Ecan to be saddled with the appointed
With the next election season just more than a year away, before we know it we’ll be bombarded with local body election hoardings.
The future governance structure of Environment Canterbury remains unfinished business for Wellington, although Local Government Minister David Carter lifted the lid on the new-look landscape this week.
Carter has signalled ECan will not return to being a fully fledged democratically elected council. He has floated the prospect of the decision-making table being amixed member model of elected councillors and appointed representatives.
The district health boards operate to this model, although electing health board members commands about as much public interest as a train delay in Tajikstan.
Then again, the health board elections were a cynical and largely inconsequential PR-stunt by the last Labour government to make public health ‘‘look’’ open.
Carter is adamant ECan must not return to ‘‘the dysfunction of the past’’. Well, democracy isn’t designed to be pretty or perfect. And hand-picked appointments on to elected bodies should be the exception – not the norm.
Otherwise, why don’t we simply jettison any semblance of democracy in favour of the steel-trap efficiency of a committee of appointed experts to lord over all aspects of our lives?
Environment Canterbury is an interesting beast in that so much of its core work is exceptionally technical and intellectually rigorous.
David Caygill has brought a masterly sense of inclusive management to the water portfolio. His mana has undoubtedly been enhanced by his long-standing service as an elected politician and former finance minister. Compare that to the erratic, veering stewardship of the clean air portfolio by David Bedford.
Do appointed commissioners behave more like box-ticking bureaucrats when they are insulated and unanswerable to the court of public opinion?
Would elected councillors be so intransigent in their refusal to allow quake-ravaged homeowners to reinstall a woodburner in their rebuilt homes?
Adding insult to the injury of a narrow loss to the All Blacks, the Irish community is understandably miffed by the rather sanctimonious broadside dished out by the Christchurch police on drinking.
Senior-Sergeant Scott Banfield is unrepentant about characterising Irish rugby supporters as troublemaking legless louts who need to adjust to ‘‘our drinking culture’’.
The ‘‘when in Rome . . . ’’ lecture made me want to vomit. Since when has the Kiwi drinking culture been governed by the Angel Gabriel?
To besmirch an entire community based on the actions of a few was gratuitous. Everyone who went to the test that I have spoken to says the boorish and abusive were overwhelmingly dressed in black.