Do our councils know an election is on?
The past couple of weeks have been busy ones for the Wellington region’s councils.
Hutt City Council voted 6-5 for a controversial plan change paving the way for Summerset’s $100m Boulcott retirement village on September 29.
And on September 28, Greater Wellington Regional Council voted unanimously to introduce a living wage for all of its staff.
With councils so fervently making big decisions and setting policy you could be forgiven for thinking those were the first meetings after an election, with councillors issued fresh mandates to govern.
But instead, all of those decisions were made in the middle of this year’s local body election, once voting papers had already been sent out.
Victoria University public law lecturer Dr Dean Knight said it was problematic that councils were making big decisions during the period.
Knight said the Local Government Act doesn’t address what councils should or shouldn’t decide on during elections. But the proper course for councils to follow would be to act as caretakers, he said.
‘‘It’s legal for them to make decisions during that period, but improper and arguably unconstitutional.’’
Knight said the accountability of mayors and councillors came from being able to ’’vote them out if they make decisions we don’t like’’.
But by making significant decisions after voting began, that ability was taken away from voters.
‘‘They are effectively able to act with impunity. It’s wrong.’’
Knight said he didn’t think councils should make any significant decisions during the voting period and they already had the ability to defer such decisions.
The simplest way to ensure that happened would be to not schedule council meetings during the election.
He disagreed with arguments councils should try to complete business within a term so all councillors were aware of the background.
‘‘Administrative tidiness does not trump democratic accountability. This comes up every three years. It’s overdue for fixing.’’
But Local Government Minister Sam Lotu-Iiga disagreed. He said councils should not stop making decisions because an election was pending.
‘‘Councillors are elected to serve ratepayers for the entire term of a council and some timecritical decisions will need to be made close to an election date.’’
Councils could decide to defer decisions that were not urgent, though.
A Local Government New Zealand spokesman said local government conventions were different to those of central government.
If incoming councils wanted to revoke decisions made before an election they could.