Pee Kay: A PYRHIC VICTORY?

I’m presuming many readers will have received e-mails from political party’s and political ginger groups announcing their roles in yesterdays announcement that the government will change the law so only elected councillors can vote on council committees.

And we all say well done to them all for the parts they played in getting the government to move on this issue where democracy was being pushed aside and political strength and power would be determined by your ancestry! The cornerstone of democracy, one person, one vote will be preserved!

Chris Lynch: Unelected council members to lose voting powers

The Government has moved to stop unelected appointees from voting on council committees, saying decision making should rest with representatives chosen by voters.

Local Government Minister Simon Watts announced changes to the Local Government Act 2002 that would mean voting rights on council committees would be made only for elected councillors.

Graham Carter: Councils are Ceding Sovereignty to Iwi – This is Treason

There is a major power shift happening under our noses, as power moves from elected representatives to unelected and unaccountable iwi and hapū appointees.

We have been warned for some time now that Mana Whakahono ā Rohe agreements (MWRs) are undermining local democracy and would be sped up by captured councils and local iwi before the government passes its Resource Management Act (RMA) reforms.

Elliot Ikilei: Forget co-governance, this is straight up treason

There is a major shift happening under our noses, as power moves from elected representatives to unelected and unaccountable iwi and hapū appointees.

Mana Whakahono ā Rohe agreements (MWRs) are undermining local democracy and will be sped up by captured councils and local iwi before the government passes its Resource Management Act (RMA) reforms.

As I write, the Far North District Council is rushing through more MWRs with multiple iwi (and even hapū). They are giving this work priority and seeking to avoid public consultation. They are negotiating with five iwi and one hapū. The RMA specifically talks about iwi authorities; it doesn’t mention hapū.

Gary Judd KC: Dare to be a Daniel

Dare to be a Daniel

Dare to stand alone

Dare to have a purpose firm

Dare to make it known

So runs the refrain in a nineteenth century hymn inspired by the biblical story in the Book of Daniel, of a Jewish captive in Babylon (a region compromising parts of present-day Iraq and Syria, with the city of Babylon about 85 km south of today’s Baghdad). According to the account Daniel’s rivals tricked Babylonian King Darius into signing a decree that forbade praying to anyone but King Darius. Despite knowing the penalty was death, Daniel went home and prayed three times a day with his windows open toward Jerusalem, as was his custom. He was thrown into a den of lions, but God “shut the lions’ mouths,” and he was found unharmed the next morning. Furious, Darius had the conspirators “cast … into the den of lions, them, their children, and their wives; and the lions had the mastery of them, and brake all their bones in pieces or ever they came at the bottom of the den.”

Graham Adams: Media talks up Winston Peters’ rise

The path to election glory has traps.

NZ First’s prospects at the election after a run of good polling are being talked up by increasingly enthusiastic commentators. But if a week is a long time in politics, more than six months is an eternity. And there are traps aplenty for the party to navigate before November 7.

Listening to the media, however, you might think the continuing rise of Winston Peters and NZ First is unstoppable.

Bob Edlin: How Jones passed the ball to ACT on co-governance.....

How Jones passed the ball to ACT on co-governance – and watched them score – by trying to nobble a Far North councillor

New Zealand First’s Shane Jones was desperately striving to recover lost ground when he despatched an email to team supporters and the media late in the week.

The email landed in PoO’s office while we were digesting the publicity Jones had won when he stumbled and put the ball into his own goal while – it seems – trying to score political points in two separate constituencies.

Peter Williams: The FNDC debacle – Why democracy matters

The Local Government Act must be changed

Democracy, as Sir Winston Churchill once said in the House of Commons (quoting an unknown parliamentary predecessor) is the worst form of government, apart from all those other forms which have been tried from time to time.

Democracy, from the Greek words demos, meaning people, and kratos (rule, power or strength) in its purist form is government of the people, by the people and for the people.

Thousands of organisations, from the smallest membership based incorporated societies to local authorities and central government vote for the people they wish to govern them.

Davina Smolders and Sean Plunket update the Far North Co-Governance Issues

Councillor Davina Smolders on updates on Far North co-governance issues.

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Duncan Garner: 'No Accountability’ - Far North Councillor On Co-Governance Power Shift

In this episode, Duncan Garner investigates the rapid shift toward unelected governance in the Far North District Council. Councillor Davina Smolders joins the show to blow the whistle on a committee structure where six elected members are sitting alongside 15 unelected iwi and hapu representatives—all with full voting rights on multimillion-dollar decisions.

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