Hamilton City Councillor Andrew Bydder has written a lengthy and detailed article for the Good Oil to help readers concerned about our local councils to get prepared for the next LGNZ elections. This is part two. [Ed.]
PART B – BACKGROUND
Councils were formed in 1876 by merging the local water and road boards. Even today two-thirds of council spending is on these core services. Money for building and maintaining this infrastructure was obtained from rates, so-named because it is a form of land tax where the same percentage rate of tax is applied to every landowner. Early on, the councils comprised the affected landowners donating their time, with but a single employee, the town clerk. Now, very few, if any, elected representatives on councils have expertise in either water or road engineering.
Councils expanded with construction and ownership of public assets, such as parks and libraries. About half of council’s remaining spending is on property assets, yet elected representatives have a shortage of expertise in building and property management. This began a trend to glamorous pet projects, such as stadiums, theatres and even zoos, largely done with borrowed money. Throughout most of the 20th century, councillors were paid a stipend (a small payment per meeting) and employed a handful of staff to manage contracts with local firms.
Additional collective services were added to benefit the whole community, most notably (and usefully for urban areas) rubbish collection. This began a trend towards new services for small special interest groups at the expense of the wider community. Councils collect money from ratepayers to give away as grants. Elected representatives like to take the credit for this largesse, rather than the people who actually paid the rates. Although a tiny part of council spending, the profile of giving other people’s money away attracts social activists to stand for election, and for such people to then expand council staff in socialist areas without financial accountability, while being paid full-time salaries.
Central government uses local councils for a number of regulatory functions that are inefficient to run from Wellington. This doesn’t mean it is more efficient to run them locally, rather government ministries’ books look a little better by off-loading the administrative costs on ratepayers instead of taxpayers. Building consents, resource consents, liquor licensing, noise control and dog control functions add layers of bureaucratic complexity with only indirect council influence.
The result is an ad-hoc Frankenstein’s monster of assorted parts that is not suited to delivering its core functions, is inefficient, slow, cumbersome, and no longer aligns with the community. Instead, it is a target for loud-mouthed activists while the silent majority is ignored.
The infiltration by activists was exposed by the “Innovating Streets” initiative. It was rolled out by councils across the country at the same time, proving that officials were conspiring with each other. There was nothing innovative about it: the same ideas had been tried in Europe under different names and as part of 15-minute cities. The battle is real – conspiracy fact, not theory.
Cr Bydder’s introduction and part A are here.
