4 September 2026
Disclaimer: I do occasionally use AI, but very rarely in any of the text for these Friday updates.
Ecclesiastes 3 1-3 is about death and life and turning things around, things we need to do almost every day: “To everything there is a season, A time for every purpose under heaven: A time to be born, And a time to die; A time to plant, And a time to pluck what is planted; A time to kill, And a time to heal; A time to break down, And a time to build up;”
Hi all its Councillor Duncan calling again, and this week in Council not so much went on – oh we did have a Water Services Committee on Tuesday which you can watch HERE but there isn’t much to report as no decisions were made and the talk was fairly idle. But we did have a few things of interest being put out by some politicians, like Prime Minister Chris Luxon last week now saying that they perhaps won’t force any Councils to amalgamate – which is completely contrary to the previous messaging put out by his Minister of Local Government Chris Watts. I think National are possibly now thinking that getting re-elected now means everything, and anything they said before might count for less. But we won’t have long to wait and see if that’s true, because the amalgamation announcement is set to come out in just a few weeks time.
There is also now some confirmed and legislated rates capping being set in place, but they won’t apply until 2029 and Taupo Mayor John Funnell is already putting out some warning signals that public services will inevitably suffer. But his message comes without much explanation of how or where we are making any savings now, and of course the Annual Plan (AP) just recently signed off at just 0.1% less than forecast didn’t give many hints either. I recently put a list of specific questions about AP projects which still remain unanswered, and Mayor Funnell told me to not waste staff time! Water services are unfortunately excluded from rates capping, and as they make up roughly 40% of expenditure it is a moot point if ratepayers will much notice the difference anyway. We have a Water Services Committee which could dictate some capping on the basis of affordability, and a Water Services Strategy is currently being developed to be public consulted late this year which potentially could include that. But there is no willingness to include rates capping at present, so the pressure for it to happen will have to come from the public – that’s you. Until then, I guess Council Daisy will carry on with the high life as she’s been doing for so long.
I would have thought more informed decision making for Elected Members would be a key way forward to keeping costs down, yet when I tabled two items last week including to help make that happen Mayor Funnell and most of the other Councillors declined to even make comment before they voted against. After I pointed this out publicly as dummy behavior a few of them took offence, but not enough to yet explain themselves why they took that stance. Which is a shame for transparency to the public, whom from my social media responses seem to find it hard to discern between a convenient or wise silence. To that I say that dummies can still be dignified, but they are dummies all the same.
In other news:
You get to pay for our mistake: On Tuesday we did have an update around the Taupo Landfill resource consent saga, and I’m afraid its not looking good. The last time I reported on this was in May and the trajectory is roughly the same. To cut a long story short – the landfill is forecast to be full by end of 2027 with a new resource consent required to expand, and Taupo District Council have left things too late to get it for Environment Court hearings to be done and dusted in time if objections are received to drag things on – and it is looking like the working group which includes Deputy Mayor Kevin Taylor and Councillor Wahine Murch haven’t been able to placate affected natives enough to stop that happening. Yes folks, that could mean up to around $4M or so a year additional costs to truck our waste out of district, and all because we didn’t start the consent process a few years earlier. I wonder if the Chief Executive should be chipping in out of her salary, who after all must be the one most responsible for letting this thing slip? Or perhaps it would be cheaper to pay some $$ to objectors for their inconvenience and make them go away (isn’t that what the Resource Management Act is all about)?
Chipping away: Hamilton Councillor Mesh MacDonald recently broadcast about a change she instigated for getting the more conservative contract estimates out of the mix. I don’t have a problem with staff putting in conservative estimates in a Long Term Plan and before a tender goes out, because as the staff say at least that means they know it can be afforded. The bigger issue is what is in that tender in the first place or even if it should be going out, and if just like in Taupo Elected Members aren’t able to properly influence that – then Houston we have a problem.
Heroes in the fold: I really admire Far North District Councillor Davina Smolders for being an Act party candidate up north, exposing her Council for what they actually are. If I ever thought my job here in Taupo is tough, then get a load of her. The latest is she got booted off a Council committee for only being contrary, but I think they only make themselves look even more stupid to the public and for the government to perhaps step in. So well done Agent Smolders, and maybe somebody should tell Mayor Moko Tepania that Council is not a rugby team, and that Councillors are not his players.
A little left field for me but I’ll say it anyway: New Zealand could be setting itself up for a big fall alright, hear about what is being lined up for the agricultural sector, and how we could be once again snatching for a defeat.
Fridays bit of nostalgia: Anybody remember the political worm which got Peter Dunne into Parliament?
duncandoestaupo.com 