15 September 2025
This is a transcript of the speech I gave at Liston Heights Retirement Village on 14 September 2025:
I’m Duncan Campbell, standing for Taupō Ward and my three priorities are: #1 RESTORE DEMOCRACY, #2 TAKE BACK CONTROL OF COUNCIL, # 3CAP RATES TO INFLATION.
Now a few of us gave a brief talk at the Rotary event earlier this week and I will use this as an opportunity to voice some 1prepared answers to a few un-posed questions where I manage to weave in my Campaign Priorities in any case.
But first I will mention that I am a practicing civil engineer and first term Councillor, and I am very much concerned at how this Council operates. Noises from the Beehive about Councils losing the plot are indeed quite relevant to this place in my opinion.
Question #1 Do I believe rates should be capped to the rate of inflation?
Absolutely yes I do, and that is my #3 Campaign priority. Because the simple fact of the matter is that if they aren’t, then people on fixed incomes who do own homes will be forced to sell them, as I am sure is happening even now.
Okay that is the most obvious why, and what about the how? A better question might be: how did we get into this mess in the first place? I say that the rot started in the 1989 amalgamations when these Council Corporations were set up under a single Chief Executive, the Town Engineer who used to keep things in check was downgraded to middle management (please forgive my bias), and the idea of a Public Service went out the window.
Since then no-one has been motivated enough to push back against the mission creep of unreasonable legislation, and the millions of road cones all around us speak volumes to that.
So it is high time to introduce some limits and on ratepayer terms – Council just has to do things smarter, and it needs to become the new normal.
Question #2 Did I agree with the recent Council decision regarding Local Water Done Well?
As I am on record as the only dissenting Councillor who voted against the preferred in-house option the simple answer is NO, so I will paraphrase what I attempted to say at the time but got shut down by our oppressive Council leadership (and that brings me to mention my #1 Campaign Priority which is to RESTORE DEMOCRACY, part of which does very much depend on replacing the current leadership – because it does quite make the effort of having elections rather pointless, if the people you vote in aren’t even permitted to express their opinions at the Council table).
Anyway back to the subject at hand. At this Council we are often presented with decisions pre-deliberated, framed to funnel consensus agreement, and starved of comparative data – and Local Waters Done Well was no exception to that. Despite months of workshop presentations and even though this was the most consequential restructure of Council in decades, the flow of information did not allow for proper scrutiny at the appropriate times.
That is why I quite clearly saw the chosen In-house option as a means of formalising the powerlessness of elected members who essentially get treated as rubber stampers, and why I tried to put forth that a well- designed Council Controlled Organisation (CCO) with independent Directors might have a better chance of being more transparent and accountable.
Final Question #3 regarding the JMA agreement between Council and TMTB: What is my view of the decision to extend the scope to cover Taupo Moana (Lake Taupo)?
Firstly I will make a correction which no-one seemed to pick up on last Monday – there has never been any decision to extend the scope to cover Taupo Moana. That was something slipped into the agreement by Council staff without the consent of elected members, and once again a classic example of how this Council operates and which desperately needs to change.
Despite the Local Government Act requiring that all practicable options be presented, staff know they can get away without doing this, because only after a decision has been made can it really be put under the microscope. That is via something called a judicial review, which can only happen at extraordinary effort and expense by an outside party. In other words – only by the very wealthy.
This is exactly why my #2 Campaign Priority is to TAKE BACK CONTROL from Council staff who have been running the shop around here as they please, for way too long.
I have a website where I put out regular information about Council matters including a newsletter every Friday. You can find it at www.duncandoestaupo.com
duncandoestaupo.com 