It took more than two hours of at times heated debate on Wednesday night before a majority of Hutt City councillors voted to stick with current representation arrangements – at least until March 2021.
Two councillors – Chris Milne and Leigh Sutton – said the move was “kicking the can down the road” and failing to confront the issue of second tier representation inequality. But the majority believed the city’s four community panels, set up 18 months ago, haven’t yet been properly tested, and it was too early to consider replacing the three long-standing community boards in the southern parts of the city with panels.
On what basis we elect/appoint our councillors, community board and community panel members – and whether we should even have boards or panels – tends to be a big yawn for many people. But given these elected folk steer the policy and priorities for the spending of $124.8 million of ratepayers’ money, the topic is worth some attention.
Firstly, the part that tends to cause less controversy – electing councillors. We currently have six geographical wards in the city, each of about 16,000-18,000 people, who get to elect two councillors to represent them. The Mayor is elected ‘at large’ (or by the city as a whole).
For the first time in many years, the idea that we should elect some of our councillors ‘at large’ gained traction in two rounds of consultation surveys. Of nearly 660 residents who took part in a Citizen’s Panel email or Facebook survey running throughout June, 45% wanted to stick with wards. Another 44% wanted one councillor to be elected by each of the six wards, and the other six to be elected across the city. (I.e. 51% favoured half ‘at large’ or all ‘at large’ elections.). This mirrors another survey earlier in the year.
But in another survey of 400 randomly selected residents by Peter Glen Research, 55% wanted to keep ward councillors, 29% wanted the mixed model and 7% ‘at large’ only (9% ‘didn’t know).
The decision by the Policy and Regulatory Committee was unanimous – we’d stick with six wards electing two councillors each.
It’s clear there is growing interest among residents to have a great say in the make-up of the council – i.e. to be able to vote for a ward councillor, plus six others. But as I said at Wednesday night’s meeting, they aren’t yet a clear majority and elections at large bring significant downsides. Chief among the disadvantages is that it’s much harder, time-consuming – and more expensive – to campaign across the city than in just one ward. So that tends to put restrictions on the kinds of people who can stand (e.g. the well off, the retired), or those standing feel compelled to join groups or ‘tickets’. I think most voters prefer their councillors to make decisions on the facts before them, rather than being guided by party political ideologies.
Now to the real bone of contention. If a clear message can be extracted from all the surveys it’s residents’ desire to be treated equally.
Since the 1989 forced amalgamation, Petone, Eastbourne and Wainuiomata have had elected community boards. For the last 18 months, the Western, Eastern, Northern and Central Wards have had appointed community panels. Their members forgo the level of remuneration paid to community board members, and instead the equivalent amount of money is available for the panels to allocate to worthwhile community assets in their wards. On average, that’s about $150,000 to distribute per panel per triennium.
The survey results indicate Petone, Wainuiomata and Eastbourne people value their community boards. The panels and how they work don’t yet have a high profile, and it’s not clear whether the support for the community boards would reduce if their constituents knew they could as an alternative be represented by a panel which also has $150,000 to spend on local projects.
A whole lot of other issues are in the mix. Why should three areas in the city get to elect a board, when other parts do not? Should we elect, rather than appoint, panel members – and if we did, would enough people stand for election given the level of remuneration is fairly token.
Some councillors – Lisa Bridson in the lead – said we were approaching the issue the wrong way. It was a debate about fair representation at the second tier level, and there should be equality. The matter of a community fund to spend should be considered a separate issue.
My argument was that if some parts of the city wanted to pay people (via their rates) to sit on a community board, which in reality have few powers, that was their business. But other parts of the city which did not have that model (but still have panel members with which they can bring local issues to council’s attention), it’s fair there is an equal amount of rates money available to benefit their ward.
The decision was to stick with the current mix of community boards and community panels, until a review starting March 2021. By then we’d have more information on which to judge the success of panels. But as the Committee Chair Margaret Cousins made clear in two years’ time we will have to confront some thorny issues, including why Eastbourne (pop. 5,500) is entitled to its own community board.
The vote on keeping the status quo on existing second tier representation arrangements, with a review starting March 2021 was:
For – Crs Leigh Sutton, Michael Lulich, Simon Edwards, Campbell Barry, David Bassett, Margaret Cousins and Mayor Ray Wallace.
Against – Crs Chris Milne, Tui Lewis, Josh Briggs and Lisa Bridson.
Kicking the can down the road is a good summation of the second tier representation issue. As Chris said, that can has had all its paint worn off. Every time there is a representation review tge decision has always been to review Community Boards later. However later never arrives.
Kicking the can down the road is a good summation of the second tier representation issue. As Chris said, that can has had all its paint worn off. Every time there is a representation review the decision has always been to review Community Boards later. However later never arrives.