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Written by

Trevor Ammundsen

Published on

February 4, 2025

OPINION How do we select a good mayor and council?

BY TREVOR AMMUNDSEN

Local Body elections are on the programme for later this year and at some stage we will need to consider who we would like to represent us on the TCDC.

Voter turnout for local body elections is generally low, around the 30% level, and many suggest that voter apathy is the cause of the standard of political representation we get. Possibly, but I would suggest it is the candidates and their inability, or unwillingness, to state clearly what they are standing for that is the problem.

As an example, let us consider Mayor Len Salt. When standing for Mayor in 2022 his three policy objectives, as reported on the Policy.nz website, were to review the “contracts” model, to support council efficiency to lower costs and debt, and to future proof services and infrastructure.

The major election issue in 2022 was Three Waters and the potential loss of our assets, yet Mr Salt appeared to have no stance on this.

After the election however, the mayor announced he had no problem with Three Waters and had no concerns about Co-Governance. He is entitled to his view, but it should have been spelt out for voters.

Likewise, his obvious enthusiasm for a Maori Ward was not a policy platform, yet this has been hurried through without any mandate from the region. Ratepayers will finally be able to have their say at the coming election. Don’t forget we are not having our say because of the Mayor and Council, but despite them (Transparency).

So, if you look back at the pre-election campaign statements, Mr Salt was being portrayed as a mild-mannered person who was concerned about the electorate. His performance, however, doesn’t measure up to this portrayal.

Instead, we have runaway rates bills (2024/25 will be about 4 times the rate of inflation), a refusal to preserve the foreshore at Buffalo Beach despite his publicly made statements and an apparent agenda that he was not prepared to test with the voters.

From a voter’s point of view such a record does not appear honourable but we do not know if the alternatives to be offered will be any better.

This is the crux of the problem of low turnout; there is a general view that politicians cannot be trusted and always do what they want regardless of what they told the electorate. The politician’s performance generally make voting look pointless. We have all heard people say of candidates “they are all the same” or “don’t vote you’ll only encourage them” but while such views are allowed to prevail, we will always have a lesser level of local governance than we deserve.

To change people’s negative views of voting we need to provide knowledge of candidates, what their background is, what their achievements have been and what they are standing for.

We need to get an idea of how the potential Mayor and Councillors will work together as a team. Then of course we need the media to hold them accountable for delivery of documented commitments.

How do we do this? A starting point would be to gather a list of local issues, from locals not politicians, and gain clear statements from candidates on their stance on these issues. Examples are the protective rock wall along Buffalo Beach or the footpath at Wharekaho. There are quite a number so let us prepare a complete list for candidates to consider.

In order to establish our thoughts on teamwork we need to know what common threads exist between candidates. The easiest way of establishing this is to have candidates disclose which party they would support if a General Election was held today.

It would seem obvious that, if environmental policies are of prime importance to you, a group of candidates that support environmental issues would be a good team for you to support. The background of candidates is also important; what have they done; what skills do they have.

Candidates cannot be trusted to just provide this data as they will omit parts, they do not think will help them, exaggerate some aspects and so on. There really needs to be an interview process, after all this is a type of job interview. Possibly this is a job for The Informer, perhaps CFM, perhaps both could be involved. After all, it is about securing information and distributing it as widely as possible.

And finally, a disclaimer; NO! I am not standing for Mayor, am unsure if I could handle the self-criticism.