Tag: jma

Fridays Here See Ya Next Year

19 December 2025

Last post of 2025 from me Councillor Duncan, as Council Chambers has a well earned break until February. I think the newly elected will have had a taste now of the flavour of things to come, and given the challenges already being lined up I am reasonably confident a few are already wondering what they have let themselves in for. My urgent advice for the newly elects:

Try to get along with the others as best you can, but don’t compromise your reason for being there and if you are not sure of that quite yet then please contemplate over the break.

To be fair, it probably took me at least 12 months to figure out just what I was there for.

Yesterday 18 December we had the first Joint Management Agreement (JMA) workshop which you can watch here, and also the last Council meeting of 2025 on Tuesday 16 December which you can also watch here if you haven’t already (for the agenda see here). Tuesday was a fairly marathon session, and that wasn’t even counting the confidential items afterwards which took about another 90 minutes. A constituent came up to me afterwards saying it was the liveliest meeting he had watched in the past 12 months, and he has watched every single one – so that is certainly encouraging. Still a few teething problems with the video recording, but our good people are taking onboard the feedback and making the adjustments that they can. I will go through the issues of the week in a rough order of importance:

JMA Workshop or just a Public Relations Whizzbang? You tell me. I don’t think I really learned much about the JMA that I didn’t already know (and for what I do know you can read here), but the attending lawyer Paul Beverley was pleasant enough and at least we saved a few $$ by zooming him in instead of flying up from Wellington. But he hedged a few of the fielded questions alright, including the not trivial one of just what is mandatory and what is not, and the burning question of ‘how much is this really going to cost?’ we never managed to get to. I did hassle Paul about his on recorded statements that “Māori have a deep and innate relationship with natural resources” which to me implies that the rest of us do not, and I must say his response that it was ‘legislated and incontrovertible’ did catch me off guard – but he has offered to provide details and I am now awaiting his response. However what really strikes me about this whole JMA thing is that things are still so murky. I reckon it is about time we start referring to the Plain Language Act of 2022 which is designed exactly so that public agencies have to ‘improve the accessibility of certain documents that they make available to the public’. For one thing, I reckon we need a bunch of Case Studies so that people can better appreciate the real effects to the average person. Like what about Farmer Fred putting in a new paddock or septic tank, or Suburbanite Sarah living in the catchment area who wants to erect a new garage? To be continued in 2026…

MONEY, its a crime, share it fairly, but don’t take a slice of my pie: Item 5.9 from Tuesday – Allocation of Taupō District Council’s Governance Remuneration Pool (watch here from 1:34:36): This will probably have been one of our more awkward debates of the term, because on one level it is all about elected members squabbling over their salaries. The gist of it is that the Remuneration Authority gives this district a fixed pool of $569, 734 for the 2025-26 financial year, which minus the $159,517 set aside for the Mayor, is subject to agreement of elected members as to how the rest gets shared around. Back in 2022 I recall this happened as smooth as butter, but a few of us old hands from that time are wiser now and saw this matter as much more important than meets the eye. My suggestion for any of the more well to do elected members to donate their salaries to the kitty was not taken up.

My own commentary on this item was regarding the Deputy Mayors piece of the pie, because that is the only difference between the three options we were presented with. My contention was that the proposed Options A & B (1.68 and 1.6 times the base Councillor salary respectively) unfairly overstates the Deputy Mayors roles and responsibilities and understates the rest of us, so I advocated for Option C at 1.4 times the base Councillor salary of around $40K(you can read a transcript of what I said here) – which still represents a substantial premium of $14K above the 2022 figure. When it came to voting on the recommended Option B, four of us objected (Crs Campbell, Rankin, Greenslade & Woodward) – possibly not all for the same reasons as described below – and the motion was passed.

During this debate Turangi Councillor Sandra Greenslade expressed quite vociferous opposition to a proposed community engagement structure which could see the disbanding of the Tongariro Representative Group, and Mangakino Councillor Hope Woodward reiterated her concern with that same possibility for the Mangakino-Pouakani Representative Group as well (there were also two submitters during the public forum at the very beginning of the Tues meeting). What has this got to do with elected member remuneration, you may quite reasonably ask? Well it actually does affect salaries, because last term the Chairpersons of these committees did receive an additional $4k per annum for the additional responsibilities. Now there is a larger conversation still to be had as to the potentially revised format of these committees, because there is a feeling among staff and some Councillors that a less formal community engagement format could be more effective and less draining on staff resources. That discussion was originally intended to happen on Tuesday for leading into some community engagement during the month of January, but was scuppered after it was realised that elected members weren’t all on the same page about it.

So the cart seems to have got before the horse somewhat, and perhaps it would have been better to agree on salaries after this matter of community committees/forums got sorted out. The only opinion I have on this topic is regarding the Kinloch Representative Group which I have been involved with and reckon could do with some adjusting, and it also seems odd that no other community in the Taupo ward has an elected member and staff engagement committee except for them. Anyway it is probably quite healthy to bring attention to it now before any decisions get made early in the next year, and who am I to argue that early warning flags cannot influence the way things turn out?

However in the wider picture of things, there is not much doubt that elected members of this district who take their job to heart are quite underpaid for the good work that they do. With a base salary of just $40K and all the sweat and tears that can come with it, one really has to be a certain type to want to take it all on. And because I can be a bit of a numbers nerd at times, looking further afield I did make made quite an interesting discovery. It turns out that unless anything has drastically changed elsewhere, at a recently negotiated salary of $155,254 the Rotorua Deputy Mayor Sandra Kai Fong will be the second highest paid in the country, with only the Deputy Mayor of Super City Auckland getting paid more. So how on earth does little old Rotorua justify that? Good question. Maybe she has to fill in a lot for second term Mayor Tania Tapsell as she gallivants about the country promoting her district, or maybe its because Ms Kai Fong was a lawyer in her previous occupation and needs it to support her lifestyle?

Kinloch artistic opportunity or a blot on the landscape? Item 5.2 from Tuesday – Reclassification of Kinloch Reserve (watch here from 22:30): This is for the purpose of a new water reservoir to alleviate local water shortages in summer, and the item was passed unanimously. We did have several objectors, one via zoom who did submit quite a comprehensive objection on grounds that included visual amenity and loss of local habitat for wildlife. However this site was chosen by staff after some quite careful consideration, and we were unable to poke any holes in the logic behind its selection. I reckon it poses quite a good opportunity for local artwork if the Kinloch community so decide…

Political messaging in Council reports? Item 5.5 on Tuesday – My challenge to overt political messaging in Council documents (watch here from 1:04:12): The item was only relating to some new road names in the Kokomia subdivision to which nobody had any issue, but I used the opportunity to pop in a burning question which has been bothering me for quite some time. The following statement was first inserted into Council documents around the time of the 2021 Long Term Plan, and gets repeated in virtually every agenda item we get presented:.

