Local body elections: put up or shut up

Aweek from now, the shape of local government for the next three years will be decided. In some cases, like Auckland, the future of the city could hang on it – the starkly contrasting visions of the two main contenders could potentially take New Zealand’s biggest city down very different paths. But in every case – whether it’s Invercargill or Hamilton or the tiny Chatham Islands council – we will be electing representatives who collectively have oversight of billions of dollars of ratepayer money and spending on infrastructure and services.

So it’s sobering to read that we may be on track to the lowest local body election voter turnout in decades – and the bar was not very high to begin with.

Only 42 per cent of eligible voters bothered to vote three years ago and turnout was even lower in Christchurch and Auckland.

Why do we care so little about who gets elected to our local councils? Arguably, the decisions they make are just as likely to impact on our day-today lives as any made in Wellington, if not more so.

Whether it’s someone being allowed to build a multi-storey development over your back fence, the state of the roads in your neighbourhood, or the number of costly and burdensome hoops you have to jump through for a building consent, it’s your local councillors who should have to answer to it.

Yet as a nation we seem to spend more time grumbling about it than we do filling in our ballot papers.

Is it because we don’t see our elected council representatives on the 6 o’clock news every night, like we do with national politicians? Or maybe it’s because we feel swamped by the proliferation of local boards and DHB elections and regional and district council elections and feel like we don’t know enough about the candidates to make an informed decision? Possibly.

But whatever the excuse, if we don’t vote, we’re just handing those local councils a free pass for another three years.