It was an incredible win this week with the Government’s decision to cease appointing unelected members such as ‘youth councillors’ and iwi reps onto council committees with full voting rights.

This is a huge win for the Taxpayers’ Union, our supporters like you, and the efforts to protect local democracy and accountability.

But some think the job to retain local democratic control of community-owned assets is now ‘done’. I’m sad to report that nothing could be further from the truth.

With the momentum on our side, we need to push the National Party to go that bit further and scrap co-governance within town halls once and for all.

Because the job is not yet done.

We’ve had supporters ask us about the status of the unelected “Māori Statutory Board” seats at Auckland Council and Ngāi Tahu’s two unelected seats on Environment Canterbury (the Regional Council). As the law stands, both have full decision-making/voting powers.

Earlier today, Local Government Minister Simon Watts’ office confirmed that despite Tuesday’s announcement, he does not intend to touch these unelected/unaccountable appointments.

His excuse is that they were given the ‘unelected’ seats by Parliament and not the councils themselves.

With respect, Mr Watts, that is a cop out.

As Watts told the media this week: unelected members should not have rights to vote on rates, spending and regulations when they lack a democratic mandate.

Why should that argument apply to some councils and ratepayers, but not others?

The last opportunity to scrap co-governance of water

In just a few weeks’ time, the first new regional water entities under National’s “Local Water Done Well” are being stood up. The policy replaced Labour’s “Three Waters” policy.

But despite the National Party’s firm pre-election commitments of no unelected/co-governance of water assets, that is precisely what we are seeing.

We’ve found yet another example of a regional water entity about to adopt Nanaia Mahuta’s Three Waters ‘co-governance’ structure.

If you want to stop this, I need you to take action and support us right now.

We need to force Simon Watts to use what is probably his last Parliamentary slot this side of the election to stop councils from adopting co-governance.

If it is left until after the election or next year, the entities will already be operating and much harder to fix. That’s why I’m being so direct in asking for your financial support.

Three Waters co-governance is spreading: first Wellington, now the Waikato…

Back in March, we told you about Wellington’s Metropolitan Water Services Delivery Plan. Their plan has iwi ‘partners’ and unelected appointments.

But that was just the start.

In the Waikato, “IAWAI – Flowing Waters Limited” is a full partnership with Waikato-Tainui.

In a matter of weeks, it will take over all of the region’s storm, sewerage, and drinking water assets from the local councils.

The new Waikato water entity is literally identical to what Labour’s Nanaia Mahuta proposed, and National’s Simon Watts committed to abolishing.

And when I say the same, it is exactly the same, but for the name of the committee.

Instead of local democratically elected councils appointing board members, there will be a powerful “Flowing Waters Forum”. The name deceptively understates the Forum’s powers.

Waikato-Tainui have the same number of votes as the council shareholders.

And just like Labour’s Three Waters, while the ‘ownership’ of the water company remains with the councils the ‘ownership’ is a legal fiction. The binding shareholders’ agreement and constitution vests most of the rights of ownership in the co-governed committee! And those agreements can’t be changed without a unanimous vote.

The powers reserved for the co-governed “Forum” include:

1. Appointment and removal of directors/board members of the company
   
2. Appoint the chairperson of the company
   
3. Set the company’s “statement of expectations” which the Board has to adhere to
   
4. Set the company’s “strategies, priorities and plans”
   
5. Set the “key performance indicators” for the Board members
   
6. Undertake the monitoring of the Company (and Directors) in lieu of the shareholders (i.e. the democratically elected councillors).*

It’s now or never

I’m not going to beat around the bush. With a local government amendment bill before Parliament right now it’s now or never, if we are going to push the Government to return local councils (and their subsidiaries) to democratic models and flush out unelected ‘co-governance’ structures.

In recent weeks, Christopher Luxon and the National Party have shown a lot more spine. I genuinely think we can win this, but only with a strong campaign before the new entities become embedded.

Once these water entities have taken over, it will be very difficult to remove them.

Thank you for your support.

Jordan Williams Executive Director New Zealand Taxpayers’ Union