A constituent recently challenged this terminology, and even passed on some feedback about it from Minister of Local Government Simon Watts. Diving into it a little deeper myself, it is quite apparent that the Local Government Act only mentions the Treaty of Waitangi and nothing about Te Tiriti, and there is certainly nothing about ‘partnerships‘ either. When I questioned this sort of thing a couple of years ago, the only response I received was: “go do some reading“. Well I can tell you that I have now done my reading, and it is fairly apparent to me that this is a form of political messaging which is every bit as misplaced as if we were repeatedly broadcasting Act Party slogans. I am a little curious how the language did get slipped in, but either way I will be requesting elected members to review – because to me the language implies a settled political position which does not reflect the full diversity of views within this Council or our wider community.

Don’t misbehave or else: Item 5.11 from Tuesday: My request for ALL workshops and committees to be audio-visual recorded during the term was quite well supported by other elected members (watch here from 1:51:46). This is not just for the purpose of tidy public record keeping, but also for the protection of those attending. I am aware of a few unsavoury incidents in the past 12 months involving both members of the public and elected members, and rather than just hearsay there deserves to be some measure of accountability which this could provide. In this day and age when all it takes is a phone and a tripod, there really is no excuse not to.

Apart from all that local stuff, just a few other things:

Can we do the same for Lake Taupo? Taranaki Lake Rotomanu is to be drained in an attempt for scientists to check it out after a gold clam infestation, but I don’t think that is an option here. Is it only a matter of time before a gold clam invasion eventuates? Because unless something is pointedly done to stop it happening, I can’t quite see it any other way.

Is the new Mayor of Napier misguided, or a bad boss, or what? Mayor Richard McGrath’s executive assistant has resigned, saying she can no longer work for him due to his “disregard for Treaty principles”. I wonder if she ever checked to see if that clause was in her employment contract?

See, bad things do happen: Voter fraud by theft of postal voting papers resulted in an electoral result for a Community Board being overturned in South Auckland. The numbers weren’t extraordinarily high, but the evidence that the fraud happened was apparently compelling. I am not sure how the instigator of the review made it happen, because when I made my own enquiries to simply affirm that the same was not happening in Taupo, our Electoral Officer told me to politely get stuffed and that he had legislated immunity to be able to do so. So next time around, I will be asking our Mayor to shop around for another electoral provider (they are a private enterprise) – and get a better contract.

Rates Capping coming in time to save us? Sort of, but not really. Government is allowing until 1 July 2029 for them to fully kick in, so until that happens I suppose that means that Councils like ours can continue to strip you naked with outrageous rate increases (perhaps we might get some slaps on the wrist though). However, an interesting question did pop up at a recent webinar with Department of Internal Affairs (DIA) – What about the Councils which have been diligent up until now (that is, if there are any), but are now requiring new infrastructure to cater for the growth they are now facing? Doesn’t that position them unfairly compared to the less disciplined Councils which already have their setting too high? The answer to that question according to DIA though, is that these are early days and that is a question for later down the track.

Not the panacea its made out to be: Recall that the Turangi Wastewater Plant is being lined up for a $20M land disposal solution instead of the current arrangement whereby the outflow goes back into Lake Taupo via wetlands? It turns out the land disposal option being currently used by Rotorua Lakes Council in Whakarewarewa Forest isn’t working out so well, and although the stated reasons in this article mention cultural I have heard from other sources it may also include nitrogen saturated soils. Rotorua Councillor Robert Lee is also saying this is being dealt with by yet another ‘secret unelected committee‘ – which I have gleaned are quite numerous over there.

Road cone hotline to close: The government instigated hotline to report road cone overuse is shutting down, as they are saying it has apparently served its purpose. However, Councils are not obliged to be fully compliant with the more reasonable and recently introduced NZTA guidelines until 1 July 2027, and I think we are still a long way from taking a good long hard look at things. If we added up how much this country spends on traffic management, I reckon we could well be into the 10’s of $M for every saved life or seriously injured road worker – because after all, that is the point of traffic management. Unless we discover a few more gold mines to plunder, things need to change.

$100B is a lot, isn’t it? Geoff Parker says the $100B Maori economy is a misnomer, and he makes a pretty good case I reckon with remarks such as: “The suggestion that New Zealand must treat Māori as ‘true partners’ in planning, investment, and infrastructure is a political claim disguised as an economic one”. I am certainly not the most financially literate person around, but I do know that book value is not equivalent to productivity or even prosperity – and what really is the ‘Maori economy’ anyway?

Reality check to climate scaredy-cats I didn’t attend myself, but I am sure this 105 min presentation at local Suncourt Hotel by visiting US scientist William Harper will have been very interesting. For others like me who missed it, you can watch it here.

Fridays fire up your imagination: Remember that the reason for the season isn’t somebody called Santa Claus, and please don’t disturb me when I’m writing up these:

Fridays Smokin’ Gun

12 Dec 2025

Councilor Duncan here again, and although it has got a little cooler outside in the last 24 hours it hasn’t much in Council Chambers. Less than one week to go before we break until February, I know Council stuff can get pretty tiresome and a lot of you are already tuning out with Christmas nearly upon us, but here it is anyway.

We have the last full Council Meeting at 1pm next Tuesday 16 December, and you can have a look at the agenda here. The only thing I have spotted of much interest is Item 5.9 being the approval of elected members salaries (and only the Mayors is a set number, the rest are subject to negotiation with the only limit being that the total must equal our mandated pool of $569,734) – because until we do that we won’t be getting any money in our bank accounts for the good work we do. But there are also a couple of other things happening next week which may be of interest.

The first is on Thurs Dec 18 from 10.30 am which is a 30 min presentation open to public viewing and being live recorded on the topic of the Joint Management Agreement (JMA). The presenter is one Paul Beverley, an experienced Treaty lawyer based in Wellington. I did a google research on Mr Beverley, and it seems that typical with this sort of thing, he is not exactly coming from a completely unbiased viewpoint as this article pointedly asserts (I have heard him described as just another lawyer on the Treaty gravy train).

I think one of the first things that needs to be established about this JMA, and which has previously been very muddied, is to establish what are the mandatory matters which Council has to sign up to, and what are the optional extras we don’t? On that point elected members were recently sent this very well put together two-page document from the Taupo Residents Group which makes some very reasonable assertions. However, my request to our Chief Executive to get a written response from Mr Beverley in advance of the meeting has been steadfastly refused, and it seems that flying him up from Wellington for what I suspect is intended as a 30 minute public relations exercise is more important instead. So my advice for this second round of the JMA saga going forward: Be prepared for more doses of spindoctoring. That way you won’t be disappointed, and can be pleasantly surprised if it goes any different.

Also on Thursday and immediately after the JMA session, elected members are having a workshop induction session on Procurement and Delegations (public excluded). This issue of elected members only getting cursory overview of significant financial and infrastructure decisions has been bugging me for a some time now (if any of you have noticed), and one of my 2025 campaign pledges to rectify is to take back control from staff via these Delegated Authorities (i.e. making elected members the signatory approvers of individual items). Because if we don’t get some more accountability of the spending to start happening, I see little hope in getting your rates bill down.

