Our elected representatives

Our council chamber

Local authority boundaries North Island

Local authority boundaries South Island
Maps showing the boundaries of regional and territorial authorities.

Choosing the council
How to enrol, how to vote, and how to stand for a range of local elected positions

Māori constituencies
Environment Bay of Plenty is the only local authority in New Zealand to institute Māori constituencies. Read about their reasons and their process.

Kids voting
Auckland City Council provides schools in its area with a resource to help them understand how elections work.

STV
What Single transferrable voting is, and how it works.

What a mayor does
The ways the role is interpreted is as individual as the people – read on to see how some mayors work.

What councillors do

What standing committees do

What community board members do

What school trustees do

What district health
board members do

What licensing trust members do

Our council chamber

Upper Hutt Mayor Wayne Guppy supports citizenship education in schools by explaining to children the roles of council and mayor.

Our form of government is representative democracy. We elect people to represent us in both Parliament and the council chamber, as well as on a number of other local governance bodies such as district health boards and school boards of trustees.

At local government level, in particular, there are many opportunities for us to express our opinion about the activities of those who make decisions on our behalf. We can lobby for our ideas, reply to requests for submissions, even stand for council ourselves!

However, for most people, the greatest opportunity to influence the direction of council comes on election day. By listening to what candidates say in the run-up to the election, and by using our vote to support the ideas we want to see expressed, we can join with others of like mind to achieve the kind of council we want.