Tipa Mahuta\u2019s vote could not be recorded due to technology issues.<\/p>\n
The vote comes after seven councils, including Auckland Council and Christchurch City Council, have left LGNZ, saying it does not deliver value for ratepayers\u2019 money.<\/p>\n
Waikato Regional Council discussed leaving LGNZ in March last year.<\/p>\n
In June, a resolution to stay with LGNZ was defeated, with five in support and six opposed.<\/p>\n
A month later, the council voted on a motion to revoke that decision, which resulted in a 7-7 split and the chairman\u2019s casting vote at the time was to remain with LGNZ.<\/p>\n
During the last local body elections in October, a group of eight people campaigned as the Rates Control Team.<\/p>\n
That team included elected councillors Maher, Downard, Dunbar-Smith, Hughes, Cookson, Reymer and McGuire.<\/p>\n
On the team\u2019s website, it was stated that one of their policies was to \u201cLeave Local Government NZ\u201d.<\/p>\n
Yesterday, of the seven, only Hughes and Reymer voted to leave LGNZ.<\/p>\n
While the team\u2019s campaign website is still active, the part with their policies and their members has since been removed.<\/p>\n
Depositions<\/p>\n
The New Zealand Taxpayers\u2019 Union asked to speak at the meeting yesterday, but the council declined this.<\/p>\n
LGNZ chief executive Scott Necklan was granted permission.<\/p>\n
Necklan said LGNZ had worked with members across the country to hear about their priorities and needs to better advocate for members.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s absolutely critical that every sector has a really strong voice … particularly the regional sector, given the simplifying local government policy reform that\u2019s underway at the moment.\u201d<\/p>\n
Ratepayer Brett Murphy, in a deposition at the meeting, said leaving LGNZ was a \u201cno-brainer\u201d.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf you really do care about the poorest members of society … then you should be taking every step to cut costs rather than flogging a dead horse like you\u2019re currently doing,\u201d Murphy said at the meeting.<\/p>\n
Murphy voiced his disappointment with the five Rates Control Team members who voted to stay with LGNZ.<\/p>\n
He said, in his view: \u201cI have to say to you all that you\u2019ve decided to go back on your word today, you\u2019re not fit for any kind of office, and you would quite rightly deserve the reputation of being a grifter.\u201d<\/p>\n
What councillors said<\/p>\n
Maher, who is the council\u2019s chairman, said at the meeting that elected members had to make the \u201cbest decisions for the whole region\u201d at a time of significant change for local government.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s not only the restructure of the government, it\u2019s the RMA [Resource Management Act reform].<\/p>\n
\u201cNot only can we push it [issues] with our own ministerial contacts, we can get local government [LGNZ] to drive that message in too. So there\u2019s a real value.\u201d<\/p>\n
He admitted he was in favour of leaving LGNZ in the last triennium, saying in his view they \u201clacked regional advocacy\u201d and were \u201cfinancially inept\u201d, but this had changed.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe environment has changed since those pledges [for leaving LGNZ] were made.\u201d<\/p>\n
He said the changes LGNZ had made allowed for \u201ca lot more regional input\u201d and financially, they had \u201cstepped up\u201d.<\/p>\n
Deputy chairman Downard said that although he originally intended to vote to leave LGNZ, he had done a lot of thinking over the last seven months.<\/p>\n
\u201c[LGNZ] are another tool to help us get \u2026 the best we can for the ratepayers.\u201d<\/p>\n
Dunbar-Smith said when he was campaigning, he signed a pledge to \u201coppose any measures that will see the total burden of rates, levies, and additional council charges exceed inflation and population growth\u201d.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019re well under inflation at the moment. I continue to support controlling rates, and I will continue to do so.\u201d<\/p>\n
He said staying with LGNZ for one more year would allow the council to hold LGNZ to account.<\/p>\n
McGuire said he changed his mind as the council needed \u201cevery tool in the toolbox\u201d, but said it was \u201cconditional\u201d.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf they\u2019re [LGNZ] not \u2026 helping us with our farmers and our issues that we have here, then I would be the first to say, take the head off.\u201d<\/p>\n
Cookson said he had been \u201con the fence\u201d through the whole process. He voted to stay, but wanted clearer guidelines in future.<\/p>\n
Reymer said in his view, LGNZ\u2019s deposition did not sufficiently specify what they had changed recently and he was unsure whether the changes were \u201cmeaningful or significant\u201d.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019ve seen nothing to convince [or] change my thinking on it.\u201d<\/p>\n
Hughes said that to ratepayers, remaining with LGNZ would be a \u201cbetrayal of trust\u201d.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf you vote against this resolution to resign from LGNZ, I [respectfully] suggest you consider that vote is [at odds with] your aspirations to being a trusted politician,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
\u201cMy advice is, don\u2019t bother standing for public office in future.\u201d<\/p>\n
Malisha Kumar is a multimedia journalist based in Hamilton. She joined the Waikato Herald in 2023 after working for Radio 1XX in Whakat\u0101ne.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Tipa Mahuta\u2019s vote could not be recorded due to technology issues. The vote comes after seven councils, including…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":406532,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[62242,209336,5205,38290,26519,1342,266,209,305,685,12514,440,111,43,139,69,90,10010,16485,14152,5914,2069,61,22052,1524,379,80],"class_list":["post-406531","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-new-zealand","tag-backtracks","tag-campaigned","tag-council","tag-councillor","tag-councillors","tag-five","tag-government","tag-group","tag-have","tag-last","tag-leave","tag-local","tag-new-zealand","tag-news","tag-newzealand","tag-nz","tag-on","tag-promise","tag-pushing","tag-quit","tag-regional","tag-stay","tag-to","tag-voted","tag-waikato","tag-year","tag-zealand"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/406531","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=406531"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/406531\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/406532"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=406531"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=406531"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=406531"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}