3 July 2026

The last stanza of Rudyard Kipling’s “If”:

We plod on, we do plod on, in this beast called local government. Sometimes I really wonder how I ever got entangled. A big reason I chose to become self employed ten years ago was to escape the office politics, so why on earth did I choose to do this? Although no human endeavour is ever completely pure of self-serving interest and gaslighting excuses, I have never encountered it on such a grand scale before. I have found it pays to remind myself that anytime in Council should feel an alien experience where normal forms of human encounter do not apply, because the day it doesn’t is the day you have succumbed. Anyway below is how it all went down, and just as well we have the football.

Amalgamation fumblegation: On Tuesday we had our first Council meeting where we discussed the Head Start pathway which you can watch HERE and read the agenda HERE. Just an hour before, we were introduced in the backroom to some spreadsheet analysis our financial manager Sarah Matthews has undertaken and only now shared. We were told that we would receive some comparative analysis by early June or around a full month ago, but this was the first we have been presented with and only minutes before the debate. The spreadsheet contains information that is publicly available and apparently took some time to prepare, and is being held by Mayor John Funnell as so crucially important towards future negotiations that it needs to be kept secret. My own point of view about that is somewhat different: that it contains many assumptions and its comprehension in layperson terms is definitely questionable. For example there is a dubious assumption that larger entities will be more efficient, and a fairly obvious lesson that it may be unwise to shackle oneself with others already heavily in debt. But I say that irrespective of all that, the ringfencing of debt and the TEL fund are still valid bargaining chips – otherwise is it fair for Taupo ratepayers to pay for Hamiltons rapid development? This Head Start process is a large piece of work being required very quickly, and I think it is wrong to be backroom manhandling – but that is how Mayor John Funnell wants to play the ball. The only reason I am not publishing the secret spreadsheet for your viewing anyway, is that I don’t think its important enough to cause even more friction in Chambers than there is already. Ugh, is it living in a small town?…

So one thing I am really quite wary of with any amalgamation is that the small town small mind predilections of Taupo District Council will be magnified even larger (e.g Option 3), and that is one positive thing in favour of say hitching with a city like Hamilton. In hindsight, instead of staff I think we should probably have engaged a consultant for a more objective point of view like Wairarapa Councils did (although to be fair, they have been talking about amalgamation for over a decade). I asked AI to compare with some other Councils Head Start progress with the output shown below… you get the picture.

One thing I did attempt to highlight in that Tuesday meeting is that the Backstop Option D to stay independent is still a very practicable option, and we could become our own Unitary Authority like Rotorua is apparently considering (there are many more options than just four, but these are what was narrowed down to). I say that unless the Local Government Act gets changed, constituents of the Taupo district still have much protection to just being swept away in something ill-defined and un-consulted. The only public consultation undertaken for this very significant decision has so far been rushed and bereft of useful information – in other words it was not “meaningful”, and that has significant legal implications as this Simpson Grierson advice does point out. So we could probably stay put until 2031 in the meantime which anything could happen – but do we really want for that?

While we are on the topic of comparisons, the above secret financial analysis by Council staff is all very well – but what about condition of the infrastructure? Because although financial modelling does help assess the affordability of various arrangements, infrastructure due diligence helps identify the condition and future obligations of the assets that would be inherited under those options – so both perspectives are important to informed decision making. I put a few hours into this question in the past few days and using AI managed to prepare this quite comprehensive summary of all our potential Council partners. What do you think? I have not verified each and every source, but it is looking very useful to me and I will be asking for staff to carry it on.            

NOTE: This assessment is a desktop review of publicly available information relating to the infrastructure assets and asset management practices of councils included in the Head Start structural reform scenarios. Sources include Long-Term Plans, Infrastructure Strategies, Asset Management Plans, Annual Reports, and other publicly available technical documents. The assessment is intended to complement the Head Start financial modelling by providing a comparative overview of infrastructure condition, future renewal risk, and asset management capability. It is not a detailed engineering audit and does not rely on internal asset management databases, condition survey data, or other non-public information.This document was prepared with the assistance of artificial intelligence (AI) to support document review, comparison, drafting and presentation. All findings should be independently reviewed and validated against primary source documents before being relied upon for policy, financial or engineering decisions.

