under the change<\/a>. <\/p>\n\u201cFor Rotorua, it\u2019s incredibly important that we are including iwi moving forward, because they are significant landowners and have a long-standing role in the district.\u201d<\/p>\n
Rotorua councillor Robert Lee has frequently raised his view that unelected iwi representatives on council-created bodies have an outsized influence on decision-making.<\/p>\n
He recently abstained from voting on the Te Arawa 2050 Vision Committee because of his \u201cserious concerns\u201d about its \u201cvalidity and legality\u201d.<\/p>\n
Lee told Local Democracy Reporting the Government\u2019s reforms were needed. <\/p>\n
\u201cIn Rotorua, we\u2019ve had multiple committees where unelected members participate alongside elected councillors,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Lee said councillors were elected to make decisions and that unelected people should not have voting rights on any council committees.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe idea of a democracy is that ratepayers are compelled to pay their rates, and they get to choose who spends their money,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Lee said he had no issue with councils seeking specialist advice where expertise was required.<\/p>\n
He pointed to independent Audit and Risk Committee members as a legitimate use of the Local Government Act\u2019s co-option provisions, but believed losing their vote would not be detrimental.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe don\u2019t have auditing expertise amongst our councillors,\u201d he said. \u201cBut it\u2019s really their advice that we\u2019re after.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s not so clear what expertise iwi representatives are bringing.\u201d<\/p>\n
Lee said he believed the Te Arawa Vision 2050 Committee fell within the scope of the proposed law.<\/p>\n
![\"Rotorua]()
Rotorua Lakes councillor Robert Lee. Photo \/ Laura Smith<\/p>\n
In his view, there was \u201cno ambiguity\u201d because the committee was created by the council rather than legislation.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere is no statutory basis for it to exist,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
He was also concerned about some of the council\u2019s iwi protocol committees, which he said did not operate with the same visibility as other council committees.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m not invited to them and not told when their meetings are,\u201d Lee said.<\/p>\n
Te Taru White is a Te Arawa representative on the Te Arawa Vision 2050 Committee and a former Bay of Plenty regional councillor. <\/p>\n
He said the committee was built around a partnership approach between Te Arawa and the council.<\/p>\n
It existed to improve the quality of information going to the council, not to replace elected decision-making, he said.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis is our contribution to the conversation.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe make decisions out of that, not just fall in line, but actually create value for our community.\u201d<\/p>\n
White said the committee did not have too much power as \u201cultimately, all decisions still go to council, and rightly so\u201d. <\/p>\n
![\"Te]()
Te Taru White, who is a Te Arawa representative on the Te Arawa Vision 2050 Committee. Photo \/ Andrew Warner<\/p>\n
He said iwi participation strengthened council decision-making because it brought additional knowledge, lived experience and technical expertise across areas such as land use, engineering, law and environmental management.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe are looking for the best information to come to the council for decision-making,\u201d he said. <\/p>\n
\u201cHaving iwi in that process brings knowledge and perspective. It makes sense to include that input; we add value, you want the best information available.\u201d<\/p>\n
White said the idea that unelected members should not be involved in council-linked processes missed the purpose of partnership arrangements in Rotorua.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf someone wants to remove iwi participation in that feeder information and advisory process, that\u2019s their argument, but I don\u2019t agree with it,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Tapsell said statutory co-governance groups established through Treaty of Waitangi settlement legislation, such as the Rotorua Te Arawa Lakes Strategy Group, were likely to be exempt from the Government\u2019s proposal.<\/p>\n
The group included members from Te Arawa Lakes Trust, Rotorua Lakes Council and the Bay of Plenty Regional Council.<\/p>\n
The proposed reforms would take effect six months after the bill is passed, allowing councils to review committee structures.<\/p>\n
They come amid wider reforms for the local government sector, including a push to merge councils<\/a> into larger authorities.<\/p>\nMathew Nash is a Local Democracy Reporting journalist based at the Rotorua Daily Post. He has previously written for SunLive, been a regular contributor to RNZ and was a football reporter in the UK for eight years.<\/p>\n
– LDR is local body journalism co-funded by RNZ and NZ On Air.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"\u201cThat\u2019s been the challenge with the announcement,\u201d she said. \u201cWe don\u2019t know yet.\u201d Tapsell described the committee as…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":470953,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[12974,238038,5205,4101,58600,7237,78,169636,50521,5365,111,43,139,69,1523,384,2170,49160,43296,55784,63266,12718,1327,13172,223,235422,24688],"class_list":["post-470952","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-new-zealand","tag-change","tag-committees","tag-council","tag-debate","tag-decisionmaking","tag-governments","tag-in","tag-influences","tag-iwi","tag-lakes","tag-new-zealand","tag-news","tag-newzealand","tag-nz","tag-over","tag-people","tag-plan","tag-prevent","tag-puts","tag-reignited","tag-representation","tag-rights","tag-rotorua","tag-spotlight","tag-the","tag-unelected","tag-voting"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/470952","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=470952"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/470952\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/470953"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=470952"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=470952"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=470952"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}