6 November 2026
Disclaimer: I do occasionally use AI, but almost never in any of the text for these Friday updates.
Words from Dietrich Bonhoeffer, a German pastor who was hanged in 1945 for his vocal opposition to the Nazis:“The deceit, the lie of the Devil consists of this, that he wishes to make man believe that he can live without God’s Word”.
Friday is upon us once again with a slightly shorter update than usual as my attentions have been largely elsewhere, not to mention tomorrow’s national election seems as if it could be quite a big deal. It could also spell the future for Taupo District Council, because if the National coalition get back in I say there is fat chance we won’t get amalgamated with a larger Waikato Unitary. If Labour gets in they might possibly leave us alone, but I still think probably unlikely. Anyway time will tell on that front, and I hardly think people are casting their vote just on the basis of local government. Having said that though, the Taxpayer’s Union have just put out a short publication entitled The Ratepayers’ Guide to Election 2026: Where do the parties stand on Local Government? which you can read HERE with a summary of conclusions given below. In large measure I would have to concur.
So what else is up?
By the numbers: There was a Representative Review workshop on Tuesday which you can watch HERE and/or read the AI summary HERE. Basically this happens every six years with the last one back in 2021, and even though amalgamation is hanging over us the government still expects it to be done. We are talking questions about ward boundaries with which we are presented with around 10 options, the number of Councillors per ward (supposed to be within around 10% of the population proportions), and even if we might consider the introduction/reinstatement of Community Boards. On that last point Councillor Westerman made a good point that Community Boards could be pointless when full Council can simply override their work – to me, that only highlights the need to empower them with some actual decision making authority which hasn’t happened in the past. Anyway, whatever we come up with will be put out for public consultation around April next year, and although this could be opportunity for a helpful rejig I suspect with the threat of amalgamation we won’t be seeing too much thinking out of the square.
Reserve or not to reserve: On Tuesday there was also a Reserve Management Review workshop #2 which you can watch HERE and/or read the AI summary HERE. Nothing too dramatic except say the discussion about the future of camping at Hipapatua Recreational Reserve / Reid’s Farm, but nothing was conclusively decided.
Supergold for oldies stays! Following a lengthy public submission process held by the Waikato Regional Council Transport Committee (WRCTC) over the past several months regarding proposed public transport fare changes along with quite a few hours of listening to public submissions earlier this week, we now have a conclusion. If you want to listen to the approximately one hour of deliberations you can do so from HERE, but the gist of it is basically pretty good for the Taupo district. The originally proposed removal of the Supergold subsidy during peak-hour travel times was scrapped following quite a bit of submitted public opposition, and with the given cost to retain it at around $150K the general mood in WRC Chambers was that removing it could be seen as just a little too extraordinarily mean. Of note: the government at present does not subsidise peak-hour Supergold users, and WRC by doing so is quite a national outlier (although Auckland does subsidise evening peak only). I did my bit to stick up for our own most of the time nearly empty Taupo bus, but there seemed to be no compelling evidence that Hamilton peak-hour buses are full to capacity either (i.e. to really justify kicking the oldies off). Apart from that, I have been forwarded the below estimations for the new bus fare restructured prices, and they aren’t looking too bad at all and certainly a lot less than inflation:
On that positive note: Good news for transport challenged Mokai residents who from 20 October have been getting three weeks of a trial van service for them put on by Lake Taupo Rotary which you can read about HERE. I am not sure exactly whose initiative this was, but the TDC Council community development team and Lake Taupō Charitable Trust are also involved, and as per the picture it looks as if former Councillor John Williamson is also making himself useful in his retirement. This need was on my radar as your representative to the WRCTC, but it just seemed to get put in the too hard basket for them. So it’s great that locals got together to do something positive and for themselves, I think we could do with some more of that around here.
Keyboard warriers can die by the sword: Bay of plenty Regional Councillor Raj Kumar got in a bit of hot water lately for his an off-colour election snipe on social media which you can read about HERE. Perhaps Raj’s main problem is that his sense of humour is a bit wry, and if English is his second language it won’t be helping. Instead of his posted: “A normal day in the heights of Rotorua 3010. They [are] beating up a person who’s voted for the Labour Party. Do the Right thing and stay clear of the left”, I suggest he could have got away with something like this and also been more poignant: “A normal day in the heights of Rotorua 3010. Like the guy on the ground is how we could be feeling after a few more years of Labour after November 7. Do the Right thing and stay clear of the left”.
Invercargill votes No where Taupo said Yes: You can read about it HERE, with the Council furthest south basically saying they are happy to go along with the governments decree that non-elected members of Council committees don’t get to vote, and this despite their staff recommendation and petitioning by mana whenua. The Taupo District Council staff report of October 27 also recommended we seek exemptions and for all 19 non-elected members, about which I wrote my sceptism about last friday which included the “unfortunate delay” of received important letter from Ngati Turangitukua. I suppose the fact we voted to seek exceptions for just six including four of the Turangi Co-governance Committee, served to give the appearance of a sensible political compromise. It’s all about the optics, you see.
AIDE for Elected Members: Now this does seem promising. A motivated individual has with the help of contributing local government elected members (I was one of the guinea pigs), developed an AI tool for Councillors to use. It’s not free and I haven’t tried the latest version, but it looks as if it could be very useful, and they are even offering full Council subscriptions from $400/month. So watch this space, and if anybody wants a 14-day sample then you can try it HERE.
Fridays why would you want to be me?:
