Extend MMP into local elections

Local Government Minister Nanaia Mahuta has announced an inquiry into the future of local government. If you are concerned about traffic congestion, your local library, the bus service, your rates, or the housing density of your neighbourhood, local government should matter to you.

But barely four out of 10 of us voted in the 2019 local body elections. In general elections, seven or eight out of 10 of us normally vote.

Why does local government get no respect from ministers or the public?

When Cabinet ministers are usually elected in their electorates with a turnout of 70 to 80 per cent, is it surprising they don’t take local government too seriously?

In the last decade ministers have replaced councillors with commissioners in Canterbury and Tauranga.

Central government often calls in major housing subdivisions for consenting as it expects councils will be unable to withstand ‘‘nimby’’ pressure to block major new developments.

Water and waste responsibilities are proposed to move from councils, which have shown an inability to manage and maintain the long-term water assets which are an essential service.

Fluoridation decisions have also been taken away from councils.

In Wellington and Tauranga, mayors elected by the whole city have found it difficult to unite councillors elected by and accountable to just one part of the city, their ward.

These issues are not all of councils’ making. Central government decisions to allow rapid population growth from migration, combined with a borrowing cap of only three times a city council’s income, have frustrated plans to match infrastructure to local urban growth.

In Auckland the council can only borrow three times its income, yet its voters are borrowing seven times their average income to buy a house. A homeowner will repay their mortgage by earning for about 40 years, whereas the council has a life in perpetuity to pay back debt. Money was borrowed to build the Auckland Harbour Bridge. The loan was repaid decades ago, but we are still using that bridge 70 years later.

The public, while valuing many council services, has major issues with council performance. The leaky-buildings fiasco, the consenting of the CTV building in Christchurch, the public transport and water pipes problems in Wellington, and ongoing traffic congestion issues have all contributed to a feeling that many councils are not doing a great job.

Media coverage of councils typically focuses on the negative, the scandals and disasters. Councillors who leak to the media can be guaranteed wide coverage and are rewarded with high voter name recall from the publicity. This will help get them get re-elected.

The older, whiter and currently most angry residents are the most likely to vote. So incumbent councillors often find it easier to win re-election by running against their council than working cooperatively with their colleagues to get better decisions made.

Is it any wonder that so few of us vote in local elections?

Councils also collect rates in almost the most offensive way possible. We moved paying income tax to PAYE (Pay As You Earn) with payday deductions in 1957. However, we still send out the rates bill each year and ask you to pay in four instalments, rather than an automatic monthly direct debit as the default option.

You can imagine the outcry if we sent the average taxpayer an invoice each year for their income tax of $9000 to be paid in four equal instalments.

Those who do decide to vote in local elections suffer ballot fatigue as they move down the voting paper. They often don’t recognise most of the candidates and are bewildered when the voting moves from ticks to numbering.

Many of the issues with local and regional government are a direct consequence of how few people vote in local body elections, particularly in major growing population centres. It is not just that the voters are so few. They are also disproportionately the oldest and currently angriest ratepayers. Those who already have homes, do not want change and oppose paying rates to either help renters or the wider community.

So what can we do to improve turnout and make councils more responsive to the concerns of all their citizens? We should:

■ Hold local body elections and general elections on the same day to lift turnout.

■ While continuing to have mayors elected at large, apply MMP to local body elections, with half the councillors elected from wards and the other half from a list representing the city at large.

■ Give voters the option of ticking one box to vote for all the candidates endorsed by a registered political party at both general and local elections, or pick every person they want to vote for down each of the ballots if that is their choice.

There are some places in the country where a majority of voters already participate in local elections. For those areas, adopting the MMP approach would be an option, not a requirement. For areas where the turnout had been below 50 per cent for two consecutive local elections, a move to MMP would be required.

This proposal would increase voter turnout, encourage councils to become more collegial, make it easier for central and local government to achieve shared objectives, and force the major political parties to take local government more seriously, all while making councillors more responsive to the wider community.

What is there not to like?