Fridays Getting Sucked In

24 October 2025

Councillor Duncan back at you again, and a few people have asked me lately if it is exciting to be re-elected. My answer is that it is about as exciting as having a new baby – I can put on a smiley face for posterity, but not really looking forward to the sleepless nights and nappy changes. But let’s see if things roll different this time, and there are promising signs that things could turn out better than before.

The past two days gone newly elected got to partake in some quite stimulating induction sessions to educate (and remind) what Council is supposed to be all about, and this time round was quite special. We had an ex-mayor from another district come in and run some Q & A sessions along with meeting test runs, and all of the old-hands appreciated we were getting something quite different from what has happened before. It did start off feeling like a family councilling session because of the last term and election travails, and you can probably blame me most of all for that (perhaps also for how this special treatment even came about). I don’t know exactly who arranged it all, but much kudos to whomever did.

But don’t let oneself get too sucked in – I say to others and have to remind myself. Because when things start feeling too cosy, if you want to make a real difference then the battle is already lost.

Just as sure as one plus one equals two, if rates don’t get reined in close to the consumer rate of inflation then the working and middle classes will continue getting smashed. That much is real and we had all better understand it.

As an aside, identifying and defining a problem is the very essence of Critical Thinking. If it doesn’t happen, we could for example end up spending $10M on a water plant upgrade just because some legislation or other says we should – but without bothering to measure the tangible benefits to end users. Or end up with too many road cones. So let’s keep constituent’s best interest first, and do some more of that Critical Thinking.

This week we also have:

Didn’t we do well: Voter turnout for the Taupo district was an impressive 55%, I am not sure if that is any record around here but compared to Auckland’s 35% with closer to 20% in some of its wards – people in Taupo are thoroughly engaged. This article by NZ Initiative tries to piece together why the disparity, with the faceless anonymity of cities being cited as one factor (e.g. in the provinces you are much more likely to meet elected members on the street). But the author also critiques the general failings of local government, and suggests the Mayoral powers granted to Auckland’s Wayne Brown get made available to other Councils – and I tend to agree.

Trojan Horse Code of Conduct: BloggerZoran Rakovic breaks down the governments DRAFT Code of Conduct for local government elected members, and it isn’t very pretty (Zoran ran for Selwyn District Council this year but unfortunately missed out by a smidgeon 80 votes). His conclusion about Section 8 which is to do with Treaty of Waitangi:

“Clause 8 hijacks process to enforce ideology. It crosses the line between governance and governmentality. It substitutes obedience for representation. And so it must be removed. Not softened. Not edited. Removed. Entirely. We have replaced democracy with dogma. We have built a church inside the council chamber. And we have hung the Treaty not as a taonga, but as a warning. You must believe. You must obey. Or you will be called… unfit to serve”.

This is sounding like a convincing deal breaker to me, and who wants to sign up to that? Anyway, the wheels of parliament turn fairly slow in this country, so we will just have to cross that bridge when we come to it.

Housing for the elderly? Dr Wilkinson in this NZ Initiative report questions the viability of government owning rental accommodation, he says: “On the evidence, it is plausible that both taxpayers and tenants could be better off if the Government were less dominant as a landlord and if its subsidies empowered tenants by giving them a greater choice of landlord”. In the past three years I have seen some shaky indicators for the long-term viability of Council social housing, including lesser access to government subsidies which private providers can get. When this question next comes up for this Council, I predict it mightn’t be an easy decision to make and could well be unpopular.

Friends in high places? Sophie M Smith’s latest interesting piece is entitled Dummies Guide to the council hotseat series : The Things We Said We Wouldn’t Take. I personally think politics and governance are not the place to be making friends, because compromise to one’s own reason for being there can inevitably follow. The alternative is school playground antics, which I reckon is pretty much what we have had going on in Taupo for quite a long time. I hope that will change this time round.

WELCOME TO THE MACHINE: As we kick off this new triennium, I thought to upload my four Councillor Chat articles which I posted Jan – April 2024 about how Taupo District Council operated last term. Again, I am hoping things will be different from now on but only time will tell by how much.

Taupo gets the miss: Governments latest release on Roads of National Significance misses us out altogether – aren’t we important enough? In all honestly though, when in 2012 the Taupo Bypass happened I was a little surprised because I thought big stuff like that only happened in the Golden Triangle of Auckland – Hamilton-Tauranga. So I suppose that means we better start writing to our local MP Louise Upston if we want that much better road to Turangi.

Friday call to arms: This 1989 single by band The The took a few years longer than it should to get my attention, but isn’t it such a wonderful premonition of where young people find themselves now?

Plan Change 47: Māori Zones or Nothing Else?

25 August 2025

Tomorrow, Tuesday 26 August from 1pm, your elected members of Taupō District Council will vote on a bundle of plan changes – some necessary and worthwhile, others quietly political.

One of them, Plan Change 47, proposes a new ‘Māori Purpose Zone’ – a separate planning framework for Māori land. Meeting agendas can be found here, and I will tell you now that tomorrows is a bit of a long read.

Let me be clear: I support removing barriers to Māori development. But I do not support doing so by bypassing public scrutiny, skipping alternatives, or building a parallel zoning regime.

Here’s the deal:

1️⃣ No other options – such as planning overlays or targeted infrastructure support (e.g. deferred Development Contributions)- have been presented to Councillors. That breaches Section 77 of the Local Government Act, which requires all practicable alternatives to be considered.

2️⃣ No exemption has been granted by the relevant government Minister to proceed. Yet Council is voting to proceed on it anyway – assuming legal approval will magically follow, or that it’ll be politically awkward to reverse later.

