Last count I've seen is that nationally, only 38 percent of us voted. It's worse in Auckland, where only around 29 percent - so not even 1 in 3 of us - voted.
Now, I think anyone who thinks that we can fix local Government by ditching the postal vote system and going hard with the orange guy and his dog is dreaming. Because that is not the problem.
The problem is not how you vote, the problem is who you vote for. I think we have a complete breakdown in the trust between the voter and the people that we are voting for and the authority in general.
I mean, you've opened your booklet, right?
Surely, you've had a look at who you had to vote for. It's overpopulated by people you wouldn't trust to mind your pet, never mind run the council.
You don't actually believe that these people are going to make smart decisions, do you? Or do what they say they're gonna do?
You wouldn't even know if they do what they say they're gonna do, because there's hardly any media coverage nowadays and holding people to account.
I think it fundamentally comes down to us simply having too many local body politicians in New Zealand, right? Because Auckland alone has 170 of these people. That is more than Parliament has for the entire country.
Now, run that 170 in Auckland across the entire country, but it's like 1000. We don't have enough media to cover everything, grill them when they break promises.
We don't have enough attention spans ourselves to absorb that much information on top of everything we're already absorbing with central Government.
And so what we do is we just tap out and we give up and only what, 40 percent of us vote?
I reckon what we need to do is we need to take our 67 territorial authorities and just cut it down. Some commentators reckon we need to go as low as 13. I don't mind, that's a good starting point.
It's certainly a better starting point than 67 which equals a, what, 38 percent turnout?
Heather du Plessis-Allan is a journalist and commentator who hosts Newstalk ZB's Drive show HERE - where this article was sourced.
10 comments:
Or could it be that all these elected peeps just go along with whatever the unelected council bureaucrats want - so it makes no damn bit of difference
Is it a trust issue? I think it is about connection. Any connection with councillors has diminished over the years. Made even worse with the loss of local papers. At least we see our national MP s on TV / SM. Which gives us some connection with who they are, their performance, their character.
The lack of media coverage of Council comprises a large part of the problem. I have no idea of the actions of local councillor, and even less of the Local Board members (i once attended a meeting. Unbelievably tedious). And the partisan nature of much reporting compounds lack of interest of many..The public is swamped with other lively attractive information and trivia against which Council affairs cannot compete. I took an interest in the city zoning changes to the extent of orgainising a petition. from intelligent owners. Subsequent communications from council have been unfathomable. Simply encouraging everyone to semi random vote will be folly. Only those significantly interested and moderately informed should be encouraged. But sadly mobs may need to be encouraged to counter those coordinated by insurrectionist maori. On line voting does not suit serious ponderers. Most on line forms are difficult to backtrack. And it is far easier to compare pages or blocks of printed on paper text. Nut case candidates need to be excluded from the information, and that much expanded for the serious.
You have got to look deeper than that Heather. The local council model is broken and doesn’t work. Who in their right mind wishes to see their escalating rates squandered by these painfully untalented community representatives. The general public have worked out long ago that elections only encourages them but doesn’t change anything.
The well known definition of insanity is repeating the same mistake and expecting a different result. This madness continues without any sign of political leadership.
Counter to amalgating a couple arguments:
1 Elected officials have little power. City councils are more run by over paid CEs on fixed term contracts. And they are truly unaccountable except in egregious circumstances.
2 communities of interest matter... In Wellington region, what effects Waitangarua, Stokes Valley, Naenae or Wainui is in no way the same as Aro Valley, Haitaitai. And people arent interested in a Wellington super city that wastes cash on boondoggles like the Wellington Town Hall
3 in Wellington who would want WCC debt and problems foisted on the wider regions cities? We already cooperate on Water matters and thats been not great
So no to large less community connected councils.
I voted - but voted for what?
I voted for a mayor and two councillors, both of whom (the council candidates) openly supported democracy above apartheid.
The councillors may be completely useless even if they succeeded in getting elected. I won't know because already I have forgotten their names.
I only voted for two councillors because, barring that democracy support (TPU declaration), I could find out exactly nothing about most candidates and those I did find out about weren't good.
The only information I could find for most was of the self-promotion type and I will not vote without being informed.
Rather than bitch about non-voters responsibly avoiding making uninformed mistakes discuss your lot failing in their duty to properly inform the electorate and offer unbiased reporting on all those offering their services.
As an aside I agree with your suggestion of less local councils for New Zealand and suggest zero might be the appropriate number.
You are right on the money Tinman. I rang up the Electoral Office some years ago, questioning the logic that these returning councillors get to write their own profiles rather than having an independent promote their abysmal performance. The reply, “that is the law”!!!
The whole council model is broken and central Govt doesn’t give a stuff but moan that the voting public aren’t entering into the spirit of the occasion. There’s none so blind as those that cannot see.
It is really simple . Consider when Town Clerks assisted the Mayor and elected council we had a functioning council and employees who had lifetime experience in their respective area .
Simply set out the priorities and respective budgets #1 potable water, waste water , roads and rubbish. #2 parks , libraries , footpaths, sportsfields . #3 staff wages and conditions .#4 feel good and freebies to all and sundry.
Budget cuts are authorised from #4 upwards .
The ratepayers are the shareholders in any council. Performance reporting in detail should be mandsatory to shareholders. The elected ones should be the equivalent in function to a board of directors.
Most of us are too old or busy to waste any more time on these corrupt, archaic structures.
Real overhaul and a bit of serious lateral, honest thinking from central government is required urgently. Yeah nah.
For those of us on limited/fixed incomes, we cannot scrimp and save any more to pay for f*wiited councils that refuse to scrimp and save.
Most councils now sub-contract out most key services, all previously performed in house, yet staff and perk vehicle numbers continue to grow.
The talentless know they are on to the perfect racket.
The few talented ones typically resign very quickly after realising the futility of it all.
They have a conscience.
Ameni
About the only comforting aspect of the election is the low number of votes for clearly loopy candidates.
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