Bob Edlin: Elijah Pue – the councillor who can’t see the logic....

.....of depriving unelected committee members of voting rights

A Horizons Regional Councillor has declared he “fails to see the logic” in the law change that removed voting rights from non-elected members on council committees.

The councillor is Elijah Pue. The law change which bothers him was designed to fortify democratic arrangements that had been impaired by non-elected members – unaccountable to voters – voting on local authority committees.

PoO is left to suppose, therefore, that Pue is perplexed by the logic of democracy, which is based on a simple idea: political power should come from the people, not from a king, dictator, or small elite group.

Among core principles are:

• Popular sovereignty 
• The people are the ultimate source of political authority.
• Governments govern with the consent of the governed.
• Political equality
• Each citizen has an equal vote.
• No person is supposed to have greater political rights because of wealth, birth, religion, or status.
• Majority rule with minority rights
• Decisions are generally made according to the wishes of the majority.
• At the same time, democracy aims to protect the rights of minorities from being oppressed by the majority.
• Accountability
• Leaders can be removed through elections.
• Citizens can reward good performance and punish poor performance by voting.
• Representation
• In most modern democracies, citizens elect representatives to make decisions on their behalf.
• This allows large societies to govern themselves without everyone voting on every issue.
• Rule of law
• Laws apply to rulers as well as ordinary citizens.
• Government power is limited by constitutions, courts, and legal procedures.

The logic beyond Pue’s ken, apparently, is that no individual or group has a perfect claim to rule and (among other considerations) competition for votes encourages leaders to be responsive to public concerns.

At a Horizons Regional Council meeting last week, the matter of work done by the climate action joint committee, passenger transport committee and the regional transport committee was discussed.

The appointed members of those committees are about to be disempowered by the change in the law which allows only elected councillors to vote on council committees.

An RNZ account of the Horizons discussion reminded readers of the effect:

Councils would not be able to appoint iwi representatives, those under the age of 18 and other “unelected” members as full voting members on committees, and they would no longer count towards a meeting’s quorum.

Cr Pue is reported to have said

• He was “struggling to understand the threat” non-elected members sitting on council committees had on good governance — “particularly “tangata whenua”.
• He “fails to see the logic” behind the move.

Perhaps if he reads the next bit of the RNZ report, Pue will have a better understanding of the logic:

Local Government Minister Simon Watts said the change “strengthens democratic accountability” by ensuring only those voted in were able to vote.

This legislative restriction would begin in March 2027, with councils given until November 18 to submit an exemption to the minister and governor-general.

Pue might also have attempted to get to grips with the logic by checking out what Watts said in support of the change – included in the Local Government (System Improvements) Amendment Act 2026 – when the bill was debated in Parliament.

During the third reading debate, he said:

This bill improves democratic accountability in councils by reserving voting on council committees for elected members. Only those that have been elected by their communities should be responsible for decisions because they can be held accountable by their communities through the electoral process. Councils can still choose to appoint non-elected members to their committees to benefit from specialist expertise and community perspective, however these roles will not have voting rights nor count towards quorum of meetings. Councils will have six months to make any changes to ensure that their committee arrangements are compliant with the new requirements.

There are some exceptions to this policy. Where non-elected members are required under legislation other than Local Government Act 2002, they will continue to be able to vote. The bill also includes a pathway to grant exceptions under limited circumstances. Where it is necessary or desirable that non-elected members will be able to vote on council committees, councils will be able to request an exemption from the voting and quorum restrictions. I will release more information about this pathway shortly.

That was back on September 15,

The bill was formally signed into law on September 18.

When did news of this reach the Horizons council?

We ask, because at the meeting last week, Cr Fiona Gordon asked if the council and the committees affected by the change had time to meet and make a decision about an exemption before then.

The answer – apparently – is no. It’s too late.

Chief executive Michael McCartney said there was no way the council could have a meaningful decision by November 18, with the climate action joint committee’s next meeting in early December.

He suggested the council write to the minister by November 18, telling him that Horizons would have an exemption through by the end of the year.

PoO is left to wonder why exemptions were only now being considered.

But the logic that is perplexing Cr Prue has not perplexed every councillor:

On the change, councillor Hamish Easton said: “I’ve always been a bit of a believer that if you want to have a say, go get elected.”

RNZ reported that the Department of Internal Affairs found every council in New Zealand had at least one committee with an external member during a 2022-25 review.

In a report in June, RNZ went further in explaining why Simon Watts had changed the law.

“Councils and the public nation-wide have raised concerns about individuals holding voting rights on council committees, undermining decision-making and diluting the influence of democratically elected members.”

He referenced examples in the Far North, Tauranga and Hastings, where iwi representatives and people under the age of 18 had been appointed to council committees and given voting rights without being elected.

“That’s not democratic, so we’re fixing it.”

Far North councillors made a meal of their entitlement to stack committees with non-voting members.

It voted in April to expand the council’s Te Kuaka Māori Strategic Relationships Committee. The committee’s six councillors were joined by two representatives of the Northland iwi chairs forum, known as Te Kahu o Taonui, and eight hapū representatives.

That meant the elected councillors were outnumbered by the appointees.

This brings to mind the first few sentences of this article.

The logic of democracy which Cr Pue finds problematic is based on a simple idea: political power should come from the people, not from a king, dictator, or (do hapu come into this category?) small elite groups.

But his perspective – it seems fair to suppose – is coloured by his politics.

He won his Horizons Regional Council seat in a Maori ward under the Māori Party banner and holds several governance jobs within central North Island tribes.

Maori Party co-leader Rawiri Waititi has said he is “not a fan of democracy” in its current Western implementation and his party contends that democracy must exist within the context of the Treaty of Waitangi, requiring a co-governance or partnership model where Maori and the rest of us share equal authority, regardless of respective population sizes.

The political power of one Maori should be much greater than the political power of every other citizen, in other words.

Bob Edlin is a veteran journalist and editor for the Point of Order blog HERE.