Gulf News was a finalist in the ‘Best All Round Newspaper’ award and again won its class in the coveted ‘Community Involvement’ section of the New Zealand Community Newspaper Association awards in Queenstown last weekend.
Reporter Sean Gillespie also won the young photographer award and was a finalist in the young journalist awards for the under 7500 circulation papers.

It was the eighth win in the community involvement category for Gulf News that ran a rigorous but ultimately unsuccessful campaign to save the island’s long-standing recycling initiatives.  The paper most recently won community newspaper awards for campaigns on massive rate rises for islanders in 2006 and for obtaining long-denied figures on council revenue from the island in 2007.

Describing this year’s entry, ward judge Greg Treadwell said Gulf News addressed the wide range of issues. “Waiheke islanders watched as 10 years of community waste initiatives come to an abrupt and shameful end when Auckland City proves itself determined to take waste and recycling contracts off local success story Clean Stream Waiheke and hand it over to Trans Pacific Industries, an offshore multinational already riddled with crippling debt. The highly innovative Clean Stream is disbanded with the loss of jobs and a huge outcry from the community.

“Gulf News is, as ever, at the heart of the matter, correcting misleading figures, challenging often-faceless but highly powerful bureaucrats and both leading and keeping faith with a highly articulate and outspoken community that is strongly motivated in this area.
In declaring Gulf News the winner, he said: “Waiheke’s oldest weekly is once again passionate in its advocacy role. Distant and self-interested local government authorities are again strongly at odds with the ethos of a community uncompromising on its values – a battleground that needs a dedicated and hardworking newspaper.” • Liz Waters