The Local Bodies

He knows nothing and thinks he knows everything. That points clearly to a political career.

George Bernard Shaw (1856 - 1950)

Reading the letters-to-the-editor page of almost any Far North newspaper is to witness a literary litany from the disgruntled, the disaffected, the malcontents - and that's just from those elected to public office. They're all at it; the mayor, would-be mayors, a former mayor, so-called iwi mayors and a few old grey self-imagined mayors. Why are they all so publicly cranky?

Neither is the carping restricted just to the local bodies. When Mike Sabin was elected to parliament as Northland MP in 2011 he stated several times that more could have been done in the region in the 24 years John Carter had been in the job. It's not as if Sabin and Carter are from different political parties, but that didn't stop Sabin from pointing out that his 2011 vote count was more than Carter received in the previous election.

Call it post-election euphoria but the perceived lack of humility didn't go unnoticed. The irony, now, is that John Carter is standing as a Far North mayoral candidate in the October elections. Can these two politicians work together harmoniously for the betterment of the region?

John Carter says he'll work with anyone who is elected to office whether at a local or national level. He lists his first priority as communication, particularly since the Local Government Commission will have released its provisional plan by the time the mayoral campaign gets under way in August.

"There is a need for people to be well informed and there will be a lot of comment and debate around the plan. Council is all about talking with people, not to them, so that is one of the major things I'll be concentrating on. It's been a concern from a local government point of view that the region has been divided."

John Carter is known for his diplomacy. Yet when he announced his mayoralty bid on 19th February this year he came about as close he ever has to publicly getting stuck in.

"…the various sectors of the Northland community may have had differing points of view and were not shy about expressing them, but they had always been able to work together for the betterment of the district and its people. That seemed to have been lost at local government level, and the Far North has suffered as a result….," he pointedly declared in The Northland Age.

The incumbent mayor, Wayne Brown, is a master of the pithy comment and if he decides to stand again his forthrightness will enliven what is often (elsewhere in the country) so dreary a process that interest in it atrophies under the weight of sheer ennui. But even as far back as post-general election 2011 and before Carter announced his mayoralty aspirations Brownie was firing an oblique pot-shot at the former MP.

"I think he (Sabin) will be quite good, because he's more likely to put Northland ahead of the party line at times, and it's a while since that happened," he declared, again in The Northland Age.

Is all this public forum sniping a symptom of small-town self absorption, representative of the broader concerns of a wider community or a more malevolent sign of dysfunction among those who are electorally tasked with overseeing our collective well-being? Probably all three.

Now enter other potential mayoral candidates. Current Deputy Mayor, Ann Court, is 'seriously' considering her candidacy for mayor and says frankly she's not happy with the way the council is currently being run. But for the moment she is not declaring her intentions.

"You get the people who say John Carter's not an option and neither is Wayne Brown so we think you should stand, you have a high enough profile.

"On the other hand you get people who say you can't possibly win against John Carter because he's got too high a profile and we think it's best you don't try to split the vote. But right now I'm sitting on the fence getting splinters in the backside."

Having said that, Ann Court declares she has yet to be convinced about Carter's candidacy.

"I need to hear some things from him. My concern is he's a National boy and National's policies have not been good for Northland."

Kaitaia businessman, Monty Knight, could enter this mayoral melting pot too. He has yet to decide whether to stand as a councilor again, let alone mayor, although get fifty people to ask him to stand and hand over a campaign cheque and he says he'd consider it. Like all the others (John Carter excepted) Knight could be hedging his bets. He points to Carter's decades-long healthy majorities in numerous general elections and asks who is brave enough to attempt to woo all those loyal voters away from the 'most popular' candidate.

Then there's Steve McNally who hasn't made up his mind about his potential mayoral candidacy either. He's one of the few sitting councilors who doesn't fire off letters to the editor at every opportunity because, in his words, he's 'too busy taking care of council business'.

Former national election candidate, Labour's Kelvin Davis, has been mentioned in dispatches but it's jungle drum stuff and he would like a dollar for everyone who has suggested he's running for mayor. But he's not.

Come October what we won't see in the Far North is the American-style local election campaign as happened in 2010 in Kaipara where all but one of the candidates put forward under the Kaipara Can banner - and backed by the local Lifestyler newspaper - were soundly thrashed in an embarrassing defeat. Kaipara Couldn't.

Far North councilors are generally non-aligned to any party or cause with the possible exception of John Carter and neither will local body campaigning Far North-style be overtly backed by media. Nonetheless, over the next five months there's bound to be volley of verbosity enlivening the letter pages of your local broadsheet.