3️⃣ It’s being marketed as a ‘housing initiative’. But this is really about changing how planning rules apply based on group identity – not about increasing public housing, affordability, or urban supply.

Sound familiar?

Just like with the Joint Management Agreement (JMA) debate, elected members and the public are being told one thing – while staff quietly push something else entirely. Your elected members have had no workshops or meetings to properly discuss, and it is being bundled up with a pile of other stuff to help get it through.

Yes, this one will go out for public consultation – and that’s the right step.
But: Will you be told the full story?
And when submissions roll in: Will anyone actually listen?

I’m not here to make noise for the sake of it, but my instincts are telling me this is once again being railroaded. And in my experience of these particular Council Chambers, that often means there’s no room made for dissent, and no interest in real debate. Funny how all that changed when there was a lot of people in the room for the JMA decision a few weeks ago.

This isn’t about race. It’s about transparency, process, and one law for all. Isn’t that what we all want?

Addendum: For those interested, it looks like the Māori Purpose Zone was in fact discussed for about five minutes at a sparsely attended Council workshop on 27 May 2025. You can watch the recording here to see how it was presented.

Censorship on the Field

19 August 2025

Last week, a satirical rugby-themed meme about the JMA decision vanished from Facebook – and with it, the entire Lake Taupo account that posted it. For the record: I don’t know who they are.

The meme showed three Taupo District Council councillors in a rugby maul, ‘driving the JMA upfield’. No swearing, no threats – just political lampooning of the kind magazines like Punch had been doing for nearly 200 years.

So why did it disappear? Not because it broke NZ law, or even any of Facebook’s own rules. More likely:

Moderators in California couldn’t tell satire from ‘harassment’.
A couple of complaints reframed it as a personal attack instead of political criticism.
Facebook’s system defaults to ‘remove first, maybe review later’ – but small-town politics 6000 miles away rarely gets that ‘later’.

That’s the danger. In the middle of a local election that is turning out to be quite interesting, controversial but lawful political speech can be erased with a click – leaving voters with a sanitised version of reality. And don’t get me started on our local Facebook community groups, where moderators ban and delete posts and comments as they please (is it surprising that several months ago I was inexpicably banned from the Tūrangi Noticeboard, whose admin just happens to be partnered with a Mayoral candidate?)

To prove the point, I’m reposting the meme above and this time with harmless cartoon faces, alongside it a Punch cartoon from the 1870s. A reminder that lampooning those in power is a sign of a healthy democracy, not a threat to it.

So if you want uncensored local coverage, stop relying on social media’s shifting rules and sign up for my weekly updates in the below subscription box.
No algorithms. No sudden deletions. No California filter. Just Taupō politics, as it really is.

And yes – if you’ve got satirical material worth sharing, please send it my way, and if it’s sharp enough I’ll post it. Democracy and this place called Taupo need more humour, not less of it. Because you know, that’s what life is also about.

Still Missing in Action: Public Consultation on the JMA

7 July 2025

Thank you to everyone who turned up or tuned in to last Thursday’s Council workshop on the draft Joint Management Agreement (JMA). The public gallery was packed, and clearly this issue has touched a nerve—not just locally, but nationally too. But before another week rolls over this issue, let’s pause and look closer—because the fine print always matters.

Let’s be clear: no final decision has been made yet. But what concerns me—and many others—is the way this process has unfolded. The 2025 draft agreement expands the scope of the 2009 JMA considerably, yet it was progressing quietly behind closed doors. Only when outside attention was forced upon it did this matter finally surface in a more visible way.

Unfortunately, some of the information now coming from Council leadership is adding to confusion. For example:

The Mayor erroneously stated in a recent media interview that the JMA would help clean up emergency spills into Lake Taupō. In reality, this is a Regional Council responsibility—just like the threatened gold clam invasion. These are pointedly not covered by the JMA, even though they easily could be if that were the goal. In fact, as a purported mechanism for keeping Lake Taupō clean and green, I have doubts that this JMA contributes anything too meaningful.
He also referred to Lake Taupō as a “private lake,” which is not only legally debatable but contextually misleading.
The Mayor claimed the 2009 JMA was never consulted on. Yet records indicate it arose from a series of public hui and community engagement processes connected to the 2005 plan change. It may not have met a strict legal definition of consultation, but it certainly reflected a more community-facing era.

Another point worth clarifying: It’s often claimed that iwi or Māori entities own 60–65% of the land in the district, including the lakebed. However, the most reliable figure available for communally owned Māori land is closer to 35%, even with Lake Taupō included. In terms of financial contribution, this equated to just 4.15% of total Council rates intake in 2023/24. That gap between land ownership and fiscal input is worth bearing in mind when we talk about “partnership”.

And then there are the words of one of our own councillors, spoken at the workshop itself:

“Can this documentation be weaponized? Absolutely.”

That should raise more than eyebrows. It should raise accountability.

Bottom line: If the public is confused, they should be invited in—not shut out. If the agreement is sound, it should stand up to scrutiny. But if it contains embedded obligations or shifts in governance, then we owe it to Taupō residents to test that publicly—before it gets signed, not after.

Council staff say that doesn’t need to happen. I disagree.

The JMA will be tabled for decision at the next full Council meeting on 31 July. Councillors will have three choices:

Sign the agreement by majority vote
Defer it until after the election
Open it up for public consultation

You can read the source material for yourself here:

Recent media coverage: here, here & here

As always, I welcome feedback directly—respectful disagreement included.

Let’s not sleepwalk into a governance shift without the public’s eyes wide open.

“Let’s be careful out there” – and not just on the streets.