Philip Jacobs

Recently, I received a copy of the Taxpayers Union email about the contribution of Simon Watts as local government minister and the Local Government (Systems Improvement) Bill.

I agree that the minister is making a hash of his job, but I think it is caused by interference from the prime minister, the minister of everything, Chris Bishop and others within the National Party and beyond.

National Party figures overreacting to local government issues during an election year is not helpful and, as a result the National Party has completely stuffed up its local government reform programme.

To start with, a rewrite of the Resource Management Act, with an intention of reducing the power of regional councils, was okay in itself.

But to ask the mayors of the 11 regional councils to determine the future of their regional council was a mistake destined to lead to 11 different solutions.

And then to pour petrol on the fire and force councils into rapid amalgamation talks is just a reversion back towards a new form of regional councils, typically bigger and more cumbersome than their predecessors.

And along the way the Government had been pushing three waters CCO amalgamations and then imposing a four percent rates cap not including Three Waters.

It is like there is a left and right wing in the National Party, both of whom intrinsically believe that big is better, have no clue about real local government issues, and who are continually pulling in different directions.

The National Party is clearly making things up as it goes along because they do not have, cannot possibly write or indeed execute a coherent local government policy reform programme.

Rather, the National Party is just overreacting to the concerns of ratepayers who have had enough of excessive council spending, rates rises, operating deficits and ballooning debt.

The need for local government reform stems primarily from the appalling financial management aspects of the Local Government Act.

The financial aspects of the Local Government Act were clearly not written by anyone with an understanding of financial management and the financial reporting required to support councillors in their governance role.

The act is so vague in many important financial matters that council executives get to do what they like and treat their mayors and councillors as useful idiots and pawns.

As regards the three-month requirement for councils to come up with amalgamation plans, that is an act of treachery and perhaps a brilliant initiative to side-step Local Government New Zealand and elected councils in a never ending, multi-year discussion that would, with certainty, come to nothing.

Elected councils up and down the land have failed for far too long to exercise their rights of governance and rein in spending on nice-to-haves, vanity projects and other dumb stuff, and indeed it is time for real meaningful action.

But it is also not fair to blame the local government state of affairs solely on elected councils.

Elected mayors and councillors come from the brigade of butchers, bakers and candlestick makers.

They are not accountants, lawyers, consulting engineers or experienced corporate executives and they are not given the right training, tools and legislative support to perform their governance role effectively.

Elected councils are destined to fail their governance responsibilities, and it is no surprise that the newly elected Whakatane District Council has not met as a group to discuss, develop and publish their governance agenda over council operations, major projects, staff numbers, financial management, etc.

I also find it interesting that Act and NZ First have kept their heads down on this matter.

Perhaps they recognise the complexity of the problem and do not want to be guilty of jumping at shadows.

And so it is that, in an election year, things across the whole political spectrum are turning crazy.

Perhaps we should all just put our heads in the sand and go forward after the election in November when we know who is in charge of the country and what their policy agenda is.