By ARNOLD PICKMERE
* Local body leader. Died aged 81.
In the late 1970s, when well into what became a lifetime of service to a variety of organisations, Innes Everard Kerr-Taylor noted that it was in his family's blood to give local body service. "We do it because we like it," he said.
Kerr-Taylor chaired the old Waitemata Electric Power Board for 16 years and was president of the Electrical Supply Authorities Association for seven.
The Kerr-Taylor family were something of an institution on the Waitemata board. Innes' father, Lance Kerr-Taylor, was a member for 20 years and chairman for a term. When he died in 1955, Innes, who was farming at Waimauku in the then Waitemata County, followed him and served for the next 30 years until 1986.
He also served for nine years as Kumeu riding member for the Rodney County Council, chairing its planning committee for a time.
And for good measure, both Lance Kerr-Taylor and his brother Vincent were chairmen of Waitemata County.
An earlier Kerr-Taylor family venture into politics was in 1867, when Innes' grandfather, Allan, became the first chairman of the Mt Albert Highway Board. Allan Kerr-Taylor built the historic Alberton home in Mt Albert, and the farm boy Innes stayed there with his aunts while attending Mt Albert Grammar School.
After schooling he went farming, breaking in Kerr-Taylor land at Waimauku from bush to cow paddocks.
The structure of the electricity industry in Innes Kerr-Taylor's time was greatly different from today.
In the mid-1980s, when he was crossing swords with Treasury officials he believed were "conditioning or perhaps brainwashing" consumers for a substantial increase in electricity prices, the country had 61 electricity distribution authorities.
At that time the Treasury's pet proposal was that every unit of electricity should be charged at the rate it would cost to generate in the newest thermal station.
Kerr-Taylor said that such a move would be blatantly unfair, because it did not take into account the contribution consumers had made to generating and equipment costs over the years.
He was not afraid to joust with Government energy ministers, including Bill Birch and Bob Tizard.
Kerr-Taylor will be remembered by golfers playing the Muriwai Gold Club's course on Auckland's west coast - he was secretary-manager for 23 years until 1994.
Kerr-Taylor, who died on Sunday of cancer, is survived by his wife of 58 years, Connie, two daughters and a son. Arnold Pickmere
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