So I started to do a little research on how the current situation came to be, whereby the only real financial oversight we are granted is once a year during a rushed Annual or Long Term Plan exercise when there is never enough time to properly scrutinise even a fraction of the hundreds of line items run past our noses in the space of just a few weeks. And as it turns out, this current setting came about only not long before my inauguration in 2022! Because in item 4.9 of the Council meeting of 25 November 2021, the then elected members effectively handed financial oversight almost completely over to the Chief Executive! This is smoking gun evidence indeed, and if you find this hard to believe then I suggest you read the full item here. This was the adopted recommendation from 2021:

I must say they made it sound quite dandy that Council could be more efficient if staff have less paperwork justifying what they get up to, and only at the seemingly trivial expense of more comprehensive scrutiny by elected members. But the staff presented summary for that 2021 paper fairly well spells it out if you read between the lines, so I really cannot blame them:

So from that day onward the Chief Executive effectively gained almost complete control of expenditure, and now only has to check in with elected members if a line item exceeds $500K more than what was allocated for it in an Annual or Long Term Plan (and they can shuffle money around up to that figure, provided it does not exceed the total Council budgeted annual expenditure). Prior to November 2021, it looks as if any item over $500K was subject to at least some level of scrutiny by elected members because it required their official approval before it could happen, and although the Chief Executive had previously tried the same thing on in April 2018 (Item 5.14) elected members of that time only partially relented by increasing his spending limit from $250K to $500K).

I have also discovered that many Councils have what is called a Finance and Performance Committee, which means that any expenditure over a certain value and whether or not it is already approved on an Annual or Long Term Plan, must be run past that committee first (for example here is the Christchurch City Councils terms of reference document). But Taupo District Council has clearly headed in the completely opposite direction, with the concluding statement from November 2021 more or less stating that such scrutiny is an unnecessary burden:

“The suggested change increases organisational efficiency, makes efficient use of staff and Councillors’ time and enables the timely delivery of works”.

I say: What a load of complete codswallop. It is a simple fact of human nature that if you make people more directly responsible for something then you will get more scrutiny and accountability happening – and that applies to elected members just like anybody else. In my own professional area of traffic design, I have come across works which could have been done for a fraction of the price and be just as or nearly as effective. That alone gives me little confidence that unrestrained spending isn’t happening elsewhere, and speaking as an engineer/consultant/former Council staffer – I know there is little incentive in the machine of local government to do things cheaper or outside the square. Elected members need to get back in there and take back the reins from staff, and it simply has to happen if we are going see any meaningful reduction in unnecessary expenditure. So wish me luck next Thursday when this thing gets debated behind closed doors.

Apart from the above, I could only find a few of things worth mentioning:

Resource Management Act (RMA) getting scrapped: For all you need to know about the RMA reforms, this article from Crux is as good a guide as any. I don’t have any firm opinions on this, except as a practicing engineer who does dabble in consent applications from time to time, I must say it will make life a lot simpler when every Council doesn’t have its own bespoke District Plan to sift through like they do now. But Taupo District Councillor Wahine Murch also gives her fair enough summary here, and in particular how she perceives it might affect Tangata Whenua interests.

NZTA can do better: I attended the Waikato Regional Transport Committee Meeting in Hamilton on Monday where a few things got discussed including the revelation that improving State Highways only diminishes the competitiveness of rail freight, and next year we will be reviewing the six-year Regional Land Transport Plan (RTLP) – so this group might be able to help push local projects like improvements to the Turangi-Taupo SH1 connection if we can convince the other member Councils they will also benefit (which doesn’t seem a very easy thing to do). In the meantime, through our Regional Council rates we are all subsidising the Hamilton to Auckland rail commuter service to the effect of $30 per passenger every weekday that it operates (around a few hundred passengers a day for a 2.5hr trip each way).

But most substantially noticed was the unscheduled and unadvertised 50min complete stop for roadworks I experienced coming home in the late afternoon on SH1 just north of Oruanui Road. It seems to me that nowadays travelling on SH1 north of Taupo has become quite unpredictable in the roadworks summer seasons especially, and evidence is suggesting that more and more people are regularly settling on alternative routes on our local roads to avoid it.

The only people who can do anything about all this is NZTA because they control their works schedule, and even though they are are offering compensation to Councils for the damage these diversions cause to local road networks (exact figures were not mentioned), I think we as a Council could start considering Heavy Vehicle Restrictions on some of our local roads (relevant outside the times of complete SH1 closures). NZTA will also need to consider doing more of their works at night as happens like clockwork on the Auckland Motorways, and there is not much doubt that they need to vastly improve their communications to the public.

Motutere reverts back to before: Breaking news is that the 60 km/hr speed limit is going to be back at Motutere before Christmas as per this Herald report which includes a typo of 50 km/hr. I don’t think anybody is going to be very disappointed in that.

Financial debate of the century? Sounds like the mooted debate between Finance Minister Nicola Willis and Taxpayer Union’s ex-Finance Minister Ruth Richardson is getting tricky to arrange, but I do hope it goes ahead because it sounds as if it could be quite interesting.

Fridays nostalgic groove from a long way away and a long time ago:

Friday Summers Heating Up

5 December 2025

Councillor Duncan again with my view of things this Friday, and I must say that things are starting to get a little warmer and not just the weather. That old chestnut of controversy called ‘the JMA’ is now rearing its head, and a few other things like the Turangi Wastewater scheme and the Taupo Landfill were also recently discussed in Council Chambers that are stirring up thoughts in my own mind at least, of a few clues for this governments intent to smash up the Regional Councils. Whichever side of the fence you are on, there is no doubt that influences to some major infrastructure decisions are happening which have little to do with environmental science and everything to do with cultural preferences – and they don’t come for free. By the way these sessions were closed to public and not minuted either, so you will just have to get my version.

In the lighter side of things, it can at times feel like I am trying to defy gravity (again) with some of the stuff being presented in Chambers as the new Council takes shape. Like a little thing called ‘confidentiality’ for example, and I find myself explaining that we were not elected to be employees of Taupo District Council Inc, and so that means that floated ideas of weekly code of silence sessions are just not cricket. And the remuneration talks (still ongoing) remind that none of us are here for the money (around $40K for a Taupo District Council Councillor, unless you are the Deputy Mayor or chair one of the more important committees) – not unless you just want to be a tickboxing seat-warmer anyway.

And of course there was the governments announcement that rates caps of 2-4% (excluding water services) will soon be applied with a transition period until 2029 when the full model would be in place. I don’t exactly know what they were thinking to leave out the water services aspect, because although many Councils are behind their game and could do with catching up, places like Auckland can legitimately claim the same for transport (and Auckland Mayor Wayne Brown is already squealing).

