Alice Cameron

I’d like to mihi to Tāme Iti and Ātea for the incredible block party held in Whakatāne on Saturday night. It was vibrant, generous and joyful, a reminder of what community feels like when creativity and manaakitanga are placed at the centre.

I’d also like to acknowledge Whakatāne District Council for the Light Festival earlier this year.

That event, too, was world class: bold, contemporary, and confident.

These experiences are doing something important as they help shape Whakatāne as a town people actively want to live in, return to, and visit.

Not just because it’s beautiful and convenient, but because it is culturally thriving. This counters the pull many of us feel to leave (particularly to Australia) by showing that exciting, creative, meaningful things can and do happen here.

Events like these send a powerful message: Whakatāne is not on the margins.

We are hosting work of international quality, rooted in local stories and shared in ways that unite and bring people together.

My thanks again to everyone involved; organisers, artists, council and volunteers (especially the beautiful whaea who used her “power of the high vis” to find me a beanbag) for lifting the bar and reminding us what’s possible.