Former Whakatāne Mayor Victor Luca feels he is well cut out to do some good in a Bay of Plenty Regional Council role.

He has put his name forward this week to contest the Eastern Bay constituency seat in the coming by-election.

The by-election is being held for the seat left vacant by the death of Eastern Bay regional councillor Malcolm Campbell.

Campbell, who also served 27 years on Kawerau District Council, including seven terms as mayor, died on May 21 after a short illness.

“I really admired and appreciated Malcolm,” Luca said.

“I would often ring him up for advice and I did respect his views. He’d been around for a long time and he knew how things worked.

“He was ever-present around the community and he was always very forthright. I guess that’s where we were a little bit compatible. We’d come out and say what we thought.”

Luca said he felt his background, both as a scientist working in public service and as a Whakatāne district councillor and mayor, made him well cut out for the role.

“The regional council is largely a science-driven council, more so than district councils.

“Environmental resource management, flood protection, emergency management, water quality. All of that is right up my alley.”

“I want to do some good. That’s what has driven me most of my life. Science is not about money.

“My background disposes me to make good decisions. I know that I’d only be one of 14 on that panel but I know I will be making my decisions with the best information and the best evidence and as wisely as possible. Plus, whatever influence I have around the table.”

Luca said he was not convinced that central Government’s reform process, which will see the regional councils streamlined out of existence, will go through.

“I’ve yet to see the evidence that bigger is better when it comes to local government. I’ve been quite vocal on that as the mayor.

“I did write an article showing that it was when the number of local entities was reduced from several hundred to 80-something (during the 1989 local government reforms) that the infrastructure deficit developed. So, in fact, the evidence points the other way.

“Researching international academic literature on whether bigger is better when it comes to local governance, what I’m seeing is that you can have diseconomies of scale.

“I know this Government’s got its ideas about scale – that might be applicable if you’re making electric cars or widgets. But here, we’re talking about people and districts and communities and that’s really quite different.”

Since last year’s local elections, when Luca was “involuntarily retired”, he has been doing a lot of researching and writing, much of it on geopolitics.

I’ve got a Substack (blog). I find it stimulating. I’ve been pretty prescient in what I write. You might recall that Victor Luca came out in the Beacon at the beginning of 2024 saying that the Hamas thing was going to cause problems and the Strait of Hormuz might be closed.

“I keep a pretty close eye on international relations and geopolitics. It affects us. Some people might say, well what can we do about it. We can prepare.”

Luca will be contesting the seat alongside former regional councillor Toi Iti, who announced his candidacy last week.

Nominations for the by-election close at midday on Thursday, July 16. Voter packs will be posted from August 24, with voting closing at 12pm on Friday, September 25.