa mayoral race<\/p>\n

EAGLESOME-KAREKARE, Denise 1226 <\/p>\n

GASKIN, Camden 84 <\/p>\n

LITTLE, Craig Independent 1563 <\/p>\n

PANERE, Kurawari 138 <\/p>\n

General ward councillor (three) <\/p>\n

BIRD, Sara 676 <\/p>\n

FORREST, Amber 547 <\/p>\n

GASKIN, Camden 104 <\/p>\n

HARKER, Jeremy 1199 <\/p>\n

HARRIS, Stuart 252 <\/p>\n

JACKMAN, Sam 501 <\/p>\n

MALIS, John 275 <\/p>\n

THOMAS, Roz 825 <\/p>\n

TUKAKI, Veronica Grace 394 <\/p>\n

M\u0101ori ward councillor (three) <\/p>\n

CAIRNS, Benita 689 <\/p>\n

COOK, Puti 184 <\/p>\n

HARKER-SMITH, Marino 120 <\/p>\n

KAWANA, Katarina 396 <\/p>\n

PANERE, Kurawari Independent 178 <\/p>\n

TAHURI, Michelle 519 <\/p>\n

TIPU, Ally 148 <\/p>\n

WAIKAWA, Trevor Teotaia Hirini 777 <\/p>\n

WAINOHU, Esta Makere 376<\/p>\n

All results are provisionalLDR is local body journalism co-funded by RNZ and NZ On Air.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"\u201cThis is my fifth term, and historically all around the country, when you have been in for a…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":73066,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[3017,3013,6650,5904,6093,10934,111,43,139,69,90,56769,57468,57469,15289,10510],"class_list":["post-73065","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-new-zealand","tag-ahead","tag-but","tag-craig","tag-final","tag-little","tag-mayor","tag-new-zealand","tag-news","tag-newzealand","tag-nz","tag-on","tag-pretty","tag-rapt","tag-tally","tag-wairoa","tag-waiting"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/73065","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=73065"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/73065\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/73066"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=73065"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=73065"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=73065"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}