I'm old enough to have experienced the local Councils on the Nth Shore, before the Nth Shore CC was formed.
Back in the day, democracy was alive and thriving IMO.
You'd meet the local mayor at the shopping centre (s/he was shopping etc too), and you could engage with them "on the spot".
The early days of the Nth Shore CC seemed to have some positives, but it was mainly around more formal engagement.
Council meetings were very open and easily accessed. Participation was encouraged by the early mayors - Ann Harley and George Wood.
If I had to choose between the 2 options, I'd go right back to the small, local councils in the suburbs.
IMO the supercity is an absolute disaster, with a massive bureaucracy and too many "politically-driven" councillors, along with a Mayor who seems to have become quite arrogant when responding to peoples' concerns
Your argument makes sense to me. The only benefit I ever felt from the loss of our local North Shore council and the creation of the supercity was the access to Auckland-wide libraries.
Central government is not just breaking local government, it is breaking democracy. In my view, after chucking wealth-funded political parties into the trash-can of history, we need to simultaneously reinvent and integrate both aspects of government by making MPS strictly accountable to their electorates and linking them to their respective local councils through a process like this:
1. For each electorate, establish a Citizen Advisory Group (CAG) of around 10 to 20 randomly selected citizen volunteers (chosen by a sortition process. See https://www.sortitionfoundation.org/)
2. Situate a meeting place for the CAG and the MP’s local office within a local Council office in the electorate. This should better connect the MP with the views of their electorate, while also improving the quality of communication between local and central government. The objective should be to make it as easy as possible for citizens to discuss concerns with their CAG, their central government MP and their local Councillors.
3. Make the CAG’s first task to advertise for and encourage competent individuals to offer themselves to be elected as the MP for their electorate.
4. Provide a Central Government funded website for every electorate. These electorate-specific websites would provide webpages for:
a) the currently serving MP to place on record what they are seeking to achieve for their electorate and to publicly respond to queries from citizens
b) every candidate offering themselves for the next election (to explain what they would offer the electorate and, again, to publicly respond to queries from citizens)
c) a summary of the CAG’s deliberations about the electorate’s concerns and proposals.
d) a forum page for citizens within the electorate to discuss concerns citizen to citizen.
5. Central Government could also fund public meetings in community halls and the like.
6. Once a MP is serving in government, require the CAG to continuously support and advise their MP regarding the policies the CAG wishes to see pursued in government on behalf of their electorate.
7. Subject to a minimum of 65% of the CAG members being in agreement, allow the CAG to reprimand and/or fire their MP if the MP’s behavior in parliament is contrary to the wishes of the electorate (as assessed by the CAG).
To get rid of the roller coaster ride of policy reversals associated with changes in government majority (both central and local), I’d also chuck cyclic elections into the dustbin of history.
The real problem with MMP is it allows the parties to pick half the members of parliament. ALL candidates should pass the electorate vote, there is room for proportional representation, the top elected candidates get seats according to what percentage of the overall vote the party receives, get 10% or the vote, get 10% of the seats
Thanks for the link to the 9-year-old Herald article, Roger "Swiss outperform us".
Do you know if anything of significance got reported/recorded/initiated after that visit by so many important people?
I'm particularly interested in the possibility of being able to vote for Policies rather than Parties, and it seems the Swiss model of regular referendums might currently be the closest to a working model.
For example, I might be quite interested in NZFirst, but think trying to buy-back BNZ is a crazy idea. Likewise, I might be disappointed with the Nats for not keeping all their election promises (or watering them down), but they may say they were constrained by coalition partner(s).
It looks like the Swiss use primarily postal voting for their regular referenda, with some cantons having an online option.
Not surprisingly, they seem concerned about electoral fraud. We all know what's happened in the US with postal voting, and we've had our own recent case in Sth Auck.
It seems to me that one objection to the concept would be the cost, if we had to regularly open/establish polling booths. Online voting could be a cost-effective option, but would probably require the recently proposed (by the Nats) digital ID. Perhaps we'd need to start with all the referenda being voted on once every 3 years (at election time), with the parties that win being those with the most popular policies... But then would TOP win because of their universal income concept?
Reinforcing your excellent article Roger, the ten councils with the highest turnouts, averaging over 60%, all have populations under 10,000 and all stand to disappear under the Government’s plans.
I think that focusing on council amalgamations is an unconstructive diversion.
The issues facing dysfunctional and expensive councils will not be solved by merging with neighbouring dysfunctional and expensive councils. The woefully shallow talent pool from which elected councillors are scooped every three years will not become deeper by amalgamation. Mediocre council officers captured by the Treaty of Waitangi and other woke idealistic fascinations will not become cleverer or improved by amalgamation.
Voters distrust amalgamation. Every occasion where this has been tried by referendum has failed. Auckland is not an exception to this rule, as the government passed legislation to enable that.
Many local voters go misty eyed at the promise of local democracy. The more local the better it would seem. A good example of that fixation is community boards. Smoke and mirrors. Voters love them. Councils ignore them. They are a waste of time and money that could easily be replaced by more effective and efficient forms of community engagement. Good luck getting voters to agree to amalgamations.
And never forget the sixth law of thermodynamics: rates never decrease. Amalgamation will not change this incontrovertible law.
Solution? Rewrite the Local Government Act. There are some really good ideas floating around about what needs to change in that sphere. Rather than post a thesis, I think it's best I stop here.
I'm old enough to have experienced the local Councils on the Nth Shore, before the Nth Shore CC was formed.
Back in the day, democracy was alive and thriving IMO.
