Tauranga City Council<\/a>, with Hastings and Far North District Councils, for being \u201cundemocratic\u201d.<\/p>\nDrysdale disagreed, saying one out of every 11 committee members in Tauranga was appointed.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s just curious as to how they come up with that being undemocratic.\u201d<\/p>\n
![\"Local]()
Local Government Minister Simon Watts. Photo \/ RNZ, Samuel Rillstone<\/p>\n
While some council committees did have decision-making powers, the full council could reconsider those decisions and had the power to \u201chire and fire\u201d committee members.<\/p>\n
The council\u2019s Tangata Whenua Combined Forum had an advisory role only, he said.<\/p>\n
Meanwhile, Wellington Mayor \u2013 and former Labour leader \u2013 Andrew Little said the proposed law change was unnecessary and a provocation.<\/p>\n
He said the current system was working well for Wellington.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt works fine. It\u2019s not just a vote, it\u2019s the voice they bring with it \u2013 but it means the voice counts, because it\u2019s backed up by a vote. It just seems to me another unnecessary provocation by this government towards M\u0101ori,\u201d Little said.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf the law goes through, I will certainly be prevailing on our iwi partners to stay and keep doing what they\u2019re doing, we need their voice, it\u2019s very important to the decisions we take.\u201d<\/p>\n
However, Ng\u0101ti Kuri leader and prominent businessman Harry Burkhardt said it was not worth \u201cdying in a ditch\u201d over committee voting rights.<\/p>\n
Burkhardt, with Mariameno Kapa-Kingi \u2013 then the head of Te Aup\u014duri iwi but now the MP for Te Tai Tokerau \u2013 advised Mayor Moko Tepania when the Far North District Council first set up its Te Kuaka M\u0101ori Strategic Relationships Committee.<\/p>\n
Burkhardt said he was still convinced councils needed to engage with the community about things that were important to the community.<\/p>\n
And, regardless of voting rights, councils still had to have good relationships.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf people want to die in the ditch about voting rights, I think there\u2019s more important stuff that could help. In my view, it\u2019s always around the quality of relationships you have and the ability to have a view and hold a conversation. I think that\u2019s more important than an ideology of democracy.\u201d<\/p>\n
Burkhardt said all too often the M\u0101ori experience of democracy had been \u201cthe majority speaking for the minority\u201d.<\/p>\n
![\"Far]()
Far North Mayor Moko Tepania. Photo \/ RNZ, Peter De Graaf<\/p>\n
Far North Mayor Moko Tepania \u2013 who was at the centre of the social media firestorm around unelected committee members two months ago \u2013 said he acknowledged the Government\u2019s mandate to change the law.<\/p>\n
\u201cRight now, we\u2019re focused on getting on with the mahi and we\u2019ll adapt to this change as we need to,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
If the law change was passed, councils would have six months to review their committee delegations and appointments.<\/p>\n
Tepania said the council had seven committees, five of which had 14 appointed members between them. Two appointed members had advisory powers only.<\/p>\n
Far North District councillor Davina Smolders, whose campaign ultimately led to the law change proposal, said she was delighted the Government had acted to \u201crestore democratic accountability\u201d.<\/p>\n
\u201cGovernments can sometimes move slowly but in this case it moved remarkably quickly. I raised concerns about this at the beginning of the year. And by June we\u2019re already seeing meaningful reform,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
Northland MP Grant McCallum said only elected members should make decisions on ratepayers\u2019 behalf.<\/p>\n
\u201cA significant number of constituents in Northland raised concerns with me about non-elected members being appointed to council committees with voting rights \u2026 While it\u2019s useful for councils to make appointments that contribute to the skills, attributes, and elected members of council, these unelected appointees do not have democratic accountability and therefore should not be given the same voting rights as elected councillors.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Aperahama Edwards, spokesman for Northland iwi chairs collective Te Kahu o Taonui, rejected the idea that M\u0101ori representation…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":463669,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[8831,4496,76914,60157,78,50521,13489,2720,111,43,139,69,5413,12718,16784,11165,223,61,2573,24688],"class_list":["post-463668","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-new-zealand","tag-an","tag-attempt","tag-banning","tag-graaf","tag-in","tag-iwi","tag-leader","tag-mori","tag-new-zealand","tag-news","tag-newzealand","tag-nz","tag-peter","tag-rights","tag-room","tag-silence","tag-the","tag-to","tag-voices","tag-voting"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/463668","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=463668"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/463668\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/463669"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=463668"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=463668"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=463668"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}