Local government elections that end in a tie might no longer be decided by a random chance, unless there truly is no other option.

The Government is considering changes to the law to prevent a repeat of what happened in Whakatane in October, when two candidates were tied, the winner chosen by drawing a name out of a hat. The winning candidate was sworn in as a councillor, only to be turfed out of office after a recount.

"As far as my people were concerned, once the pōwhiri and swearing-in ceremony was done, the deal was sealed," unsuccessful candidate Hinerangi Goodman told the Rotorua Daily Post in November.

"To take it away again goes against tikanga and it also tramples on the mana and the mauri people had placed in mebolted or welded to the web of the beam, at the end of the beam at the column, using high-strength bolts.
There has been partial or complete failure of the highly-restrained welds between the beam flange and the column flange, either by a crack in the weld itself or a crack along the heat affected zone of the column flange, pulling a divot of column steel from the face of the column flange. The origination of the crack is normally at the narrow root of the groove weld profile, which is inherently subject to slag inclusions during the field welding process. These inclusions act as stress risers that initiate cracking during the impactive load from an earthquake.
Stress risers are also created by the backer bar used to bridge the