Councillors told: BYO meals

Mayor RayWallace is calling for a ‘‘commonsense approach’’ to a suggestion that Lower Hutt councillors should provide their own meals at council meetings.

The suggestion came after a heated meeting over a proposal to pay council staff a living wage.

Wainuiomata ward councillor Campbell Barry has made the lunchbox proposal, arguing it is consistent with the council’s drive to do business ‘‘in the most effective way’’.

He is proposing councillors bring their ownmeals to all full council and committee meetings and, if they decided they wanted to be catered for, they should pay the full cost of catering.

For Barry, the realisation came at a council meeting when it was decided employees would be paid the living wage, but with the ‘‘sham’’ proviso that this would happen only if the chief executive deemed it was the most cost-effective way to do business.

After making the decision, Barry walked out to the dining room where there was a catered meal awaiting councillors, complete with roast chicken, vegetarian lasagne, curry, salads, and a cake for afterwards. ‘‘I thought, if we are going to do this, let’s look at ourselves first.’’

He believed he had the support of some – but not all – councillors.

Wallace says the decision to provide catering for meetings is done on a case-by-case approach.

‘‘We take a commonsense approach when it comes to providing food at council meeting. When we have ameeting that is likely to go for many hours, long into the evening, we do provide catering for councillors.

‘‘Shorter meetings we don’t, or we may just have a packet of biscuits with a tea or coffee.’’

It is up to committee chairs to decide whether catering is justified, butWallace said if councillors were unhappy with the cost, he was ’’happy’’ to reconsider that approach.

‘‘When I become mayor I also started a social club for councillors, which they contribute their own money to. This is to pay for food and drinks outside basic catered meals.

‘‘It is an approach I think is in keeping with Hutt City Council’s commonsense approach to spending on catering.’’

Wellington City Council spokesman Richard MacLean said councillors ‘‘and media’’ were provided with a ‘‘light, healthy snack’’.

For the city strategy committee or full council meetings, this meant tea, coffee, fruit and biscuits with a cost of $10 to $20. For longer, less frequent meetings, sandwiches were thrown into the mix, and the cost was about $100.

‘‘In the previous triennium we cut out lunch for the politicians and the media – but we found that when councillors had to go off-site to find their own lunch then we often had delays in restarting meetings, due to a failure to get a quorum.’’

Up the valley at Upper Hutt City Council, a spokesman confirmed meals at meetings were still catered, but usually only with coffee, tea, and biscuits. He could not say howmuch it cost. A Greater Wellington Regional Council spokesman said its councillors tended to have light, healthy snacks atmeetings.