Anyway on the basis of the above effort, I should be expecting some plaudits from the Mayor don’t you think?

Okay in other news less depressing but only just:

Didn’t you vote for something different? We also had a Council meeting Tuesday later that day where the Annual Plan got approved with my own and Councillor Hope Woodward’s voiced disapproval (you can watch HERE and read the agenda HERE). My concern is not so much the final number of 6.6% which is just 0.1% less than the orginal forecast, but how we arrived at it. This Council is simply not exercising sufficient oversight of its own expenditure. We rely too heavily on staff to identify savings, rather than elected members being given proper opportunity to scrutinise spending and explore different ways of doing things. That is reflected in the excessive financial delegations given to the Chief Executive in 2022 (watch my previous video on that topic HERE), a culture that too often treats operational matters as being outside the governance role, and the frequent refusal of information requests from individual elected members. In my view, governance is about setting direction, holding the organisation to account, and ensuring value for money for our ratepayers. We are not doing enough of that, and for that reason I did not support this Annual Plan nor the last three I have voted against. Before asking our community to pay more, I believe we have a duty to demonstrate that every reasonable opportunity to reduce costs has been rigorously explored, and that goes for everything from pedestrian islands to multi-million dollar gas flares for a landfill. We do not meet that standard by a very long shot.

Screaming from the hilltops: On that note we also had a Long Term Plan (LTP) workshop which you can watch HERE, and I voiced some frustrations including that staff are given carte blanche licence to present their own subjective viewpoints with Elected Members wishing to say anything contrary getting 5 minutes only (even members of the public get more latitude in a public forum). But I have to acknowledge Councillor Rachel Cameron’s filling in for the Deputy Mayor’s absence to present a pleasant facade of responsible governance leadership.

Taupo Airport goes live: Thanks to my request the Taupo Airport Authority (TAA) Committee meetings are now going live, with its first from Monday gone which you can watch HERE and read the agenda HERE. The most notable thing mentioned was the uncertain state of the airport runway which could require a lot of $M’s to repair and which even garnered a Waikato Times article about it. We are still awaiting further findings about it, so watch this space.

Taupo connects but only just: We had a Taupo ward Councillor Connect forum on Wednesday night at Waitahanui Community Hall which you can watch HERE if you’re keen, but only about six people turned up and the topics discussed weren’t too mind bending. What is it about smaller communities like Mangakino that get more people interested in things like this?

Middle of the pack nothing to be proud of: The Taxpayer’s Union Rates Dashboard 2026 is now out where you can see for yourself how Taupo stacks up against the rest. We aren’t the worst by a long shot but certainly not anywhere near the best.

Un-natural justice: Last week or so Rotorua Councillor Robert Lee gave a comprehensive breakdown of the Code of Conduct (CoC) process of Elected Members as evidenced by South Waikato District Councils abhorrent $34K persecution of Councillor Zed Latinovic for a raft of negligible so-called offences. You can watch HERE for Cr Lee’s lengthy presentation to a packed community meeting. Fun facts: Investigators are paid by Council so that means by definition they are far from independent, and CoC’s weren’t a thing until 1998. Imagine being in a courtroom where the prosecuting lawyer has unlimited resources and is also the defacto judge, with your own defence being limited to just 15 minutes and without a lawyer unless you pay yourself – and you will get a feel for Zed. In other words: the CoC process gives official licence to ratepayer funded hit-jobs on Elected Members the Mayor doesn’t like, and it deserves to be scrapped.

Bird flu coming near you: Yes its true Council are preparing and I’ve even heard them talk about it, watch HERE if you want to know more about it.

Since its World Cup: For one of the most politically incorrect and hilarious football diatribes of all time by a disappointed Iraqi supporter watch HERE

Fridays French fabulous of the week: