Matt Cowley: How do we attract good governors?

Empty seats in the former Tauranga City Council chambers. Photo / George Novak

OPINION

Full kudos to anyone who has given up their time to serve as an elected member of their community.

From the outside, it looks like elected members have an easy job. But the role requires critical thinking, acute timing, the ability to build and understand stakeholder relationships, and a lot of reading and research.

Once you're elected, you're largely on your own. New councillors lack the support and resources that Members of Parliament have, such as from their own political parties or parliamentary services.

There is a low bar to be eligible to stand for a local body elections. Candidates must simply be New Zealand citizens and be enrolled on the parliamentary electoral roll (anywhere in New Zealand).

The sector needs to attract talented people to lead councils and give confidence to communities and central Government that the council is in safe hands.

But why would experienced people, who have led similar-sized organisations with annual turnover in hundreds of millions and assets worth several billion, give up their other leadership roles to govern a council?

There are two key barriers to attracting experienced candidates to run for council.

Firstly, the elected members' time is often chewed up by unproductive meetings discussing operational matters that are arguably better dealt with by others.

Other than the position of mayor, councillors do not need to be full-time roles.

Operational decisions can be delegated to staff, or even to community panels and juries if need be.

Limiting council meetings to a couple of days per week would encourage elected members to maintain other personal income streams, which would motivate them to stay focused on productive matters during meetings.

Matt Cowley is the chief executive of the Tauranga Chamber of Commerce and a former Tauranga city councillor. Photo / George Novak

Secondly, understanding who their colleagues would be is often the biggest attractor or repellent for high-skilled people when joining governance teams.

Why would good governors want to stand when their potential colleagues want to spend hours diving into operational detail, in often the wrong forum, and take time away from making progress on the big issues facing the city?

The common concern of the business community, and many residents, is that if we have local body elections in six months' time, the council will go back to what the commissioners had replaced, and progress will grind to a halt.

Candidates with the right skills and experience to lead the council would not want to waste time dealing with the dysfunction we saw with the previous council.

Local Government Minister Nanaia Mahuta listed seven "key issues" she believed prevented elected representatives in the last council from delivering effective governance - including ''poor behaviour", "infighting" and "leaks of confidential information" to the ability of elected members to "set rates at a realistic level".

In my opinion, if local elections for Tauranga City Council are held in October, Tauranga needs a fresh start, free from legacy governance issues and with the right people standing.

The key reason why the chamber supports the commission extending their term for another year is to give the city a chance to make progress on the key issues, particularly housing supply and transport.

The commissioners have led Tauranga City Council for a little over a year. The city's political environment needs more time to recover.

Tauranga needs to maintain momentum and focus on the key issues, so we can play our role in the nation's economic recovery as New Zealand's exporting gateway to the world.

• Matt Cowley is the chief executive of the Tauranga Chamber of Commerce and was a Tauranga City Councillor from 2013-2016