As I have previously said, it has been an interesting experience getting involved in local government as a councillor. We are currently working through our Long Term Plan and trying to minimise future rates rises can feel like a battle.
Mike Keir
The machine of local bureaucracy is almost impossible to change.
Everyone knows that cutting levels of service and focusing efficiently on our core business of roading, waters and waste along with dogs, parks and certain community services as per this governments direction is necessary.
However, councils continue to invest in a wide range of areas they cannot afford and hamstring themselves with regulation and compliance, much of which is mandated by the very government advocating for a focus on core business.
Good luck to David Seymour with his push for de-regulation. The situation is a mess, a tangle of bureaucratic complexity impossible to unravel.
We are like mad collectors of regulations, continually adding more and more while never getting rid of the old stuff. The garage is full.
We are supposed to balance being a regulator with being an enabler. However, there is no balance, our enabler function has been neutered by regulation.
I am regularly contacted by ratepayers at their wits end as to how to manage their way through council bureaucracy and all I can do is refer them to others who are unlikely to have a solution.
Often the only way through is via a torturous timeframe and additional costs including the hiring of expensive consultants who encourage and survive off this system.
Along with this a lack of accountability and transparency are the biggest issues within our local government sector which leads to a culture of poor performance.
I would add the Waikato District Council (WDC) is one of the better performing councils in the region so ratepayers in other districts have my sympathies.
That said the rates burden in WDC is becoming unaffordable for many and is what I want to focus on in the time I have left as a councillor.
WDC is forecasting a 6 per cent rate rise for the next three years.
This is on top of a 19 per cent rise over the last two years. Getting it under 3 per cent should be the aim and would be a win for all our ratepayers.
Many people seem to get quite wound up about race-based issues but a far more critical issue confronting our nation is the declining level of performance in our public sector organisations.
This is something everybody should be paying closer attention to as it impacts on all of us.
This is not limited to New Zealand. The democracies of the world are struggling under the burden of bureaucracy. Small wonder someone like Trump could win in the US.
New Zealand would be lucky if it could have an innovative disrupter like Elon Musk come in to look at our public sector organisations as the need for this sort of review becomes increasingly urgent.
From left, Charles Fletcher Tamahere Community Committee chair, Cr Crystal Beavis, Cr Mike Keir, Lockie Verner, mayor Jacqui Church.
