Tag Archives: Local government

29/08/2025
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Local body politics

What the heck is up with the rates?

Rates are going through the roof and people are struggling. Even so, I’m going to say something that most mayoral candidates won’t admit. Rates are going to keep going up and anyone who promises that they can stop that happening is lying to you. The Government would sack the council and install commissioners if we did what it would take to stop rates increasing.

Let me explain. Rate rises are being caused by three things: increased debt levels, inflation and the need to upgrade our water infrastructure.

First our debt levels have risen. All councils use debt to pay for long term assets like infrastructure, as a way of spreading the cost over the life of the facility. Recently our Council has been borrowing money to pay for operating expenses – the day to day costs. That’s like borrowing money to pay for groceries and is something I have opposed. In fact I led a revolt of councillors against the mayor’s plan in 2023 to borrow even more to keep rates down. That debt has locked in substantial rates increases for the next few years.

Second, we have all seen the cost of living rise due to inflation. Council costs have gone up more than households because of the kinds of things we spend most of our money on eg. construction.

Third, we need to upgrade our water infrastructure. For decades the council has underinvested in this and it’s now catch-up time. This will be the biggie for the next few years. I will write at another time about possible pathways forward but the reality is that the government standards have changed and we need more expensive systems to meet them. Estimates are that we need $200 million over the next 10 years and it won’t stop there.

It is incorrect to say, as some do, that rates rises are because council spends money on “nice to haves” like the council building upgrade 3 years ago, the Mitchell Park upgrade, the Boat Harbour and the Rex Morpeth redevelopment. The council building work, which was primarily about earthquake strengthening the Emergency Operations Centre, adds about $50 a year on the average rates bill. The Mitchell Park upgrade costs the average ratepayer less than $2 a year to provide some decent public toilets and add drainage. The Boat Harbour wasn’t funded out of rates at all. At the Rex Morpeth / War Memorial hub the Council has only budgeted money for essential maintenance such as fixing the leaking roof. There is also a small amount to rescope the proposal to something more affordable and to develop a plan to get outside funding to pay for it.

If you look at the council’s budgets, almost all the money is spent on core functions such as hard infrastructure (roads and pipes), community services (the library, swimming pool, sports fields, community halls etc) and things that central government requires us to do. Despite what some candidates say, the only way to stop future rates increases is to not upgrade water infrastructure. That would put the community’s health at risk and put us in breach of the law. It would almost certainly lead to the sacking of the council and the appointment of commissioners.

Cutting out all the so-called “nice to haves” won’t make a significant difference to the rates, but it would suck the life out of our district. I do think there are other things we can do to help control council costs, but they are not enough to stop rates rising. These include:

Less use of outside consultants. It means more staff if we want to bring more things in-house but it would save us money and retain expertise in the organisation.


AI is changing how people work across the globe. We need to carefully make use of new technology such as AI to boost productivity.

The Mayor needs to champion our district. They need to work with outside funders to help pay for community assets, leverage relationships in Wellington to unlock government funding and get the councillors working as a team.

Finally we need to work with other councils to pressure government to fix the funding model for councils. Taking GST off rates and / or returning a portion of the GST raised in a district back to the council would help a lot, as would the Government paying rates on its properties.

I have said that I want Council to be more open and transparent. I won’t spin a story to try to win votes. If anyone is telling you that they will cut rates, ask them how.


(Published in the Whakatāne Beacon 29/8/25)

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22/01/2025
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Activism, Local body politics

MAKE OUR VOICES HEARD ON OBSTETRICS CLOSURE

The decision to close down secondary birthing services at Whakatāne Hospital will put mothers and babies at risk. Not just in Whakatāne, but across the wider Eastern Bay area and up the coast. It means that only low risk births will be supported in Whakatane, with an estimated 300 deliveries a year having to transfer to Tauranga. That’s a long way to go in an emergency. Whānau will have worse outcomes and reduced choices. We cannot allow it to stand.

The closure has already taken place, last week. We are assured it is temporary, and that the service will reopen in 12 to 18 months, once new specialists can be recruited. I find it hard to believe that this will actually happen. My concern is that it will become the victim of a broader push by this government to slash spending in the public health service. This is already happening in other areas of healthcare. Once we have become used to the lack of services in Whakatāne it becomes too easy to just let the restart deadline slide, and keeping sliding, until it just becomes the new normal. Even if that is not what Te Whatu Ora intends right now, without a strong community pushback other priorities will come to the fore as local health bosses grapple with increasing central government demands for savings.

We are told that the service is closing because the hospital has not been able to recruit the specialist staff needed to run it. There has been some internal criticism that they haven’t been actively recruiting, and that the shortage of staff was foreseeable. Could this closure have been avoided? I am not an expert and I know how easy it is to criticise people when you don’t have all the facts. I believe that Te Whatu Ora regional leadership has done the best it could do with what it had. The question for us as a community is how do we make sure that our opposition to the closure is heard, and that we don’t allow it to become a permanent thing? Taking Te Whatu Ora at their word, how can we best support them to ensure that the funding is there to restart when new staff have been recruited?

It is not Council’s job to fix the public health service. We don’t have the expertise, the resources or the mandate. I do think it is council business, however, to talk about the closure of critical local medical services, to advocate for our community and to pressure the government to do better by this sub-region. We are a growing area and right now the Government should be investing in us – in housing, in workforce development, in business support, and yes, in increased medical services. It is not a time to go backwards.