You'd meet the local mayor at the shopping centre (s/he was shopping etc too), and you could engage with them "on the spot".
The early days of the Nth Shore CC seemed to have some positives, but it was mainly around more formal engagement.
Council meetings were very open and easily accessed. Participation was encouraged by the early mayors - Ann Harley and George Wood.
If I had to choose between the 2 options, I'd go right back to the small, local councils in the suburbs.
IMO the supercity is an absolute disaster, with a massive bureaucracy and too many "politically-driven" councillors, along with a Mayor who seems to have become quite arrogant when responding to peoples' concerns
Your argument makes sense to me. The only benefit I ever felt from the loss of our local North Shore council and the creation of the supercity was the access to Auckland-wide libraries.
The Auckland library system is fantastic. And the libraries themselves humming with local activity.
Central government is not just breaking local government, it is breaking democracy. In my view, after chucking wealth-funded political parties into the trash-can of history, we need to simultaneously reinvent and integrate both aspects of government by making MPS strictly accountable to their electorates and linking them to their respective local councils through a process like this:
1. For each electorate, establish a Citizen Advisory Group (CAG) of around 10 to 20 randomly selected citizen volunteers (chosen by a sortition process. See https://www.sortitionfoundation.org/)
2. Situate a meeting place for the CAG and the MP’s local office within a local Council office in the electorate. This should better connect the MP with the views of their electorate, while also improving the quality of communication between local and central government. The objective should be to make it as easy as possible for citizens to discuss concerns with their CAG, their central government MP and their local Councillors.
3. Make the CAG’s first task to advertise for and encourage competent individuals to offer themselves to be elected as the MP for their electorate.
4. Provide a Central Government funded website for every electorate. These electorate-specific websites would provide webpages for:
a) the currently serving MP to place on record what they are seeking to achieve for their electorate and to publicly respond to queries from citizens
b) every candidate offering themselves for the next election (to explain what they would offer the electorate and, again, to publicly respond to queries from citizens)
c) a summary of the CAG’s deliberations about the electorate’s concerns and proposals.
d) a forum page for citizens within the electorate to discuss concerns citizen to citizen.
5. Central Government could also fund public meetings in community halls and the like.
6. Once a MP is serving in government, require the CAG to continuously support and advise their MP regarding the policies the CAG wishes to see pursued in government on behalf of their electorate.
7. Subject to a minimum of 65% of the CAG members being in agreement, allow the CAG to reprimand and/or fire their MP if the MP’s behavior in parliament is contrary to the wishes of the electorate (as assessed by the CAG).
To get rid of the roller coaster ride of policy reversals associated with changes in government majority (both central and local), I’d also chuck cyclic elections into the dustbin of history.
To see how these aspects of democratic renewal come together, please see here: https://medium.com/@cliffwainui1/our-democracies-are-breeding-grounds-for-inequity-and-discontent-this-is-because-5bfa5810a96e
The real problem with MMP is it allows the parties to pick half the members of parliament. ALL candidates should pass the electorate vote, there is room for proportional representation, the top elected candidates get seats according to what percentage of the overall vote the party receives, get 10% or the vote, get 10% of the seats
Thanks for the link to the 9-year-old Herald article, Roger "Swiss outperform us".
Do you know if anything of significance got reported/recorded/initiated after that visit by so many important people?
I'm particularly interested in the possibility of being able to vote for Policies rather than Parties, and it seems the Swiss model of regular referendums might currently be the closest to a working model.
For example, I might be quite interested in NZFirst, but think trying to buy-back BNZ is a crazy idea. Likewise, I might be disappointed with the Nats for not keeping all their election promises (or watering them down), but they may say they were constrained by coalition partner(s).
It looks like the Swiss use primarily postal voting for their regular referenda, with some cantons having an online option.
Not surprisingly, they seem concerned about electoral fraud. We all know what's happened in the US with postal voting, and we've had our own recent case in Sth Auck.
It seems to me that one objection to the concept would be the cost, if we had to regularly open/establish polling booths. Online voting could be a cost-effective option, but would probably require the recently proposed (by the Nats) digital ID. Perhaps we'd need to start with all the referenda being voted on once every 3 years (at election time), with the parties that win being those with the most popular policies... But then would TOP win because of their universal income concept?
Reinforcing your excellent article Roger, the ten councils with the highest turnouts, averaging over 60%, all have populations under 10,000 and all stand to disappear under the Government’s plans.
I think that focusing on council amalgamations is an unconstructive diversion.
The issues facing dysfunctional and expensive councils will not be solved by merging with neighbouring dysfunctional and expensive councils. The woefully shallow talent pool from which elected councillors are scooped every three years will not become deeper by amalgamation. Mediocre council officers captured by the Treaty of Waitangi and other woke idealistic fascinations will not become cleverer or improved by amalgamation.
Voters distrust amalgamation. Every occasion where this has been tried by referendum has failed. Auckland is not an exception to this rule, as the government passed legislation to enable that.
Many local voters go misty eyed at the promise of local democracy. The more local the better it would seem. A good example of that fixation is community boards. Smoke and mirrors. Voters love them. Councils ignore them. They are a waste of time and money that could easily be replaced by more effective and efficient forms of community engagement. Good luck getting voters to agree to amalgamations.
And never forget the sixth law of thermodynamics: rates never decrease. Amalgamation will not change this incontrovertible law.
Solution? Rewrite the Local Government Act. There are some really good ideas floating around about what needs to change in that sphere. Rather than post a thesis, I think it's best I stop here.