Anyway, lets get down to it:

Joint Management Agreement (JMA) number is coming up: Some of you may have heard by now that Council is having an open to the public workshop on 18 December in Council Chambers (open for the public to watch but not participate). This is the first in a series of workshops planned, and the idea is to do them in a way that avoids the accusations of back door dealings which happened in July. I don’t know why we aren’t leaving all of this until next year, but this first session is apparently intended as a basic introduction to just what these JMA’s are all about and how they came to be. I have heard some musings that given the current make-up of elected members, the Waikato Rivers JMA could be passed in its current form straight away and that all of this talk (let alone public consultation) is a waste of time. That may possibly be correct, but I think for newly elects to vote for something as substantial as this before being briefed would be highly irresponsible, and would likely tear apart any semblance of a constructive way forward not to mention lose credibility with the public. I did also come across the below mention of it in a recent Hobsons Pledge newsletter, so it seems that the eyes of the rest of the country are also upon us.

$20M better spent elsewhere? On Tuesday elected members had a workshop introduction to the proposed wastewater solution for Turangi, which has been subject to investigations and negotiations for at least 8 years (!). Some info is available on the Council website here, but I must say it hasn’t ever been portrayed as straightforwardly as it could be. The consent has been expired since 2017, and the aim is to get a new one signed off by the Regional Council to carry us through far into the future. But that application process has been put on hold until we can sort out ourselves to decide what we really want to happen, and therein lies the uncertainty.

There are undoubtedly some historical grievances from both the original land acquisition and the resulting outflow directly into Lake Taupo (and realise that without a wastewater plant, we couldn’t have the town of Turangi), but the plant has been developed to such a degree with the latest technology that its output is apparently not far off from being drinkable. With the existing wetlands and its proposed expansion scheduled to happen in a few years time, its environmental effects are arguably quite minimal in real and relative terms. For example, the diagram below demonstrates its Nitrogen effect as relative to other polluters (and Nitrogen is one of the key measures).

But the negotiations of Council staff continue – and there is no scheduled date for them to ever finish – to find a ‘long term’ land disposal option, and to date the only thing that has been holding up that happening seems to be the inability to find a willing landowner and for the right price. Just to be clear, this land disposal option is primarily being sought for cultural reasons, and would cost in the order of $20M for infrastructure alone (plus operating costs which may be in the $00,000’s annually). A glimpse of the amount of work that has gone into this is shown in the diagram below, which illustrates all the different options that have been investigated to date.

Now I don’t wish to offend the locals who have been so impacted by all of this over its history, but now is surely the time to step back and think about what is really trying to be achieved here and that we are all going to end up paying for it. I can think of a lot more productive ways to spend $20M, can’t you?

Taupos rubbish on trial : Yesterday we had a staff presented session on the Taupo landfill, which has also of late been a topic of discussion at a few local marae. The current consent expires in 2027 (when basically the hole will be full), and we need to get Stage 3 ticked off by the Regional Council to carry us through to 2058. As far as I can tell there are few if any environmental reasons the consent couldn’t get rolled over, and there are no disputes about land ownership as with the Turangi Wastewater plant because it was never subject to acquisition under the Public Works Act. But many local hapu are understandably not very happy about having a rubbish tip at the bottom of their precious Mount Tauhara, and that seems to be presenting a bit of a conundrum.

You see things seem to have been left a little too late in the piece to seriously consider other options like a different landfill location (and which is unlikely to be economically viable anyway) or alternative measures like incineration (which is very expensive). Apparently it can take up ten years to get a new site consented and up and running, so if it were truly ever a serious consideration then the ball on that should have got rolling long ago. The simple fact is that if this consent doesn’t get granted by 2027, we will need to start trucking household refuse to a place like Hampton Downs at an estimated additional annual cost of $270 per ratepayer. I don’t know how significantly the Regional Council takes cultural opposition in their consent calculations, but gather it will be diminished with the newly proposed government reforms – so to me, this whole exercise is seeming more about politics than anything else. In the meantime though, we will definitely be spending on a redevelopment of the existing site as shown below which will enable trucks to get their disgorged contents sorted instead of tipping straight into the hole as happens now – and is also a necessary if we need to start trucking it out.

Jonesie Awards coming up: Anybody not familiar with these, you can check them out here. Basically they are an annual awards ceremony headed by the Taxpayers Union to un-celebrate examples of wasteful spending by government agencies. Last years first place winner in the local government category was Hasting District Council which put a bunch of unelected teenagers in charge of Council for a time as a novel PR exercise. If anybody has some nominations for around here you are welcome to submit, I even have one in mind myself.

Chemtrails all hot air? This is not a topic I am very knowledgeable about at all, but I was sent this 97 minute documentary to enlighten and recommend it as worth a watch to bring yourself up to speed. I cannot confirm if any of it is true, but cloud seeding to influence the weather has been attempted since the 1940’s, and it is not very hard at all to imagine the same sort of thing being tried again to address global warming. However the question really is: Would those in authority really do this without our consent or even knowledge, as is being asserted here?

Only a few bad eggs, yeah right: It looks like the scandal involving the former top dogs of NZ Police Andrew Coster and Jevon McSkimming is already being subject to a thorough whitewashing, with the current Police Commissioner and Minister of Police trying to portray a black and white situation that it was only those two who ever did anything wrong, and Minister of Police Mark Mitchell ridiculously saying “If you’re asking me to condemn our 15,000 police officers – sworn and non-sworn staff – around the country, and judge them by the same standards of that previous police executive, I am not going to do that”. But I am hoping that the average New Zealander has a little more common sense than to swallow this nonsense, and that anyone should be able to see that if you get corrupt and calculating practices at the very top, then it is inevitable that the same behaviours could have been trickling down for quite some time.

What has this got to do with local government? Well I have said it before and I will say it again: New Zealand is not the bastion of un-corruption it claims to be. I am not saying that I know of any practices as blatant as that of convicted senior manager Murray Noone of Rodney District Council / Auckland Transport going on around here (whose renown was such that I hear every man and his dog contractor in North Auckland knew the only way to get contracts with Murray was through bribery), but I certainly perceive similar patterns of institutional self-protectionism as been exposed in the NZ Police, including the withholding of information on a need to know basis only.  Clearly this is being illuminated as not being a very healthy approach for the NZ Police, and it should have no place in Councils either. But it certainly does happen.

Ever heard of UNDRIP? Otherwise known as United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples. If you want to come up to speed with one of the reasons this country has been headed the direction is has, this article by Dr Muriel Newman of NZPCR is quite informative. Whether you agree with the authors perspective or not, there is no doubt that when New Zealand was signed up to it in 2010 it happened in quite a surreptitious way. I had never been a great fan of former Prime Minister Helen Clark, but at least she saw what might be coming in a way that the fairly clueless succeeding Prime Minister John Key did not.

Beautiful roundabouts: I haven’t driven them more than a few times, but as a roundabout fan must acknowledge the new ones on Taharepa Road / A C Baths Ave and Taherepa Road / Crown Road. However, I do have a grumble about the cost required to make these happen, because in a small town like this we should be aiming for good-enough infrastructure and not the rolls-royce. We have a Chambers workshop coming up on December 18th to discuss Delegated Authorities, and it is exactly decisions like this I want to get in the hands of elected members and not just leave to the discretion of staff – because any engineer worth their salt will always prefer to build the rolls-royce.

