7 8 August 2026

Ecclesiastes 11: 5-6 advises us not to cease striving to do good: “As you do not know what is the way of the wind, Or how the bones grow in the womb of her who is with child, So you do not know the works of God who makes everything. In the morning sow your seed, And in the evening do not withhold your hand; For you do not know which will prosper, Either this or that, Or whether both alike will be good”.

This Friday update (being put out on a Saturday morning) is more rushed than usual and for two reasons: first that we have come to the end of a very long road where there’s really not too much more to say, and second that I headed out for my very first day of Winter snow and skiing. Because I only put these updates together starting Friday mornings and I have little inclination to carry it on in the weekend, and the mountain is always a wonderful place to be especially after a trying time as this, and I’m glad I went.

Wow, we decided. I mean at Thursdays Council meeting on Head Start of course, even though we really had already decided last Tuesday. To Backstop – or as some others are choosing to frame it – “put in an alternative proposal”. And I objected to all six resolutions, with only one exception and that was just to let Mayor John Funnell and his Deputy correct the grammar and punctuation. You can watch the full meeting HERE, and read the agenda HERE. For just my own little speech you can watch HERE (including the Mayor’s interesting acknowledgement afterwards that I endorsed his course of action?), and if you would rather read then below is the transcript including links to some of the referred models.

“I’ll start with a quote from the Minister Chris Bishop: “Our message to councils is simple: lead your own reform, or we will do it for you. Either way, change is coming”. These have been probably the most interesting 3 months in my time both this and last term, because it’s amazing how a bit of pressure can bring out the best of people, and also the worst. I think Waikato Mayor Aksel Bech taking the lead on something as constructive as the Western Waikato Unitary Model is extraordinarily commendable and an example of leadership in crisis. In contrast, I find it interesting that we are ending up fighting tooth and nail for more time, and our Mayor using I think, inflammatory and worst case scenarios. Perhaps it is a valid negotiation tactic I am unaware of. But I think with the benefit of history and hindsight may reveal who was right or perhaps even who was right for the wrong reasons.

The problem is I think we have been very much focussing on the form before the function, and become trapped in the financial data over everything and anything else. Because of that we had little to offer smaller potential partners like Ruapehu as they saw themselves losing out, and also to bigger ones like Rotorua because we only saw ourselves losing out too. The government tried to direct us towards catchment based models which we seem to have done anything but, instead thinking that small sub-regional would be better, neglecting to consider that being part of a large Unitary would enable increased influence to Wellington and better access to professional services. Trying to become a standalone Unitary Authority has even been floated as a viable option, which is not necessarily beyond us but would probably be expensive and therefore not very realistic.

I intend, indeed I feel obliged, to submit my own letter giving the government a fuller explanation of Taupo’s position, including that our community has not got strong views opposing the Waikato Western Unitary Council because it simply has not been informed enough to be able to give a proper opinion. And things like TEL and legacy debt haven’t been dealt with, simply because we haven’t discussed them as we decided to leave the negotiations early on.

So today Taupo is making our Head Start decision, but the matter won’t be resting there. We now have three quite similar proposals for large Waikato Unitaries floating round – the Western Waikato Unitary, a Waikato Region Council (WRC) model just recently shared, and my own Waikato Together model which was unfortunately not permitted to be presented in these Chambers for public view. I believe that in September the government will announce that we will be part of one of them, or a variation of them, and it will be a once in a generation opportunity to further develop our preferred future. To reassure our community that we will protect our financial and environmental wellbeing, and even improve community representation. We could decide to try and fight it, but I believe that would be a very big disservice to people of the Taupo District. Instead we should embrace the dialogue which will be taking place”.

