Samantha Motion: Local Government Minister Nanaia Mahuta's move to sack Tauranga City Council a bold one

Local Government Minister Nanaia Mahuta. Photo / File

OPINION

The Government wants to sack Tauranga City Council's elected members.

That is, in effect, what would happen if Local Government Minister Nanaia Mahuta follows through on her stated intention to replace the council's governance arm with a commission.

Of the intervention options available to her, it is the most serious.

The boldness of her decision to look at going down this path as she enters her third term in this role (the first was 2005-2008, the second was last term) will surprise some who have seen her as relatively reluctant to wade too far into the business of individual councils or use the top-level intervention powers available to her under the Local Government Act.

A threat to install a Crown Observer - an option at the lower end of the intervention scale - in Westland District Council last year basically evaporated after the election.

An observer is one thing, but a commission - a full replacement of the governance team - is quite another.

Intervention on this scale would not just be a rarity for Mahuta, but for any Minister of Local Government.

It would be just the fourth time in three decades a commission has replaced a council: Rodney District Council in 2000, Environment Canterbury in 2010, Kaipara District Council in 2012 and now, maybe, Tauranga City Council in 2021.

The drastic step is rarely used - and for good reason. The right to vote and choose the members of the branch of government that operates most closely to our daily lives is the backbone of our local democracy.

To boot the people the city has elected and replace them with a selection of the Government's choosing will be seen by some as an assault on that democracy.

Others will see it as the only option left to get the city back on track, wipe the slate clean and leave the flip-flops and in-fighting in the past.

When the National Party-led Government handed out pink slips at Environment Canterbury, thousands of people took to the street in protests, including one in Christchurch that nearly turned into a riot, according to media reports.

On the other side of the coin is Kaipara District Council, where 1300 residents signed a petition in 2015 asking to keep their Government-installed commissioners a little longer.

How Tauranga will receive the minister's move is yet to be seen. Will it take to the streets or welcome it with open arms?

It is difficult to predict because, like the council it elected, the city is divided on what it wants its future to look like.

Some want to try to turn off the growth tap and avoid big rates rises at all costs.

Others want the city to rise and embrace the challenges set by its rapid growth.

Tauranga has been pulled in so many directions in recent years on so many important issues that it doesn't really know where it's going - some would say around in circles.

If a commission is appointed, working with the city to help it find some sense of common direction will be its first and most vital task.

The population has to be engaged in this work and trust the people leading it - whether they are elected or appointed - or it will just keep ending up back where it started.

If the Government steps into this space, it had better be sure it can do that.