Local government makes decisions which affect more New Zealanders every day than any edicts from central government, yet voter response is poor. File photo / Sarah Ivey
Local government makes decisions which affect more New Zealanders every day than any edicts from central government, yet voter response is poor. File photo / Sarah Ivey
Opinion
COMMENT
Voters in Auckland and nationwide will soon choose mayors, councillors and members of local boards, district health boards and licensing trusts.
Regrettably, only 43 per cent of voters exercised their democratic right in New Zealand's last triennial local government elections in 2016. Yet local government decisions affect most peoplemore than do edicts from central government.
By largely disregarding local government, central government and the media worsen its plight. Consequently, voters know little about most local government candidates vying for their votes.
This ignorance allows central government, powerbrokers and lobbyists to have a virtual free hand, leading to unwanted and at times dire consequences.
Like a delicate plant, an enlightened democracy will wither and die unless tended with great care. All levels of society need to participate in the democratic process, or its priceless free choice, free expression and personal initiative will be threatened.
An enlightened local democracy is not just a "nice to have" but a prerequisite if New Zealand's population of five million are to be wealthy and equitable.
Our forebears died, with the lives of many others shattered, in their centuries-long struggle to establish the liberal democracy we assume is our entitlement.
The current council members nationwide are predominately white males: middle-aged and a few elderly. They are pejoratively known as "pale, stale males" (I'm of this ilk but without any involvement ever in local or central government).
Only about six per cent of councillors are aged under 40. New Zealand is markedly multi-ethnic with many religions, faiths and ideologies. However, few members of ethnic minorities are elected to local or central government roles. This applies also to young adults.
The Auckland super city, with one third of the country's population, has more than 230 different ethnicities. The makeup of the various councils and boards exemplify the disconnection between government and the general public.
Our mainly 19th-century British-inherited outdated Westminster democracy needs radical revision. The eminent mid-to-late 20th-century Conservative Party politician Lord Hailsham perceptively maintained that Westminster democracy is an elective dictatorship.
Certainly, our mid 20th-century Prime Minister Robert Muldoon was a dictator in all but name. And Finance Minister Sir Roger Douglas behaved similarly in the late 1980s as he ushered in Rogernomics.
Unless we can make our democracy function significantly better, we are unlikely to realise our potential in the contemporary complex, interconnected digital world with its avalanche of information.
The overweening power exercised by central government is shown by how it spends about 85 per cent of the taxation raised throughout the country.
Consequently, local government is cash-strapped, making major local issues such as transport, healthcare, education, housing and the environment extremely difficult to deal with. This is the negation of an enlightened local democracy.
Further, central government is bedevilled by our short, three-year parliamentary term and the short-term perspective of the electorate.
Hence, central government is reluctant to implement legislation addressing major issues for fear of losing the forthcoming election since the hoped-for electoral benefits take time to materialise.
An enlightened local democracy is not just a "nice to have" but a prerequisite if New Zealand's population of five million are to be wealthy and equitable. Finland, Denmark and Norway, whose populations are close to ours, are characterised by their wealth and equity of opportunity.
In marked contrast to us, local government in those countries spends about 85 per cent of all tax raised, enabling many of their local communities and regions to prosper.
Finland's universal high-class school education system is illustrative of this. It is considered one of the world's best. There the creative and performing arts have parity of esteem with the sciences and mathematics. Their schoolteachers are highly respected and well paid. Schools are free to attend and run entirely by local communities rather than diktats from central government.
The competition is astonishing. A Master's degree is mandatory, and only one Finnish applicant in 10 is appointed.
Our schoolteachers are underpaid, with many demoralised and overworked. Their average salary is half that of a backbench MP. Forty years ago, when they were held in high esteem, their pay matched a backbench MP's pay.
Universal, high-quality school teaching is one of the most important requirements for a nation to be successful, equitable and wealthy.
Until our schoolteachers' status and salary are substantially improved, remedying major longstanding issues such as our lamentable, low productivity will probably remain insoluble.
I hope the voters will turn out in their droves for the October local government elections and in the general election next year they will back parties that want to give local government the resources and powers it needs.
• John Hawkes is a fourth-generation Kiwi; a medical graduate of Otago Medical School; a consultant rheumatologist near London for 25 years; a NZ athletics champion; and author of New Zealand: Paradise Squandered?