So folks this Council is sending in our “proposal” on your behalf due this Sunday, but its really not that. We didn’t follow the rules of the game and are trying to invent our own and plea for more time, which is a hope indeed. I realise that we aren’t the only Council trying to do the same, but the referee Minister Simon Watts only just recently gave a yellow card warning that he wasn’t going to be putting up with any of that. What is it about Kiwis and our predilection to ignore rules and signs, and hope for reasonableness from the other guy? To clarify the situation even further, this from Hamilton Councillor Sarah Thompson about their own deliberations which resulted in not submitting a proposal:

“At the meeting, we were informed (through the mayor from a phone call with the minister the night before) that if we didn’t join Head Start by endorsing the Western Waikato Unitary amalgamation proposal (which includes Waikato District, Waipā, South Waikato, Hamilton and Taupō), then any future discussions about local council representation and reform for Hamilton would happen without us in the room. The same would go for Taupō which has also declined to be part of Head Start“.

One ring to rule them all: I have one more thing about the WRC: even though we know they will be disestablished by October 2028, they aren’t gone just yet. Waikato Regional Councillors voted last week to back a single region-wide Unitary council, and they are submitting their own proposal of which you can read a draft HERE. It is remarkably similar to my Waikato Together and even pointedly names subsidiarity as its basis (perhaps I even influenced them?). In any case – watch this space. I think there is every chance that the government could take it on board to implement and despite peoples expressed intentions to do something else. They could decide that the Waikato kindergarten needs some adult intervention, and to that argument I think the revealed antics in recent days all over the country must have given some ammunition. For example on Friday across the border, Rotorua decided to withdraw from being part of a seemingly done-deal proposal for a Bay of Plenty Unitary, mostly it seems on the extraordinary basis of an adopted informal policy to not include unwilling partners (Western Bays was declining). Nice guys don’t often win by being nice guys, don’t they realise that?

My questions for Taupo: Why didn’t Taupo District Council take the Waikato river catchment more seriously as the basis for any submission, despite the governments clear stipulation to do so? How come we were so apparently oblivious of the Western Waikato Unitary model until the 11th hour? And why couldn’t we pivot last Tuesday or even defer, to at least hear that proposal out before we decided to go Backstop? Folks, Taupo was always going to be a smaller player in the wider game, but I think this Council leadership never had any intention to even have that conversation and instead wanted to remain kings. They were in denial, we had our chance to be part of the wider Waikato conversations which were going on, but we inexplicably dropped out by as early as the end of June. I wrote about this a few days ago in Has Mayor Funnell Dropped the Ball? The answer to that in my mind is clearly “yes”, and although I wasn’t able to exactly pin down who did decide to withdraw, it was almost certainly made by one or more of the Mayor and his Deputy, perhaps also the Chief Executive, who decided on our behalf. Like I said in my speech above: “…it’s amazing how a bit of pressure can bring out the best of people, and also the worst”.

Anyway and apart from all that, I think that whatever we decided in these chambers is not likely to change the final outcome one iota. Its in the governments hands now, and many suspect perhaps they have a plan not prepared to deflect from much anyway. Yes the Local Government Act can give us some protection if we really want to resist, but the government has already mentioned that it intends to pass new legislation to get around that. If Labour get voted in November it could be a different story, but even that is not assured as they seem to have even bigger centralising tendencies although they could relent on this one. So overall, I give it at most about a 1 in 5 chance that Taupo District Council will remain intact after October 2028. Some of you may recall me calling for a revolution in the 2025 local elections, well I think I got that wrong and should have read my history better. Because in this country, the acts of revolution always seem to come from above.

Only a couple of other things and they are on the same topic:

For the latest on amalgamation proposals around the country: you can read HERE , but because its a week old is already out of date.

Councillor Wahine Murch wants us to: That’s right, go to the steps of parliament. Here we have the Mayors of Orotohanga and Waitomo in Wellington petitioning for their own standalone King Country Council. I have already told Wahine that I won’t be coming along, but if she can convince Deputy Mayor Kevin Taylor to protest as well then my world really has gone topsy turvy.

Fridays piece of 70’s nostalgia to keep eggs in your underpants, and dammit why the hell not?