Grey District mayor Kokshoorn to retire next year

The Grey District’s longest-serving mayor will retire next year after two decades in politics.

Tony Kokshoorn has held the role since his landslide win against incumbent Kevin Brown in 2004 and has been elected unopposed four times. Before becoming mayor, he served six years as a councillor in the district, which runs from Punakaiki to south of Greymouth on the West Coast.

He retires short of catching New Zealand’s longest-serving mayor Tim Shadbolt, who is in his eighth mayoral term. His right-hand man and the country’s longest-serving councillor, deputy mayor Doug Truman, lost his seat after 48 years in a shake-up of West Coast councils last year.

Kokshoorn said he had seen ‘‘huge change’’ in the district during his tenure. Thousands of coal- mining jobs had dwindled down to a few dozen, and hundreds of tourism roles took their place.

He has raised more than $30m for West Coast charities; chaired many trusts; and rocketed into the top 10 of the Reader’s Digest‘ s ‘‘most trusted New Zealanders’’ poll in 2011.

But his time will be marked most by the 29 men who died in the Pike River Mine explosion in November 2010. Kokshoorn said the disaster, coupled with the collapse of the coalmining industry, was an ‘‘extremely challenging’’ time for the district.

‘‘I still remember when I got the call … they told me 25 to 30 people were missing and I knew the repercussions of that.

‘‘There’s no handbook for that kind of thing, no-one to tell you what to do. It was all off the cuff, I just had to get there and stand by the families.’’

He was flung into the national limelight, fronting cameras day after day during the aftermath of the disaster. He also chaired the Pike River Disaster Trust and Pike River Memorials Committee.

‘‘The despair was terrible, I’ll go to my grave with that wailing and the sadness. That’s when you know you have to step up to the mark.’’