Lawrence Yule's last day as Local Govt NZ president

Today is Lawrence Yule's last day as president of Local Government New Zealand. Photo / File

National Party Tukituki candidate and former Hastings mayor Lawrence Yule officially steps down from his job as president of Local Government New Zealand today, after nearly 10 years in the role.

One of his last activities with the organisation was attending the LGNZ annual conference in Auckland at the weekend, where he was honoured with the Department of Internal Affairs excellence award for outstanding contribution to local government.

Mr Yule said things had changed significantly since he first took on the president role in 2008.

"At that time the organisation had a different focus and a tendency to concentrate on what we could now consider to be lower-level issues - the microchipping of dogs springs to mind as an example of one issue we put a lot of energy into," he said.

"Since then, and in the last three years in particular, we have refocused our attentions on to the much bigger picture issues that New Zealand communities face, now and into the future."

Such issues included infrastructure funding, three waters infrastructure, climate change and efforts on the part of local government to improve its performance, Mr Yule said.

Climate change was a hot topic at the conference when the new Local Government Position Statement on Climate Change was launched, and a 2017 climate change declaration signed by 39 mayors from around the country.

"Adapting to and mitigating where possible the effects of climate change is a massive, massive challenge for all of us - local authorities, central Government, communities and businesses," Mr Yule said.

"In the coming years many of our communities will turn to their councils for support.

"But this is a problem of national scale, in need of a joint, national response. In our view we need to see more from central Government on climate change."

It was one of five key areas in the Local Government New Zealand election manifesto, which was also released at the conference and outlined priorities looking ahead to 2050 around risk and resilience, social issues including housing and community safety and economic development.

The manifesto raised the ire of the Taxpayers Union, which criticised using ratepayer money to promote it.

Taxpayers Union executive director Jordan Williams said it was wrong for ratepayers to have to stump up for LGNZ and Mr Yule to run a "propaganda campaign" in the lead-up to the general election.

"It tosses aside the usual duties of political neutrality with public money.

"A National Party candidate using ratepayers' money to promote a 'manifesto' of policies which just happen to be very close to the National Party's policies is disgraceful," Mr Williams said.

Mr Yule denied that the manifesto was promoting any one political agenda. He said it was sent out to all parties as was done every general election when the manifesto was created.

"There's no political favouritism between one party or another."

LGNZ chief executive Malcolm Alexander said Mr Yule left behind a strong legacy.

"Under his leadership LGNZ has changed the way it works, with strengthening and protecting local democracy at its heart."

The new president of LGNZ will be announced after today, expected to be either Dunedin mayor David Cull or Nelson mayor Rachel Reese.