Philippa Baker-Hogan is a triple world rowing champion, double Olympian and seventh-term Whanganui District councillor
OPINION
Two key issues are rattling around in my head at present, along with the day-to-day trappings of being a councillor, running a small business and everything else life throws at us!
Firstly, the mayor and councillors have received a barrage of emails over the last week or so, asking us to rescind our decision to establish Māori wards at the 2025 local body election.
Every council like ours that made a decision to establish Māori wards since the previous Government removed the requirement of a poll, has to reaffirm or change their decision by September 6, under the Government’s Local Government (Māori Wards) Amendment Bill, recently passed. If we reaffirm our position, as I expect, to retain Māori wards, we will also have to hold a binding poll at the 2025 election.
While I completely appreciate and acknowledge the rights of people in our community who disagree with our original decision to request us to rescind it, it is very unlikely I will change my mind and I would be concerned if a democratic previous vote is now overturned.
While the coalition Government argues their bill is a great day for democracy, saying the previous Government ‘took away the voices of local communities across the country and undermined the principles of democracy’, I would argue the Treaty of Waitangi is our founding document, and as Treaty partners, we are obliged to ensure Māori have fair representation at both Parliament and at local council level.
A Māori ward is the only fair mechanism to ensure this and the voice of various iwi, particularly with well over a quarter of our Whanganui region of Māori descent. In my nearly 20 years around the council table there have only been two members I can recall of Māori descent and that is not representative enough in my opinion.
I am proud of how diverse our council is becoming, with equal men and women, some newer and younger members and the LGBTQI+ community represented but I think two Māori ward members will complete a fuller representation for balanced decision-making around the table, that reflects our wider community.
Whanganui District Council building, in Guyton St, Whanganui.
Secondly, some of my colleagues got a bit toey when the Prime Minister lambasted councils for “wasteful spending”, telling us to go line by line, remove bureaucracy, focus on better customer service and end the projects that aren’t delivering value for money.
In my opinion, that’s pretty much what we have been doing with our 6-point plan and many decisions at the recent long-term plan (LTP 2024-34) and pushing an initial completely unpalatable over 20% rate rise to an average of 11.2%.
In saying that, there is no doubt some of our biggest projects and increases to our $160 million debt/loan balance are attributable to the ‘nice to have projects’, like the Sarjeant Gallery (SG) Flight School and Port.
In regards to the Sarjeant Gallery, the ratepayer promised capital cost has gone from $4m to over $20m, including our Three Waters Better off Funding, and is expected to creep further prior to completion in November 2024.
With the ongoing annual operating cost of over $4.5m, I think the council has an absolute duty of care to ratepayers to ensure we pull out all stops to contain cost creep, utilise volunteers, seek other funding and monitor the wider economic benefits of this large project.
I do support doing the basics well, while being aspirational, to help ensure Whanganui continues to push above its weight and deliver jobs, so people can prosper but I think the cost of some of our civic facilities is a significant burden on ratepayers and needs constant scrutiny.
