Dialogue: Trading in experience for fresh, open minds

By COLIN JAMES

Business can expect some more uncertainty on Saturday - but it might not be all bad.

About a quarter of all mayors and chairs of the 74 district and 12 regional councils are retiring in the triennial elections.

In Wellington, two-term city mayor Mark Blumsky and long-serving regional council chairman Stuart Macaskill are going.

Others are under threat, not least Christine Fletcher in Auckland, who is facing John Banks, with help from Matt McCarten of the Alliance. There are sure to be other casualties.

This comes after a voter cleanout of mayors and councils in the 1998 elections, a change read by some as paving the way for the national elections a year later.

Add the changes in 1998 to those coming on Saturday, and Local Government New Zealand chief executive Peter Winder reckons as many as half of all elected local politicians will have had at most one term in the job. This is a huge loss of knowledge around council tables.

For business, this may cut two ways.

It will mean more uncertainty as new councillors and mayors get to grips with budgeting, rates-setting and resource management controls.

But it may also mean opportunities to influence new councillors and the reconstituted councils into pathways that are business friendly. Among those departing on Saturday are many with long histories and entrenched views.

Moreover, local government is not disciplined by party allegiance to the extent national government is, and issues and programmes are not as clear cut.

Factions and personal alliances play a much greater part than in national government, and in some councils are all there is by way of organising opinion and decisions. That gives opportunities for organised outsiders to have an input. But it also makes for greater uncertainty of outcomes.

Of course, the local bureaucrats stay put. Much of the actual workings of councils are in fact done by the bureaucrats. And they "educate" new councillors in the facts of local government - the limits to power, the budgetary constraints and long-standing practices.

Education - by bureaucrats and interested outsiders - may be especially necessary this time.

Looming are legislative changes which make it more important for business to take an active interest in local politics.

Prime among the changes is a new local government act which will give councils a "power of general competence" in place of the 800-page hotchpotch of detailed powers in the present act.

The cabinet ticked off the proposal on Monday, and Local Government Minister Sandra Lee will bring in a bill in December for passing next year.

As defined in the discussion document issued in June, a power of general competence will give councils a new, wide-ranging purpose, "to enable local decision-making by and on behalf of citizens in their local communities to promote their social, economic, cultural and environmental wellbeing in the present and for the future".

And it will give them "full capacity to carry on or undertake any business or activity, do any act, or enter into any transaction" and "full rights, powers and privileges" to carry that out.

These sweeping powers have alarmed some in business, who fear local councillors may run amok with pet proposals and social engineering - although the new powers are subject to requirements and restrictions in the general law and a raft of other acts (including the Resource Management Act, the Building Act, the Biosecurity Act and the Land Transport Act).

The powers come with obligations to consult "meaningfully" and potentially can be constrained by "national policy statements" from the cabinet.

There was also alarm at another proposal in the discussion paper, now enshrined in a Local Government (Rating) Bill which is before a parliamentary select committee, to stop absentee property owners - of business premises and baches, for example - voting in local elections. This violates the age-old principle of no taxation without representation.

In addition, the Local Government (Rating) Bill preserves councils' powers to rate businesses differently (that is, higher) than residential property and to cap targeted rates and uniform charges for services, such as water, at 30 per cent of total revenue.

This means property value-based rates are higher, which adds to any disproportionate share business pays.

All this does nothing about the fragmented local power structures.

With directly elected mayors, directly elected councillors and directly elected regional councils, there are three power centres, often at odds with one another.

There is a lot for business to work on.

Feature: Local body elections 2001

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