Five Tasman elected members opt not to restand

Tuesday, 5 August 2025

From left, Stuart Bryant, Dan Shallcrass, Chris Hill, Christeen Mackenzie and Barry Dowler won’t be standing this year’s local body elections.

Almost half of Tasman’s councillors, some with decades of experience, won’t be contending for seats in this year’s local body elections.

The last two terms haven’t allowed much down time for elected members, throwing up a pandemic and a dam with a $130m overrun, while the region now reels from two catastrophic atmospheric rivers that caused widespread damage.

Moutere - Waimea ward councillor Christeen Mackenzie, who came to Nelson to retire and instead served two terms on the council, said it was time to pay attention to some “other dimensions in life”, growing peonies on her Foxhill property, and contributing to her wider family.

Looking back, Mackenzie said a huge amount of energy had been consumed by the council in dealing with changes in central government policy.

Before becoming a councillor, Christeen Mackenzie was the deputy director general for corporate services in the Department of Conservation, and is also a chartered accountant.

She wished that wasn’t so: “because that's come at an enormous cost to ratepayers and taxpayers”.

Motueka ward councillor Barry Dowler is also departing, and will become the president elect of the New Zealand Hot Rod Association in November.

Dowler, the owner of a 1956 Ford F100 pickup truck and a 1956 Ford Mark I Zephyr, has been a hotrodder since the age of 18.

All up, he’s spent 24 years working for the region: 17 years on council, and seven sitting on the Motueka Community Board.

Motueka ward councillor Barry Dowler, an auto mechanic by trade, is moving on after a quarter century serving the region.

“It’s poorly paid,” Dowler said. “You don’t do it for the money, that’s for sure.”

His proudest moments were getting the grandstand in Sports Park in Motueka, and being involved in the eBus service running through Motueka, Wakefield and Brightwater.

In terms of what had changed over the years, Dowler said affordability, as rates increases hadn’t kept up with inflation.

“The rules and regulations have got tougher and tougher, and the Government is saying they're going to make it easier, but the proof will be in the pudding.”

Chris Hill served as a Golden Bay ward councillor for two terms, and said she wanted to focus on different things at this stage in her life - such as travel, planting on her property, the Anaweka Waka wharewaka project, and Manawhenua Ki Mohua’s taonga collection.

Hill said she was disappointed to see so few women’s names on the list of candidates. Only five out of the 22 people who have put their hat in the ring are women.

In her first term, there was a 50/50 split between the genders before Claire Hutt stepped down.

“It does change the culture of how the chamber works,” Hill said.

“Once the balance shifts back again to being largely the domain of men, then it's not so attractive for women to come in.”

Golden Bay councillor Chris Hill previously had a therapy practice and was a tutor at NMIT’s counselling and social work degree programme.

Hill said the coalition Government was “essentially dismantling local government” in terms of the RMA reforms and “taking the Building Act out of jurisdiction”, while all Local Water Done Well did was allow councils to borrow more.

“The reversal of so many policies or approaches of the previous government have cost New Zealanders hundreds of millions of dollars,” she said.

“It's been described as politics of spite.”

Highlights for Hill included “helping to get council out of court” around Golden Bay’s Grandstand, and securing funding for the development of Port Tarakohe.

Deputy mayor Stuart Bryant Bryant, who represented the Lakes - Murchison ward, was elected in 1999 in a by-election following the death of councillor Murray Borlase. After that, he saw another eight elections, but only had to campaign twice, standing unopposed on six occasions.

While the dam’s cost overruns were disastrous, people didn’t understand that the council required Waimea Irrigators to pay 49% of the overruns, she said.

Refrigeration engineer and Moutere Waimea ward councillor Dan Shallcrass decided not to stand this election for personal reasons.

However, he said he enjoyed the role, particularly working with the community on the development of the Wakefield Community Hub, and would encourage others to have a crack.

“We had a good council. We didn't always agree, but we made good decisions,” he said.

Deputy mayor Stuart Bryant told the Nelson Mail in February that after 26 years, it was time to pass the baton onto someone new.

Dowler expressed similar sentiments, commenting that there was “always time for new blood”.

“Otherwise things may not progress the way they should,” he said.