Use council chamber for robust debate, not the lunchroom

There’s nothing like losing a free lunch to raise hackles among councillors used to a club sandwich or sausage roll on the ratepayer.

And so it proved when Horizons Regional councillors turned to debating what they clearly saw as an important issue.

Kudos to council chairwoman Rachel Keedwell and themajority of councillors who voted to end the $10,000-a-year free lunches for elected officials. It is a good move in times when councilsmust reduce, and be seen to be reducing, costs in the face of the coronavirus crisis.

Two councillors, Bruce Gordon and David Cotton, voted to retain the perk and their arguments about why they deserve publicly funded food on a platter are not appetising.

Gordon said 90-minute lunch breaks would be required if councillors were forced to fend for themselves – as everybody else is. Perhaps if they were to all have threecoursemeals at top-end restaurants he’d be correct, but a sizeable chunk of the population manages to cope with 30-minutes breaks, or less.

Gordon, along with other councillors who proffered strange defences of the perk, suggested the lack of free lunches would mean councillors couldn’t eat together. This seems odd as councillors weren’t voting to isolate themselves between the morning and afternoon debates.

Thank goodness councillors Jono Naylor and John Turkington set to right the long stream of entitledsounding gripes.

Cotton, however, seemed concerned about losing the chance to speak to council staff over lunch. Those staff provide advice to councillors, who choose whether to act on it. It’s not for councillors to influence that advice, and there should be a separation between elected and non-elected officials so politics doesn’t creep into places it shouldn’t.

More concerning was Cotton’s defence of the lunchroom as a place where councillors spoke about issues away from the council chamber. There’s a great place for councillors to debate, freely, frankly and openly, and that is the council table, in the eye of ratepayers.

The tendency for councillors to debate behind closed doors and then later present a Teflon united front is harmful to democracy and deprives the public a chance to know an individual’s opinion.

It’s reassuring to know there is robust discussion and questions asked of officials, rather than bland acceptance and over-positive spin.

Cr Wiremu Te Awe Awe echoed Cotton’s comments when he said: ‘‘More business is done around that table [in the Horizons lunch room] over kai than we do [at the council table].’’

That’s nothing to be proud of. Councillors often seem to forget they’re accountable first and foremost to ratepayers, whether or not their lunches are funded from the public purse.