Electorates are bigger so MPs have to service more constituents over larger areas and list MPs are chosen by their parties.
This has given parties a lot more power at a time they have fewer members.
Local body democracy has also been diluted by the appointment of additional people such as Iwi representatives, some of whom have voting rights on some councils.
Some are also paid but even those who aren’t paid come at a cost to ratepayers in administration and the more people to whom councillors have to listen, the more time it takes and they are paid for their time.
Many councils have Youth Councils comprised of young people, most still at school.
Their role, presumably, is to give councils a youth perspective, although one might ask how representative these young people with an interest in local body politics are.
Whether or not they are, they are able to give their views but not vote, or at least they were.
That has changed in Hastings where, on the casting vote of the mayor, youth councillors have been given voting rights on committees.
Some are also paid but even those who aren’t paid come at a cost to ratepayers in administration and the more people to whom councillors have to listen, the more time it takes and they are paid for their time.
Many councils have Youth Councils comprised of young people, most still at school.
Their role, presumably, is to give councils a youth perspective, although one might ask how representative these young people with an interest in local body politics are.
Whether or not they are, they are able to give their views but not vote, or at least they were.
That has changed in Hastings where, on the casting vote of the mayor, youth councillors have been given voting rights on committees.
The Taxpayers’ Union is telling Hastings Mayor Sandra Hazlehurst to ‘grow up’ after she used her casting vote to give committee voting rights, and a salary, to members of the Hastings District Youth Council: school-aged kids.
“We vote for a mayor and councillors to be adult decision makers and here they are literally outsourcing to kids,” says Jordan Williams, a spokesman for the Taxpayers’ Union.
“This move is either a sign of utter ineptitude or a cynical move to manipulate young people so that the political balance on the council is shifted. Either way, it is utterly disgraceful.”
“It’s bad enough being a so-called ‘youth councillor’. These school age, clipboard-bearing loners are now going to be introduced to the ratepayer tit before they’re even old enough to have paid rent on a flat, let alone seen a rates bill.”
The youths aren’t being paid – yet – but as I said, even unpaid they come at a cost.
“Let’s get real. It’s a thinly-veiled move by left-leaning councillors to stack council committees with even more idealism and inexperience. Using kids for political leverage needs to be called out for what it is.”
“It’s also undemocratic. These children have no democratic mandate or accountability. It’s a blatant attempt to ‘screw the scrum’ by cynical politicians and grifters.”
Many of them aren’t even old enough to vote in elections, yet are being given votes that dilute those of the people who have been elected onto the council by ratepayers and residents.
“Local government is in crisis and instead of the adults prevailing, Mayor Hazlehurst is inviting kids with, at best, year 10 business studies, to cast votes on governance matters of an organisation with total assets of nearly three billion.”
“And what are the parameters of the Mayor’s anti-democratic logic? Surely the senile and bewildered sitting in Hastings’ old folks’ homes should be represented too. Perhaps Grey Power should get a seat at the table? It’s nonsense.”
At least members of Grey Power would be ratepayers as property owner or renters which the young people are not.
“If the councillors that supported this masquerade had a shred of decency, they would have gone to a referendum – because residents have woken up to news that literal 15-year olds are making decisions on things they know nothing about.” . . .
Adding salt to this wound to democracy, granting the votes to the youths was on the casting vote of the mayor after the vote was tied and one councillor was absent:
. . . Councillor Kevin Watkins missed the vote and said that if he had been at the meeting “we wouldn’t be standing here now”.
He had been granted a leave of absence to represent the council at Te Papa in Wellington and said he would have voted against the proposal. . .
Outside the council building today he added, “we need to keep pressure on the mayor and councillors to reverse this decision” and that he was very confident it would happen.
The Hastings Youth Council is made up of 17 youth aged between 15 and 21. They are appointed following an application process and the vast majority are high school students.
One person, one vote is supposed to apply to the people who elect councillors, not to unelected children.
If one council gets away with it, what’s to stop others following this dilution of democracy?
Ele Ludemann is a North Otago farmer and journalist, who blogs HERE - where this article was sourced.
2 comments:
Appalling decision by the leftist council.
And as a Hastings ratepayer I wasn’t asked about changing the name of the city .
To the Author of this Post, you should travel to Hastings, walk the streets and "canvass" the people asking but one question - "Why on two separate occasions did you vote for Sandra Hazlehurst to be Mayor of Hastings"?
It would be interesting to get a perspective of why and what they think now.
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