John MacDonald: Why the PM shouldn't be giving councils a ticking-off

Canterbury Mornings with John MacDonald

If we thought the last government was a bunch of control freaks, the current one’s just as bad, isn’t it?

That's what I’m thinking with all this talk from the Prime Minister, telling local councils that ratepayers are sick of white elephants, that they need to focus on the basics like collecting the rubbish, fixing the pipes and filling-in potholes, and to stop blowing money on fantasy projects.

The thing for me is that —even though there are a truckload of things I see the Christchurch City Council doing, for example, that I question big-time in terms of blowing ratepayer money— I don’t think it is the place of central government to tell them to pull their heads in.

That’s our job. If we want to, we can turn up at council meetings and do one of those deputation things. Where you get a few minutes to say your piece to all the councillors around the council table.

And the ultimate way we can make it very clear whether we approve of the way they’re running things, or not, comes every three years at the local body elections. Which is exactly what the central government politicians tell us if we don’t like what they’re doing.

I remember Christopher Luxon himself saying, not that long ago, that if the Government’s fast track legislation led to some sort of environmental disaster, then people could punish them for it at the next election.

But when it comes to local government the Government’s attitude is very different. And yesterday, the Prime Minister told local councils that when it comes to spending money - the party is over.

Here’s a little bit of what Christopher Luxon said to councils yesterday:

“Ratepayers expect local government to do the basics and to do the basics brilliantly. Pick up the rubbish. Fix the pipes. Fill in potholes. And more generally, maintain local assets quickly, carefully, and cost effectively.

“But nothing in life is free, and ratepayers expect to pay for it in exchange. But what they don’t expect to pay for is the laundry-list of distractions and experiments that are plaguing council balance sheets across the country.

“Ratepayers are sick of the white elephants and non-delivery. So, my challenge to all of you is to rein-in the fantasies and to get back to delivering the basics brilliantly.”

Which, from the reports I’ve seen, generally went down like a cup of the old proverbial with the mayors and councillors in the room.

And it wasn’t all just talk and bluster either. The Prime Minister also announced what the Government wants to try and do to get councils under control.

It’s looking into performance benchmarks for local councils. It’s looking at how councils might be stopped from spending money on what the Government considers to be “nice-to-haves”.

It’s going to look at transparency and accountability rules to make it easier for councillors to request information from council staff. And it wants to reform the code of conduct process to balance councillors’ freedom of speech rights with what it calls “politicised” code of conduct investigations.

But, even though I agree that local councils need to up their game, I don’t like the Government poking its nose in like this.

For a government that banged-on pre-election about keeping things under local control, it’s not really walking the talk, is it?

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