The pressure must come from the community. It is about our willingness to stand up for ourselves. A number of people have said that we need a march to demand the reopening of the service, and after talking to Kat Walsh (who started the petition) and others I am putting my hand up to be the contact point. We need to keep this issue on the table and not allow it to slide into oblivion. A strong show of support from the community will make a huge difference right now, to make sure the issue doesn’t get forgotten. If you are willing to help organise the march, please get in touch. We need a strong team of us to make it a success.

Following a successful march, I think there are a number of other things that the council can do to support the community. It just takes some political leadership and skill. Council is not just about roads and water pipes. Civic leadership, backing our communities and supporting local action on important issues like this are all part of a council’s role.

If you can help organise the march please contact Nandor at <nandor.tanczos@whakatane.govt.nz> or 021 887 011

Published in the Whakatāne Beacon 22/01/25

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03/02/2023
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Local body politics

WE’RE IN THIS TOGETHER

One of the best available accounts of the signing of the Treaty of Waitangi is given by William Colenso, who was there at the time and a fluent speaker of Māori.

Colenso describes Governor Hobson standing to explain the purpose of the proposed treaty. The missionary Henry Williams translated. Hobson started by saying that the Queen of England wished to do right by the Native people of New Zealand.

“But as the law of England gives no civil powers to Her Majesty out of her dominions, her efforts to do you good will be futile unless you consent…

“ The people of Great Britain are, thank God! free; and, as long as they do not transgress the laws they can go where they please… You have sold them lands here and encouraged them to come here. Her Majesty, always ready to protect her subjects, is also always ready to restrain them.
Her Majesty the Queen asks you to sign this treaty, and to give her that power which shall enable her to restrain them.”

In case you missed it, he is saying ‘to restrain THEM’, the English who had come here, who were running amuck in Kororāreka (Russell) and the like.

He then read out the treaty in Māori, which affirmed the right of hapu to their tino rangatiratanga – their own authority. It granted the rights of British Citizens to the Māori people, and protected the rights of different faiths (including Māori spiritual practises). And it provided for the Crown to exercise ‘kawanatanga’ – the ability to pass laws to restrain their own people.

The often repeated claim that Māori ceded their sovereignty when they signed the Treaty of Waitangi is simply incorrect. The Māori language translation that was read out, and that Hobson and almost all the rangatira signed, makes no mention of cedeing sovereignty. It is that version that takes precedence under the international legal principle of contra preferentum.

It seems obvious really. Why would they give up their right to rule themselves? They outnumbered the British many times over. They did not need to come under the authority of Queen Victoria to reap the benefits of technology transfer. Māori were already doing very well, adopting European ways of doing things where it suited them and keeping their own where it didn’t. Māori food growers fed Auckland, Māori textiles and timber filled the holds of trading ships and Maōri owned fleets were sailing to Australia and the USA to do commerce.

Some people have said that colonisation benefitted Māori. It is hard to see how. Māori were already enjoying the fruits of this rich cultural exchange. How could colonisation – war, murder, rape, the theft of land and resources, the attempted destruction of culture and traditional political organisation – add anything positive to that?

Today more people are becoming aware of that history. There is no reason for anyone today to feel guilty about it, nor would guilt serve any useful purpose. Neither can we return to 1840, even if we wished to. What we can do is reflect on what kind of nation we are today, and what we wish to be. How might our political-economic system serve us ALL better, empowering ordinary people over corporate power? How might it reflect more of the generosity of spirit that characterised that momentous event at Waitangi (and around the country – it wasn’t until 16 July that the Treaty was signed at Pōhaturoa by rangatira of Ngāti Pūkeko and Ngāti Awa).


There is a lot of talk about ‘co-governance’ at the moment, for example in 3 waters. The reality is that while Iwi Māori do get input into some very high level statements and expectations, the water services entities will be governed by independent boards. Iwi will have a say on the make up of the panel that decides who will sit on those boards, but that is as close as they get to the board table. Having a Māori world view represented in setting the DNA of those entities , though, will benefit us all. It doesn’t deserve the racist backlash that we’ve seen.

Perhaps in some ways more interesting is what happens at a local level. Local Government reform is a chance to examine the role of local councils in relation to Tangata Whenua, and to more clearly define the boundaries between them. Constitutional reform, to recognise the mana of Tangata Whenua and at the same time to provide an inherent right for Local Government and local decision-making, would be a step forward in my opinion. I would like to see local government legislation better provide for the resource management practises that Māori developed over centuries and that were attuned to the needs of specific catchments, ecosystems, climatic zones. I would like to see the intergenerational aspirations and values of a Tangata Whenua worldview embedded into council long-term planning frameworks. And I would like to see the relationship between local authorities and Tangata Whenua organisations (both post settlement entities and hapū) clarified and improved.

We shouldn’t be frightened of these discussions. This is an exciting opportunity to think about what it means to live in Aotearoa today. We all want the best for our descendants, and those descendants are increasingly Māori AND Pākeha, and chosing to honour their whole whakapapa. Let us mold our democracy to be something unique in the world, something that brings together the best of the Westminster adversarial system of representative majoritarianism with the best of Indigenous practise and decision-making. A system grounded in the reality of living in Aotearoa New Zealand.


First published in the Whakatāne Beacon 3/2/23

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