Crystal Beavis
A Sustainability and Wellbeing committee has been added to the Waikato District Council committee structure.
It will become one of the council’s main committees alongside the Policy & Regulatory, Strategy & Performance and Infrastructure committees which all councillors attend.
The committee will handle decisions on council work that relate to sustainability and community wellbeing and it’s expected to apply a ‘wellbeing lens’ on how council delivers its Long Term Plan work programmes. For example, it’s expected to oversee progress on our climate action plan, as well as economic development, social development and cultural strategies and programmes. Emergency management in the district will sit with this committee, as will the distribution of grant funding.
This move, together with the council’s decision to introduce Māori wards at this year’s election, will start to align the council with the direction of local government reform outlined in the Government’s ‘Review into the Future for Local Government’. Released a month ago, this review is out for public consultation until February 28.
The review sets its sights on making local government ‘fit’ to meet a host of challenges from climate change to growing social and economic inequity. It calls for change to maximise community wellbeing and strengthen local democratic decision making, including Māori representation and participation. The Review recognises that the Three Waters and Resource Management reforms – which seek to regionalise infrastructure and spatial planning – will impact a significant proportion of what local authorities do, and it argues for the need to reallocate local and central government roles, so councils play a greater role in community wellbeing. It also recognises funding arrangements for local government are unsustainable and recommends new funding streams be established, alongside a simplified rating system, to include more co-investment by central Government.
The importance of community, and local participation in decision-making, will not be new to those of you who take an interest in local organisations and initiatives that support a rich and vibrant community life.
So thanks to those of you who have stood for election to your local community and hall committees. You play a fundamental part in our local democracy and in the operation of local assets, ensuring that local aspirations are articulated and heard by the council precisely because they are community-led and supported.
With community and hall committees operating in Tamahere, Matangi and Tauwhare, as well as Newstead, Eureka, Puketaha, and Gordonton, the Tamahere-Woodlands Ward is well-placed to benefit from this renewed recognition and emphasis on the importance of local democracy and community wellbeing.
So, it’s important that we share with others, especially our young people, our interest in taking responsibility for our neighbourhoods – and the rewards of friendship, mutual support and engagement that arise out of it.
How do we attract this commitment in an age when online ‘communities’ are rivalling real neighbourhoods? That’s a question for all of us to work together to resolve. The future of local democracy, and our kiwi way of life, depends on it.
- Waikato District Council Tamahere-Woodlands ward members Crystal Beavis and Mike Keir will present monthly comment pieces for The News.
