Mayor Mahé Drysdale rated himself a seven out of 10 for leadership. Photo / David Hall
Tauranga Mayor Mahé Drysdale scores his leadership lower than most of his team members score him.
Councils around the country are regrouping after the October 11 election, but the Tauranga councillors are a year into their special four-year term and were spared the polls.
Tauranga’s elected “team of 10” replaced the Government-appointed commission that ran the city from 2021.
Local Democracy Reporting asked the mayor and councillors to rate their performance out of 10 in seven key areas after 14 months on the job.
Drysdale rated himself a seven for leadership, as did his deputy Jen Scoular, but four colleagues gave him an eight.
His leadership was rated a 10 by Steve Morris, the only councillor re-elected from the 2019 cohort sacked by the Government after issues such as in-fighting.
Drysdale, a five-time world single-sculls rowing champion, said he was a “pretty harsh critic of myself”.
“I’m proud of my leadership [but] there’s things that I could do better.”
It was a “very different” environment to sport, and he said he could have done better in communicating the reasons for some of his decisions with his councillors.
Councillor Glen Crowther gave Drysdale the lowest leadership score of six.
He said Drysdale supported councillors to air their views, but his rating was because of the Local Water Done Well decision that Drysdale made using his casting vote, and a “lack of councillor input into the regional deal negotiations”.
Drysdale rated himself a nine for enabling a cohesive governance team.
He said he was proud of how they worked together, but delivering was the challenge.
The hardest part of the past year was how long it took to start delivering projects, he said.
Four councillors rated Drysdale a seven, three an eight, and Morris gave him another 10 for enabling a cohesive governance team.
Councillor Hautapu Baker gave a seven and said the occasional disconnection between staff and councillors meant more work was needed.
He suggested a paintball or dodgeball tournament between the councillors and executive leadership team.
Councillor Rod Taylor said “the team of 10″ had been tested a few times, but genuinely wanted to work well together.
For fiscal management and rates affordability, Drysdale rated himself a six.
His lowest rating was a four from Crowther, who said this was a collective responsibility, not just the mayor’s.
The members were asked to rate how the group was doing in four areas.
For creating a vibrant city, Drysdale rated the council an eight. Most gave it a six or seven.
Morris rated it a six and said the city was “more than spending [money] on a couple of hectares downtown”.
Drysdale gave the council an eight for community engagement and improving public opinion of the council. Councillors’ ratings ranged from five to eight.
Baker gave a six; he said efforts were improving, but gaining trust took time. What he heard from the community and what “transpired online” was “challenging”, because they were “extreme ends of the same spectrum”.
Relationships with other councils had the most range. Two councillors rated it a four, Drysdale rated it a seven, and the highest rating was eight.
Crowther said the council had “annoyed” other Bay of Plenty councils over the years, and recent calls for amalgamation discussions made this worse.
Drysdale gave a five to the council’s impact on infrastructure to support housing, but said it should get a nine for trying.
The council wanted to deliver on this but it took time, so this was something it could improve, he said.
Most gave a six or seven, and the lowest was a five.
Marten Rozeboom was the only councillor not to respond to the survey.
Local Democracy Reporting asked the New Zealand Taxpayers’ Union to comment on the ratings.
Head of communications Tory Relf said it was “reassuring” that Drysdale’s rating of himself was not too dissimilar to his colleagues’ views of him.
Leadership and teamwork had improved after the “issues” Tauranga faced, she said.
In her view, the more concerning figures were for fiscal management and rates affordability.
Given Tauranga’s fast-rising rates, “a six or seven out of 10 doesn’t inspire much confidence”.
For the whole-of-council ratings, she said “mid-range scores on housing, infrastructure and community engagement might sound reasonable”, but she believed a six was not good enough for “ratepayers footing ever-rising bills”.
“Tauranga needs to show real progress on keeping rates affordable and cutting waste in order to deliver the infrastructure the city desperately needs.”
Another stand-out was the low score for relationships with other councils, she said.
“Co-operation with neighbouring councils is crucial to keeping costs down and tackling regional challenges like housing and transport, so that number needs to lift.”
The council’s 2025 annual residents’ survey showed overall satisfaction with the council was 44%, up from 34% in 2024.
– LDR is local body journalism co-funded by RNZ and NZ On Air.