17 September 2025

Councillor Duncan here, recalling my three campaign priorities:

#1 Restore Democracy

#2 Take Back Control of Council

#3 Cap Rates to Inflation

Today I want to talk about #2 Take Back Control of Council – and I mean from the staff, of course. Because right now a big reason that your rates keep on going up and up is because Council staff dictate what needs to happen and why, and the elected members go along with it (even if grudgingly at times).  I am not saying that the staff are always wrong, but I am saying they will always find reasons to spend more money than we really can afford.

I say that elected members need to get some balls and not just let staff pull the strings.

For this to happen:

• Change of leadership. Elected members need to get their act together and not just act independently, otherwise staff will continue to run the shop as they have been for too long already. That will require elected members to wisen up and practice teamwork to look out for not just their own priorities but also each other’s. Because things like that do not happen in a vacuum, without the right leadership at the helm I don’t think it’s going to happen. Departing Mayor of Invercargill Nobby Clark puts it quite well in this 10 min interview. 

• Staff need to be directed to follow the Local Government Act and start providing elected members with the full range of reasonably practicable options.  This simply has not been happening to date, and a few examples that stand out to me include the Motutere Reserve Management Plan Review which wasn’t even necessary, and the more recent Joint Management Agreement (JMA) where elected members were led down the garden path as if there was only one way to do it.  Being provided with practicable options was something I attempted to table last year through an acknowledgement of an important Wellington case, but was yet again shut down by a leadership that wasn’t prepared to entertain the notion that it wasn’t already happening. Yeah right.

• Delegated Authorities need to change, and for infrastructure spends in particular.  At present elected members get to sign off on Annual and Long Term Plan budgets at the beginning of each financial year, but detail is very skimpy for the hundreds of line items with often just a few words and a big $$ figure beside them.  In my own professional field of transportation it is extraordinary for Council staff to say, go off and build a multi-million dollar intersection upgrade without reporting back for approval of governance – yet that is exactly what happens here in Taupo.  What is most agitating for me as an engineer who is hot on value for money infrastructure, is that I know some projects could have been done for a fraction of the price. 

• More independent professional reviews.  At present we are almost only ever presented with papers prepared from the staff viewpoint, and that can be anything from engineer or planning reports to legal opinions.  Unless you happen to be a lawyer or engineer yourself, it can be very hard to push back on staff recommendations because of the accountability that goes with it.  Professional independent advice does cost money, and my own preference is for elected members to be able to source their own.  I reckon we could start with $10K per elected member, and that would be a bargain if it helps to get some more circumspect thinking to happen.

• Do transparency for real and not just pretend. That means audio-visual recording every Council or committee meeting that involves elected members as many other Councils already do (unfortunately there was no support last year when I tabled this to happen). It also involves elected members telling the public what is actually going on and not just carrying forth the staff censored spin as I believe happens too often around here. I have been doing that the past year or so, but am fairly exceptional and other elected members need to start doing the same.

For the main campaign page to explore all three campaign priorities please head over here