No to councillor payments
Palmerston North’s city council has thrown out the idea of paying councillors’ childcare costs, for now.
The Remuneration Authority this year approved the concept of allowing elected representatives to claim up to $6000 a year for a child’s care while a parent was on council business.
But it left it up to individual councils to decide whether to adopt a policy.
Despite a spirited plea from the council’s youngest councillor, mother-of-two Aleisha Rutherford, the proposal failed at yesterday’s full council meeting.
Rutherford said she would not benefit personally from the policy, as live-in nannies such as hers were excluded from the list of criteria for approved childcare costs for children aged up to 14.
But she wanted to set up the option for other young adults who might otherwise consider childcare costs a barrier to being a councillor.
Rutherford said only 32 councillors around New Zealand were aged under 40, which meant young families were not represented as much as they should be or felt excluded from local government.
Speaking against the proposal, Cr Vaughan Dennison said he had four young children when he was first voted on to the council, and he and other male councillors in a similar situation had managed.
And Cr Bruno Petrenas said the council was not a ‘‘social welfare agency’’ and should not ask ratepayers already struggling with their rates bills to pay extra costs for councillors.
Cr Leonie Hapeta said she was concerned her colleagues would be influenced by whether their stand on the issue would make them popular with voters so close to October’s elections.
She voted in favour, because she said it was ‘‘the right thing to do’’.
Cr Duncan Mccann said the timing was wrong, but abstained from voting as one of the councillors who could potentially benefit.
If the council had wanted to introduce the payment to encourage more people to stand, the signal should have been sent well before nominations closed, not afterward.
Legal counsel John Annabell said any policy the council adopted could be reviewed by the new council when it considered remuneration. ‘‘If you approve this today, it would not be binding on future councils.’’
Labour councillor Lorna Johnson opposed the payment. ‘‘I do not think councillors are a special case ... We do not pay all our staff a living wage and we are not proposing childcare payment for staff. It’s an issue of fairness.’’
Cr Rachel Bowen, one of those who could benefit, said she could find no evidence that paying childcare costs was effective in encouraging young parents to stand for councils, and there were other family-friendly policies that could be more important.
Cr Susan Baty supported the payments. Her particular concern was for parents, possibly from low-income jobs, who were raising children without a partner’s support. She said being a councillor was different from regular employment as there was no income security beyond each election.