It's a numbers game at the Electoral Commission, as submitters found out during hearings on the proposed boundary changes for the Bay of Plenty region this week.

Photo: file.

The commission is charged with ensuring the electorates around the country have 59,731 people in them - plus or minus 5 per cent.

The Tauranga and the Bay of Plenty electorates have grown in population since the last census while the neighbours – Rotorua and East Coast have declined.

The commission's proposal to even out the numbers is to move Te Puke to Rotorua and Kawerau, Maketu and Whakatane to the East Coast, and Pyes Pa from Tauranga into the Bay of Plenty.

Submitter and former councillor Larry Baldock was told by Commissioner Roger Sowry that his idea to swap Pyes Pa for Arataki as the part of the city to be moved into the Bay of Plenty electorate doesn't have the numbers. It will mean the electorate boundary moving into the Mount, as far as Tweed Street.

Larry's petition contains the signatures of 132 Pyes Pa residents, who prefer being in the Tauranga electorate to the Bay of Plenty. He says he received not one objection from Arataki residents.

Commissioner Pete Hodgson says calling Arataki, ‘Arataki' is obscure and that Larry might have received ‘a heap of objections' if he had called Arataki Omanu beach instead.

The conversation moved onto communities of interest with Larry saying the Commission could easily find the missing numbers by returning Maungatapu and Welcome Bay to the Tauranga electorate.

When challenged he says there are easily 120,000 people in Tauranga if Te Puna and the Minden are added to Tauranga, along with the Mount and Maungatapu/Welcome Bay and Papamoa.

'This is a position that has not been made public. Had it been there, then it's open to the public to be able to respond to it,” says Commission chairman Bernard Kendall.

Submitter Pete Hodgson says Larry's plea for a two-seat Tauranga city electorate is 15 years ahead of his time, but after hearing about the growth rate, says it may be closer.

Pim De Monchy's objection is to Kaiete Falls being absorbed by Rotorua. The natural community of interest for Omanawa Falls, Pyes Pa, Kaitemako and Waitao residents is Tauranga, says Pim. It follows the natural watershed.

He and his neighbours face an hour's drive to get to Rotorua, while Tauranga is minutes away. It's arbitrary and doesn't make sense, says Pim.

The commissioners say they will look at the recommendation, but are making no promises.

Katie Paul for the New Zealand Labour Party says the Te Arawa Maori don't want to be added to the East Coast. The Te Arawa tribes occupy the land from Maketu through to southern Lake Taupo, and the East coast is Mataatua.

The commission was in Tauranga as part of a national road trip hearing objections and counter objections to the suggested electoral boundary changes.