Council commissioners should stay on, says Matt Cowley. Photo / NZME
Council commissioners should stay on, says Matt Cowley. Photo / NZME
COMMENT:
The Government to date has been pretty clear that the commissioners they appointed on Tauranga City Council will finish in October 2022, after next year's local body elections.
I want to send a clear message to Minister Nanaia Mahuta that the Tauranga Chamber of Commerce and many local businessleaders would like the commissioners to stay on.
Why is this important now, even though they've been here only a few months?
Tauranga City Council is starting to review how the next group of mayor and councillors will be elected to represent the community in next year's elections.
I believe the next council should be made up of the four appointed commissioners and four elected members from the community. These four community representatives should be elected at large, across the city, to give them a broader perspective and to think in the wider city's best interests. This is like the present model for our district health board.
Local government elections consistently have low voter turnout and election results can be more like a lottery. A hybrid model reduces the chances that we will have a full set of councillors without suitable governance experience.
It is sad to see politics across the globe develop a "gotcha" mentality where politicians look for self-interested headlines to motivate their followers. It is less of an issue for Parliament because its robust system has many checks and balances, but in local councils, all this does is chew up the chief executive's time and distract the CEO from focusing on what matters most: delivering for the community.
Tauranga Chamber of Commerce chief executive Matt Cowley. Photo / NZME
Most of my conversations with business owners have been focused on whether the commissioners will stay on for another term. If the commissioners leave Tauranga City Council, it will create a leadership vacuum and we risk going back to what we had before they arrived.
The commissioners have given us a taste of what professional governance looks like and many in the business community want to see more of it. We want progress on housing and transport.
Nevertheless, the old local government model is broken and needs fixing. Tauranga is not alone as other councils are being reviewed or watched very closely.
I warmly welcome Minister Nanaia's review of local government over the next couple of years. Local government must be set up to succeed and councils need to have the right tools for the various issues facing their communities.
The layers of complexity and rudimentary funding tools are not attracting the right people to run for council. Tauranga City Council alone is a $4 billion entity and needs to be led accordingly, not like a school's parent-teacher association. We need to strengthen local democracy and decision-making, of which elected members should be only a small component.
- Matt Cowley is the chief executive of the Tauranga Chamber of Commerce.
