Labour Undermining Auckland’s Local Democracy
Adrian Tyler, Kaipatiki Local Board
Now into the second half of their second term Labour are looking down the barrel of the inevitable swing NZ voters have historically made between Labour and National: 2023 could be anyone’s at this stage. However the party bigwigs at Labour seem to have decided that the best approach to consolidating their unprecedented gains at the 2020 election is to swing the party’s support base into action to dominate local authority elections this October. They seem to have failed to realize that this is exactly why the NZ electorate swings away from them — because Labour’s captains can’t seem to get a grip on their ‘Nanny State’/’Little Red Book’ aspirations — so after a while they begin to resemble a ‘beneficial’ dictatorship — much to the distaste of pretty much everyone in NZ except the zealots running the party.
“How will a local board team or Auckland City Councillors who have run on a Labour ticket be able to oppose their local Labour MP or the Labour Government on any issue?”
The New Zealand public has no taste for this any more than the excesses of the National Party a couple of terms into full flight. We like fairness and we are social minded, so we vote Labour, and we like independence and entrepreneurship, so we vote National, and those are the two fundamentals that keep us swinging between the two parties. It is my understanding that the National Party actually have a policy of not getting involved in local body elections: which I totally commend — and I’m a left leaning voter. (For transparency I have typically voted Labour and/or Green, I even stood for the Greens back in the late 90s and more recently I have voted TOP as well.)
Labour should realize how bad the optics of this are going to be because the screaming question will now be: how will a local board team or Auckland City Councillors who have run on a Labour ticket be able to oppose their local Labour MP or the Labour Government on any of the many central government issues and policies that have a direct impact on councils, local boards and their communities? The answer is: they won’t, which means they will not be able to advocate for and represent their communities with a truly independent voice.
A current example is the government’s proposed Three Waters reforms. Now I’m no fan of the status quo of water management in NZ; I consider water quality to be a key dimension of quality of life for any nation and Kiwi’s have been failed by an ‘asleep at the wheel’ management approach from councils and successive governments that has seen our fresh water bodies literally go to sh*t. So reform is needed. National water standards are needed. But concern over the further retreat of democratic accountability into some centralised bureaucracy is also warranted. Environmental groups are currently alarmed that the Three Waters proposed new standards, which are being promoted by the government as being designed to reduce water contamination, would actually see a 500% increase in allowable levels of pesticide Atrizine a known carcinogen, amongst other concerns. The independent voice of local bodies and democratic accountability built in to future water management will both be vital to ensure the best outcomes for water quality in NZ.
Our democratic process can only be rigorous and robust if local authorities have a clear and strong independent voice. Central government parties meddling with local politics leaves a bad taste for most Kiwis. Labour would do well to remember this.
