15 May 2026
Isaiah 40: 29-31: “He gives power to the weak, And to those who have no might He increases strength. Even the youths shall faint and be weary, And the young men shall utterly fall, But those who wait on the Lord Shall renew their strength; They shall mount up with wings like eagles, They shall run and not be weary, They shall walk and not faint.”
Another week goes by, and things are moving fast in local government. We now have slightly less than three months to decide where this Council wants to go, and as I see it unless a bunch of concerted proposals are submitted by 9 August the government will be putting us all where they want to regardless. If their received proposals are scattered in all directions that will absolutely give them the licence to do that, and like it or leave it I am sure they think that quite reasonably so. So how might those chips fall? Well if a webinar I attended a week ago with the Department of Internal Affairs (DIA) is anything to go by – and these are the people administering the Simplyfing Local Government reforms and making the final recommendation to government – the major factors will be transport and water catchment. As I read it the transport element isn’t of much relevance to isolated places like Taupo, since the state highways which connect us elsewhere are already governed by NZTA – so for us it will be all about water – and as we happen to have the largest water source in the country which feeds about a third of the countries population (apparently), that means a Waikato Super Council just has to be beckoning.
So in the basis of transport I think places like Hutt City Council and Selwyn District Council will find it hard to avoid getting sucked into the new super Wellington and Christchurch super Councils no matter what they come up with, and we are in that same boat with water. But it isn’t a done deal yet, and I figure that roads are a bigger driver for amalgamating just because new ones cost so much to build – so there is still this window of opportunity to bring about a different result if we want it hard enough. And if we end up tied to a place like Hamilton, we will certainly become like minnows in the stream. I have worked out that some other Councils like Waitomo and Otorohunga already have a head start because they have been talking about it for ages, and the South Waikato look as if they are ahead of the game too, let alone Napier and Hastings which really should have amalgamated ages ago. But what do we really want to do? Because whatever we get stuck with could be for the next 40 years. Yes, this does matter.
And it really is all about cost, right? Because its the ongoing rampant rates increases which are the reason that the government is stepping in with these forced amalgamations, and is quite probably the main concern for you too. The fact is that our most vulnerable fixed income retirees are being forced off their land like here, and the implication of that is quite sobering when you consider the below statistics (sourced from a recent Taxpayer’s Union newsletter):
So what else has been happening in Council?
We had our second Water Services Committee meeting yesterday with a few things of interest – and believe it or not, water services can actually be quite interesting once you start looking. You can watch the entire meeting youtube HERE if you have a spare couple of hours, and as always the agendas are available HERE.
Item 5.2 was my successfully passed Notice of Motion for introducing some additional practical measures of affordability to which you can watch my 5 min presentation HERE, where I relate potential water service overspending to the over- complianced road cone nightmare which this country is only just waking up from, and I even manage to pseudo-quote the Lorax when I say: “UNLESS we start asking the right questions, we could end up just like the road cones. And if this Water Committee is the one which starts sounding any alarms, believe it or not then that actually makes us industry leaders”
Next was Item 5.3 presented by Nicola Hancock the Compliance and Monitoring lead who talked about all the water quality data gathering and gadgets which you can watch from HERE (and yes, road cones did come to mind), followed by Item 5.4 which was Tom Swindells Asset Water Manager with a very interesting presentation which you can watch HERE about the history of water treatment in the district from the year dot and where we are headed now. This includes the very compelling case for introducing water meters to every household – it means we might not ever need to build another water treatment plant for Taupo, whereas without meters it could be as soon as just 10 years away, with the long-term prognosis being that we would save around $45M over the next 30 years. Basically, the message is that making people pay for water they use will greatly incentivise water conservation like fixing that leaky tap (other parts of the country which have introduced meters have reduced demand by 30% or so). Anyway there will undoubtedly be another side to this equation, but if it doesn’t stack up then water meters it will just have to be.
In other news:
Talkfests continue: A few more Councillor Connect sessions happened this week and some were even audio-visual recorded like the Wairakei one which you can watch HERE. I gather there were also sessions in Nukuhau and Kinloch but didn’t make it myself to any of those.
Speaking of the devil: There were some Turangi committee co-governance meetings last week which were not audio recorded despite this being requested, because the Chair of that committee Te Wharau Jnr decided to refuse on the basis that several committee members were not very keen. I don’t believe in opacity where local government is concerned, and will be taking this further with the Ombudsman who have already told me they are keeping an eye on this place with this sort of thing. So watch this space.
And on that note: Next week on Tuesday we have a CLOSED workshop on the Broadlands Road Landfill Resource Consent. This is actually quite a big deal, because the hole is nearly full and if we don’t get a consent to make it bigger then we could end up trucking our waste elsewhere like Rotorua does – and that ain’t cheap. So if you are concerned with the price of rubbish bags now, things could get worse. There is a working group that includes Councillors Murch and Taylor who have been looking at this the past few months, and I believe there have been meetings at various marae. But you guessed it that cultural concerns are looking to be the biggest potential hiccup, and when that happens the doors of public scrutiny often get closed. I have requested to the Mayor and Chief Executive for this meeting to be made public and recorded, but so far had no response.
Christine’s Rant’in again: This time Councillor Christine is talking to the other Duncan about things like: state of the nation; local government; co-governance; and how its all going at our place Taupo – and according to Christine, things are looking pretty grim.
In the news: Councillors Wahine Murch, Ngahuia Foreman and myself took the opportunity to respond to journalist Bronson Perich after he contacted Elected Members for comment after the amalgamation announcement week before last, and you can read the article HERE. In addition, Wahine put together a nice 4 min summary which you can watch HERE.
Mosque stirs up: Seems like a new mosque happening in Taupo town is ruffling a few feathers if this social media post is anything to go by. Resource consent has already been granted, but a petition is afoot to try and stop it happening. I don’t quite understand the crux of the objections yet, but am guessing that some people are thinking of what is happening in Europe – but we are a long way from anybody, and boat people don’t come here. Another space to watch.
Te Reo only: New cafe Rumaki is set to open in Rotorua where the catch is you are only allowed to speak Te Reo. I don’t know how successful their shop will be, but as an opening strategy I cannot imagine a better way to get all the free media attention that they are getting, and as a tourist mecca for that sort of stuff must be the best place in the country to try it on. So good luck to them majorly, and it just goes to show that novel ideas are often worth a go.
Lake Rotoaira is doing it better than us: About the Gold Clam invasion that is , with certifications and wash stations at their boat ramps – why can’t we do the same? It doesn’t pay to think about if/when gold clams happen to Lake Taupo, but perhaps that is the biggest problem – we aren’t thinking hard enough.
Fiver ever going to finish?: Okay so my last weeks post which included some words about the Five Mile Bay occupation stirred a few people up. All good I say, and the sooner this is brought to light the better. I have a relation within Department of Conservation (DoC) who is familiar with the way these settlements go down, and he tells me they invariably happen behind closed doors (it was Doc land prior to around 2019). I did some initial investigations a few years ago and at least ascertained that it was Crown land around the year 1900, so it is a very good question as to whether previous to that the land was legitimately sold or confiscated as some maintain. It would take some additional expense to try and get an answer to that question (if there is any documented, that is), but if anybody wants to take it further I may be able to point them in the right direction – so feel free to message me if you are so interested. In any case, it is 100% certain that the old freedom camping area is a designated Recreational Reserve which is meant for the benefit of all the public and not just depending on whose cousin you are. If anybody has any doubts about this, you can check out the Treaty Settlement documents HERE.
Fridays Financial Friedman: Listen to this guy Milton Friedman, I think you’ll find he’s really good.
duncandoestaupo.com 