Council Executive Accountability

Credit to Simon Watts. Some time ago he told me he was going to do something to stop the councils, like the Far North District Council, putting 10 elec uh 10 EWI representatives, not elected by ratepayers on a committee with six councillors who were elected with full voting rights, thereby outnumbering the elected folk. So I sent him a text a couple of weeks ago asking him when I should check back in with him to see what he was going to do. He responded, asked me to give him two weeks. Two weeks ran out yesterday. Yesterday is when he announced that he would be changing the law to take those voting rights away from the unelected representatives on council. Now, this has become something of a race relations issue because the greatest number of unelected members that get attention are Māori. They are ewi reps, the Mana Fenua reps, and so on. But it is actually more than that. It actually also involves youth representatives under 18s who haven't even learned to live in their own houses and pay their own power bills, who are then given permission by councils to vote on council issues without being elected. It also it also involves rural reps. And yes, it is about race relations, and it is about trying to stop the spread of this really weirdly fashionable idea that one ethnicity gets special treatment. But it is also about a fundamental of democracy. You choose who governs you. You choose. Rate payers at the moment are being bled for money at rates that none of us would thought were possible would have thought were possible ten years ago. For our entire lives, that has come with the right to then also vote for the people who we best trust to spend that money. Low bar that it is. Somehow, though, in the last few years that has started to change, and councils have told us how much we need to pay, and then told us who's going to make decisions about that. That needed to stop. Yesterday's decision is welcome. I'd like it to go further, though. I'd like all unelected representatives now to be removed from councils. Because in many cases, they are a cost. They are sometimes paid the same as elected representatives, and they are largely unnecessary in an age where advice and input is easier to find than ever. You don't need these people there. And given the likely kickback, though, that this is going to get from the hand wringers. Good on Simon Watts for making the right call on deadline. For more from the Mike Asking Breakfast, listen live to New Talks Ed B from 6 a.m. weekdays or follow the podcast on iHeartRadio.