Waterslide fun for summer: Anyone recall the waterslides we had several years ago in the Riverside Park (where the summer concert is held)? Well this year they are happening in Ngongotaha north of Rotorua, and I will be making enquiries with the operators if they might consider coming back to Taupo because I thought they were great fun.

Fridays fable to figure: I recently came across this extraordinary 13min short film entitled ‘Lost Face’ about the fate of a fur trader at the hands of a far northern American Indian tribe. Wouldn’t it be great if some New Zealand filmmakers could make something as gritty about our own colonial experiences?

Friday Fingers Crossed

10 October 2025

Okay tomorrow is Election day, and I hope people have been listening because otherwise the last two years could have been a complete waste of my time. As your on-the-spot Councillor I have tried to illuminated the workings of Taupo District Council as best I can with the tools at my disposal, hoping to educate you about what needs to change and why. Some of you have listened, but it remains to be seen if enough of you have understood or care. And seriously folks, I really do not want to sit at the table of a semi-banana republic Council for another three years.

That doesn’t mean some of the elected people cannot be stupid some of the time (because that would be too much to ask, and even I am not perfect), but just enough of them to not behave stupidly enough of the time to make more sensible decisions than has been happening.

So if nothing else, please just think of me.

But even with a best-case scenario that we get a near complete makeover of elected members, it is going to take an extraordinary effort to effect the real changes that are needed . Some of these I mention in my Campaign 2025 page, and it is going to require much more than just me, myself and I to make them happen – in fact it is going to require your help too. Because even with someone like me in there, there is no way that this Council (or any other Council for that matter) will be transparent and held accountable all by itself.

It just ain’t gonna happen.

I say what this town needs are reliable and trusted community news sources, ones which are constantly on Council’s back and won’t take no for an answer. A decade or so ago that used to be the role of the mainstream media, but I don’t envy the likes of local newspaper Taupo & Turangi News for making a go of it in this challenging climate of competing news sources. Even though LakeFM and local Sophie M Smith have made some valiant efforts in 2025, and even me, we can’t be expected to do it all by ourselves. And it shouldn’t have to require messaging through the likes of Hobsons Pledge to get local messages out at short notice, as happened with the JMA. Some other towns already seem to have more of it happening in this space, such as Whatoninvers for Invercargill and Crux for Queenstown.

So my question is: Who’s going to make it happen from here on in?

Okay apart from that lengthy intro, this week we have:

WARNING to newly elected members: Don’t be dummies and sign the government revised Code of Conduct put in front of you in the next few weeks, or at least not until it gets drastically changed. Submissions closed a couple of weeks ago and you can read my own here, but The New Zealand Initiative submission along with that from the Free Speech Union align that they don’t much like it either. In its current form it could have a chilling and crippling effect on elected members to properly function, and I say is yet another supposedly well-intentioned government initiative that has been hijacked by minority interests.

Westwards ho: West Auckland candidate Ken Turner talks for 15 min why he won’t sign the Taxpayer’s Union Ratepayers Pledge to cap rates to inflation, and given Aucklands present commitment to some very large infrastructure projects like the $B Central Rail Link (CRL) he may have a point – but what is the excuse for Taupo? He also has a few things to say about Council’s ‘Reputation Department’, and I’ll let you guess what he means by that.

Giving New Zealand away: In a recent article Sophie M Smith gives a nice summary of Agenda 2030. Coming from a city background as I do, prior to the 2000’s it had always an uphill struggle to make new cycleways and busways happen because New Zealanders have always been wedded to their private motor vehicles. As well justified as those things are in a city context especially (the cycle and busways I mean), I cannot help but think that things like Agenda 2030 and climate fearmongering were always intended as a disingenuous way of changing the political environment to effect those often necessary changes – many of which are now realities in 2025. But I say that a flawed ideology is no way to run a country, and it is costing all of us dear. Although probably a little outdated by now, I reckon Ian Wisharts ‘Air Con’ (2009) covers it quite well.

Good enough should be good enough:  A constituent was in Whanganui lately and sent me through a few pics of what looks to be some very cost-effective urban roundabouts as per this pic here.  It has always been obvious to me that a small provincial Council like ours should be laser focused on doing good enough infrastructure not rolls-royce, so I was greatly surprised after moving here to find the opposite seems to apply.  If I get into any position of influence after tomorrow, I will be trying hard to turn things around.

Another reason to keep fingers crossed: Governments overhyped but softly changes on the electricity sector mean that your power bill doesn’t look like it will be getting any smaller in the foreseeable future, so even more reason we get some better people elected in Council who can actually do something about your cost of living.

Your $$$ going to a worthy cause: Read Part Two about Mayor Trewavas expenditure account by Sophie M Smith.  I recall being present at the mentioned Mr Brightside bar during the 2023 LGNZ conference, but don’t recall ordering any food – so damn, there was my missed chance for a freebie. But it is so true that things like credit card expenditure get a mention in some policy guidelines or other, but often don’t actually get checked up on or followed through. Central and Local Government will have their armies of policymakers, and the lack of practical application I partly blame on the general demise of the Public Service in this country.

Off a ducks back? Ruapehu candidate gives up their campaign due to abuse received.  I can’t say that I have faced that sort of thing to any serious degree, apart from online stuff of course which I can mostly shrug off.  But not everyone has as thick a skin as me, and I have gleaned at least one candidate in our district has faced much worse.  I have said before that politics can sometimes resemble the primary school playground – and I still mean it. Feelings will get hurt, and if you can’t handle the jandle then perhaps it’s not for you.

Complicit cop-out: Last week, Taupo District Council shared this informational video – apparently produced by Gisborne District Council – that describes Māori wards as “one way Te Tiriti o Waitangi can be honoured at a local level”. I raised concern to our Electoral Officer Warwick Lampp that this kind of language is bias by omission, because it subtly suggests that not supporting Māori wards would dis-honour the Treaty – which is an unproven and politicised claim. I say it is analgous to publicly messaging that violence can make you feel better, but leaving out the bits around consequences and non-violent alternatives. Council Chief Executive Julie Gardyne refused my request for the video to be removed from the Council website, because guess what – she is deferring to the Electoral Officers decision which is not to intervene! Local media reporting isn’t exactly providing very balanced coverage on this issue either, as this Taupo & Turangi News article last week about a one-sided panel discussion on this topic demonstrates. Not that I am biased or anything (?!), but I am speaking as an independent and not as a ratepayer funded supposedly neutral source of information.

Other Electoral antics: Okay so the Electoral Officer declining to intervene on ratepayer-funded electoral bias should probably not surprise, given the recent revelation that it took ACT MP Cameron Luxton petitioning the Electoral Commission for them to remove a link to Local Government New Zealand’s (LGNZ) blatant pro-Māori ward messaging, and also declining to intervene after Council staff deleted Rotorua Mayoral candidate Robert Lee’s campaign material which included some informational snippets of youtube material available in the public domain. My opinion: The Electoral Commission does not know how to do their job which is to administer a fair and unbiased electoral process, and in future will need firm instructing from above. In the meantime, the status quo powers get to retain their influences.

Careful who you vote for: Claims that foreign states are targeting your local Councillors including through sister city arrangements just like we have going on here in Taupo. Last year or so Councillors Rachel Shepherd and Anna Park went off on a media unreported week-long lark to China (mostly funded by the Chinese city of ??), and I am sure some good will was received – but is that all they brought back?

Speaking of Rachel…Recall I reported on the vandalism of candidate placards last week? Well it looks like that beacon of balanced argument organisation Hobson’s Pledge decided to post up their own revised headline to assist people’s understanding, as shown on left.

Duncan talks: Here I talk for about an hour in an interview with Tristan Baynham of the Taupo Ratepayers Group about a whole bunch of Council stuff from rates caps to speed humps to fluoride.

Ann talks too: Here we have Taupo ward candidate Ann Tweedie talking for about 15 min with RCR interviewer Paul Brennan about her aspirations in Council should she be so lucky to be elected (or is that unlucky?), and like me she is big on capping rates so will be getting my tick.

Ha ha funny- NOT: In his latest post on Facebook Mayoral candidate Kevin Taylor doubles down on portraying that he will be the People’s Advocate against the scary changes of Central Government coming in the future.  I find it hilarious that ex-policeman Kevin positions himself like this, because he is absolutely the last person I would be expecting to push back on authority instead of asking how high they want us to jump. More concerning though, is that he probably does believe it.

Truth is what you say it is: A thoughtful post about the history of this land and the Treaty was put out by local Sophie M Smith, entitled It Wasn’t Ours to Begin With. I don’t completely buy it though, because for one thing our recreational access to the lake is a clear obligation under the 1991 Resource Management Act and is not just down to Iwi generosity as she portrays. Aside from that, did Maui really get the lot as soon as he touched it, mountains lakes and all? Methinks there is a little more to it than just Sophies article says, and for a good context we need to look further back than just 1970 or even 1870 – perhaps 1770 is more realistic.

Sensible Speed Limits: A 60 km/hr speed limit past the Motutere campground is getting a revisit by NZ Transport Agency Waka Kotahi (NZTA), when it really shouldn’t have been put back to 100 km/hr in the first place earlier this year. I haven’t quite worked out if it was NZTA’s intransigence at the time and/or the fairly tepid advocacy by this Council to push back, but at least something is now happening and you can make a submission here due 17 November. There is also a proposed 60km/hr stretch for Hawera and submissions for that close 29 October.

Rotorua ratepayer money down the drain: Here Rotorua Councillor Robert Lee briefly describes how $2.5M was given away along with $300K/year and all in the name of…honouring the Treaty? I thought they always said it came free.

Condolences: Taupo ward candidate Belinda Walker tragically and suddenly lost her 19 year-old son last week. All politics aside no-one ever deserves that to happen, and all sympathies extend.

Friday piece of flippancy: I have suspected for quite some time now, but is it really true?

Fridays Fit: Democracy Aflame?

26 September 2025

Councillor Duncan with another Friday update with the latest election and local happenings, as I see things anyway. Is Taupo the centre of New Zealand politics? It certainly feels that way to me, but perhaps I am a little biased. After 11 October, I wonder if things are going to quieten down? I might even take a holiday.

I have been getting a few people asking for voting advice lately, so I will try to spell it out now. I reckon either John Funnell or Zane Cozens would make fine Mayors and it greatly helps that like me both of them have signed the Taxpayer’s Union Ratepayer Pledge committing to tie rates to inflation as much as possible. Of the existing Councillor candidates, the only ones I can say have been more on the useful side are Christine Rankin, Sandra Greenslade, and Rachel Shepherd. Of the newbies, I am optimistic for the Let’s Go Taupo team of Ann Tweedie, Rebecca Stafford and Hope Woodward, with the rest a bit of a guessing game because I simply am not acquainted enough. Steve Punter seems as if he could be quite useful as the experienced governance and conflict resolution guy, and Wahine Murch looks as if she might be both smart and sensible even if she is quite young. But I am sure many of the other candidates have great potential, and in this sort of role it’s only under fire do peoples true dispositions get revealed.

My advice to voters: Don’t tick all the boxes just because you can, only tick for the people you really want to get in. In the Taupo ward especially, things are looking quite competitive and every vote could matter.

Okay this week we have:

Tūwharetoa Chief moves on to a better place? Sir Tumu Te Heuheu Tūkino VIII, the ariki and paramount chief of Ngāti Tūwharetoa, has died at 84, RNZ media release is to be found here.

Pitch to the business leaders: On Wednesday night at the Cosmopolitan club there was a candidate event put on by Town Centre Taupo and the Taupo Business Chamber, with food and even complementary drinks as well. It was mostly just the Taupo ward candidates who turned up, but in her 2 min speech about reducing bureaucracy, Rebecca Stafford of the Taupo East Rural ward did make an impression with her intriguing account of paperwork that a prospective contractor for this Council was expected to fill out which even included stuff about child trafficking! But the evening was really mostly about the banter between Mayoral candidates David (what on earth is the problem) Trewavas; Kevin (government is coming to get us but trust me because my fingers are in everything) Taylor; Zane (100 day plan to fix this place) Cozens; and John (it could take 3 years to fix this place) Funnell. A transcript of my own mildly well received 2 min speech can be found here, and I am not sure if there are any recordings.

Smoke and mirrors: Here we have an interview with Danny Loughlin – 2025 Taupō District Te Papamārearea Ward Candidate, who just like Deputy Mayor Kevin Taylor keeps on conflating the mandatory requirements of the JMA with all the optional extras (like that little thing called ‘Lake Taupo’) to justify why the public don’t need to be consulted. I really wish these guys would stop treating everyone like they are stupid.

Maori wards on Monday: This coming Monday 29th September there is a helpful information evening from 5.30pm at Waiora House if anybody is interested, I plan to go along myself.

Code of Conduct unbecoming? Today is the last day for submissions to the Local Government Commissions attempt to standardise a Code of Conduct (CoC) for elected members. Currently each Council is left to their own devices on this, and even though obliged to sign I know there have been ruptures in the past – with Rotorua Lakes Council elected members failing to sign theirs this last term because it was so oppressive. There are some elements in this new DRAFT version which I have concerns about, including Treaty of Waitangi provisions, opening up for complaints to be made by members of the public and staff, and also an introduced ‘collective responsibility‘ which infers that elected members should shut up if decisions are made which they don’t agree with – just imagine that!

My own submission you can read here, and I am also using this opportunity to suggest that non-financial conflicts of interest also be seriously addressed in this document following the recent situation we had here with the JMA – which I reckon was akin to a bank manager saying they are not conflicted even if they are also sitting on the board of a company applying for a loan. This is the sort of thing which would never be accepted in the private sector, but somehow gets waived in local government.

Wisdom of age or just too old? Mayoral candidate John Funnell put out a recent post about his age of 75 years and some public commentary about it. I reckon the late President Ronald Reagan came up with a hilarious riposte to that chestnut of an argument (actually I think it was one of his speechwriters beforehand) and you can watch as it was delivered in a presidential debate here. Folklore says that his political opponent Walter Mondale knew after this gag was delivered he had lost the race.

AirBnB paying its way? Last week John Funnell mentioned the Queenstown rates model to try and generate more income from BnB operations for the district, and I believe he said it could generate well over $1M annually if it were implemented. For anyone wanting to find out more about the Queenstown model, here is the link to check it out. One feature I found interesting in the Queenstown model is a stipulated annual survey of neighbours to assess if things aren’t going awry (like all night parties etc). I am not 100% sure if it is a good fit for Taupo, but it definitely deserves to be looked at more closely.

Debs is my kind of gal: I really don’t know much at all about Deb Mair candidate for Waikato Regional Council, but I do like her minimalist style and am quite happy to have one of my own placards alongside hers

Ann’s out and about: Its not really my thing but Taupo ward candidate Ann Tweedie has been making a good effort these last few all-day Thursdays to meet and greet to find out what’s on people’s minds. I will try to at least be there at the 9am next Thursday 2 October at the Airport, because it is out and out by far my most favourite cafe in town with a great outlook and so very quiet too.

Vandals strike: Sophie M Smith put out what looked to be a very handy online poll on candidates earlier this week, but it seems the vandals got in there to try and distort the results. A bit of a shame as it could have been quite useful, but I guess in this day and age it is only to be expected. I reckon polls like happen for national elections could also be a thing for these local government ones, and could even get people more interested in voting. Sophie also just put out an interesting perspective of the false promises some candidates do make (myself included, apparently) which is worth a read.

Why aren’t they signing? A recent RNZ- Reid poll says 75% of voters support a rates cap, so why aren’t more candidates signing the Taxpayer’s Union Pledge to do just that? I reckon that to not have rates capped to the inflation that consumers experience is simply unsustainable, and it is too important to rely on fickle governments to address. Perhaps look at it this way: Should voters put up with candidates who promise to kick pensioners out of their own homes unless they have a small fortune set aside? Because that is what it really means if we carry on the way we are. You can read more about it here as my own #3 Campaign Priority.

Idle words apart: Facebook message (since deleted) from Maori ward Councillor Danny Loughlin to Mayoral candidate Zane Cozens on 11 September: “Given your attacks on Maori and Tuwharetoa to pander to the racist vote, I won’t waste any more time on you.  If you don’t want to engage then you can always quit again…You can chat with Dunkin Donuts”.

Auckland Transport over the top (again): I just had to throw this in here because even though it has little to do with Taupo, it just goes to show what a big mean bureaucracy like Auckland Transport (AT) can get up to. Here we have a media report of a man very unhappy at a speed hump put in directly outside his house because it has apparently caused $40K damage to his home. Noise and vibrations from passing trucks is something I actually approached AT senior management about around 2018, because although somewhat of a previous influencer in that field I just knew it would blow up sooner or later because things were going a little too far. Anyway things have transpired pretty much as I predicted, with even the incoming government putting a temporary moratorium on them for State Highways the year before last.

Taupo’s missed paddleboat opportunity: Does anyone recall that the paddleboat Lakeland Queen was up for sale a few years ago? I was hoping someone might have scored it for Taupo, but it was not to be and Rotorua now has it back on their waters. In any case, this recent media release mentions that particular situation marked a turning point in Rotorua Councillor Robert Lee’s tenure to being less of a team player with the rest of his fellow elected members than he was before. If I could pick my own similar moment of revelation, it would be my exclusion from late 2023 towards the Northern Access Transport Study despite my professional expertise and being elected on a platform that I could contribute on that basis.

Put it this way – imagine if a Turangi elected member was sidelined any time Turangi came up for discussion, or Maori ward councillors with anything to do with Maori. Democracy does matter, and what you have been experiencing from me the past year or two is a symptom of what can happen when it gets treated badly.

Campbell’s still allowed? In a certain part of Scotland there are still signs like these around, and words like “Never trust a Campbell” still resound all the way back from 1692. If you want to learn a bit more about it, this 6 min documentary clip from 1974 will fill you in. Someone brought it up in a recent social media commentary riposte, so I thought to mention.

Friday piece of wisdom: I say to you all as much as myself.

Friday Foreboding- Freight Train Coming?

19 September 2025

Councillor Duncan coming at you again with this weeks election highlights including a few things of interest, and we also managed to get even more snow on top of our Maunga just in time for the school holidays – so because I don’t like crowds that means I probably will be steering clear of it for the next two weeks.  So who keeps talking up this global warming again? 

On voting: my advice is to only vote for those you really want to get in, because any otherwise votes scattered around will reduce their chances. Remember that you don’t have to tick the number of boxes to match the number of vacant seats. And do some research on the candidates not just rely on their 150 word statements, for example why don’t you ask them about the JMA or why they haven’t yet signed the Taxpayer’s Union Pledge to keep rates to inflation? Because I say if something isn’t done about it soon, the current trajectory of Council spending habits will sooner or later run you down – just like a freight train.

Here we are then:

Drama Queen or Diva Diviner? Christine Rankin gives us her breakdown about Taupo politics on the Duncan Garner Podcast (starts at 7:39).  I am not sure that we are that close to violence in the streets as Christine seems to think, but there is no doubt we are in a place of disquiet and for too long things have been swept under the carpet.  I actually find these times quite interesting.

Duncans Campaign Page: If you haven’t already do please check out my Campaign Page here which includes links to my Campaign Priorities #1 Restore Democracy & #2 Take Back Control of Council.  I never did get around to setting up a givealittle account, but if you want to donate to my campaign please feel free to message me privately. 

Liston Heights Legacy? Last Sunday gone we had a Taupo ward candidates event put on at the Liston Heights retirement village, with a very nice afternoon tea put on afterwards. One observation made at the end included a question (my paraphrasing): “there seems to be two quite different camps, so how are you going to manage to work together?” No-one was very able to solve that particular riddle, but if I were to personify the split I would put the likes of Mayoral candidate Kevin Taylor and to some extent Rachel Shepherd on the one side with their (scaremongering) messages about the impending doom of central government intervention and implying that any changes now are bad, as opposed to the likes of Zane Cozens, John Funnell, Ann Tweedie and myself who say that change absolutely has to happen and it has to happen now. My own five-minute speech can be found here, and it includes reference to all three of my Campaign Priorities (or read the transcript see here).

Ratepayers dollars going to a worthy tourist cause? I attended a Mayoral candidate event on Monday gone which was put on by the hospitality and tourism industry, and I have to say that two things stood out for me: First the absence of edible refreshments at a hospitality event, and second the oft-repeated line that every dollar put into tourism generates around $800 of return for the ratepayer. This mantra gets repeated so often I think the sayers actually believe it, and if it were really true then we should be doubling or trebling the $1.4M or so we put into Destination Great Lake Taupo (DGLT) every year. Heck, why not also throw in the $70M TEL Fund so that all of us can ride the bandwagon to becoming millionaires (do the math)!! Yeah right.

JMA for the record: I have been asked a few times lately about who voted for what including about public consultation, and the place to go is my JMA summary here and specifically for the voting record go to the JMA Debrief here. Basically if you agree that the public deserve to be formally consulted, then you are on the same wavelength as myself, Rachel Shepherd, Christine Rankin, Sandra Greenslade and Kylie Leonard. The rest of them don’t seem to think your opinions matter very much.

What a good idea: Local Invercargill media outlet Whatsonininvers.nz recently did a poll on local body candidates. I reckon it would be great for someone local to do the same here, because otherwise all we get is this boring election.nz page which gives a daily tally but with no breakdown (because that would apparently be illegal). I reckon a sweepstake would be quite interesting – is anybody keen to set one up?

Maori Wards Obligation: I personally think that all of the other current elected members should explain their support position on Maori Wards, and also why they think the referendum is a bad idea. I know that is their position because they all agreed to a submission to Wellington back in May 2024 which you can read here. Because if anybody can best explain what Maori wards have achieved and can achieve for this district, it should be them. So why all the silence?

Money for Taupo flights? The government is throwing some money into regional aviation, but only time will tell if Taupo will manage to get any.

Common sense prevails but only just: NZ Water Service Authority Taumata Arowai seems to be showing some common sense by presenting some Acceptable Solutions for rural water suppliers. It seems in New Zealand that we always have to go down this road of sledgehammer solutions to relatively minor problems and only later back down a little, and this goes for everything from car warrants to roofing safety to traffic management. What on earth ever happened to the Kiwi pioneer can do attitude? Instead just like decline and fall of the Roman Empire, it seems we are faced by the slow death of a thousand bureaucratic cuts.

Nice job: Give credit where credit is due, Taupo ward candidate Rachel Shepherd has put together some nice video clips with a cartoon animation which you can sample here. But like most candidates in Taupo she still hasn’t signed the Taxpayer’s Union Pledge to cap rates to inflation. Doesn’t she know that unless that starts to happen, grandmas and grandpas will inevitably get forced out of their homes?

Cos positive discrimination still comes across as discrimination: Lo and behold, human rights law is seemingly acting as a barrier to Maori self-determination. But Auckland Law School Associate Professor Andrew Erueti manages to come up with some arguments that they shouldn’t apply when it comes to indigenous peoples. Funny how lawyers can spin things to their own design, and exactly why I say we need to get independent professional opinions and not just rely on Council staff.

Another word for Propaganda? Another few interesting posts by Taupo local Sophie M Smith, this time on Council marketing budgets and also a summary of the candidates. In my experience these communications or marketing departments of Councils have significantly expanded the past 20 years, and when they talk of ‘socialising‘ a message you can also interpret as ‘propagandising‘. Okay we do now live in a different world with social media all over the place, but enough has to be enough at some point.

Skyrocketing rates linked to inflation? On that note, why not have a listen to Stewart Group founder Nick Stewart who talks to Peter Williams of Taxpayer’s Union in this interview about the link between your rates bill and groceries and the inevitable crash that will happen it the current Council spending trajectories continue. Splash Planet in Hastings gets dis-honourable mention as a ratepayer funded sinkhole, which is a bit of a shame but it seems that swimming pools simply aren’t very easy to make money out of.

Friday funky educational funny: Because some people out there still don’t know what ‘White Privilege‘ actually means.

Campaign Priority #2: Take Back Control of Council

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

Friday and its raining

12 September 2025

Councillor Duncan reporting in with the past weeks Council happenings, or at least the ones I noticed anyway.

The assassination of Charlie Kirk isn’t exactly of local news relevance – or is it? In my view the tolerance to hear someone else’s views, or even to let others hear them, has waned quite significantly since around 2019.  Violence has been a way of solving problems for a very long time, and against those in leadership roles especially.  Are we so far off from having the same happen here?  I am not so sure.  

This week we have:

In case you missed them: my candidate 90 sec interview, and I also put out some information on my campaign priority #1 – Restore Democracy. Next week will be #2 – Take Back Control of Council.

Rotary rhetoric, or are they just relics?  The Rotary event on Monday 8 September was well attended, and if you have two hours on your hands to hear a little more about candidates you can watch here.  Otherwise, to the question: “Describe the purpose of Te Tiriti o Waitangi and how it affects your local government role?” this was my 70 second response.  I did also prepare answers to several other questions about Rates Caps, Local Waters done Well, the Joint Management Agreement (JMA) and Maori wards, and you can find my written responses to those here.

There seemed to be a fixation on questions about Maori wards which I found a little odd given it is a public referendum question to decide in October, and the strict Y/N format of the questions at the end deteriorated things a little. Overall I think it wasn’t too bad an effort by Rotary who put it all on, and it would have been challenging to cater for so many candidates.  But a couple of things did stick out for me: first that I am in a very small minority who openly say they would breach confidentiality – I think new candidates need to appreciate in matters of greater public interest that justifiable exceptions can be made, and also to challenge every time something is being held as confidential.  And Cr Loughlin’s mentioning that staff could go to jail if they fail to adhere to legislation – I have not heard of that happening before in New Zealand, ever.

Mirror on the wall: Robert Lee mayoral candidate for Rotorua poses an interesting question about the Treaty of Waitangi, and what it means for Councils.  Like me, he says: not very much at all. Having said that, the Kaipara District Council legal opinion which downplays Treaty obligations to Councils was recently rejected by a South Island Mayor

Why aren’t they signing? The Taxpayer Union pledge isn’t attracting signatures from too many Taupo ward candidates as you can see here, although for some reason they haven’t included Maori ward candidate responses (if you are in one of the other wards, you need to ask here).  I find it a little strange that two of the front running mayoral candidates will sign, but only a few of us others.  I am reading that as a bit of a disconnect to actually getting rates down, because any time you give The Council Machine an inch it will always take a mile.

Joint Management Agreement refresher: To piece together all my posts and info on the JMA, I have put together a special JMA page here.  On that note, have a listen to Shane Jones inferring that some kind of woke virus has infected regional councils including our own Waikato one.

Race-based or just r**ist? New Plymouth Councillor censored for stating that a race-based procurement policy is r**ist.  I am not sure if TDC have a similar policy for preferential treatment, but one of these days I intend to ask.   

Why do we need Councils anyway? So says this guy, but I think it’s probably easier to run away in a housebus.  

Works in progress but we are just about there now: Here are my candidate statements to Policy.nz, which don’t quite match the three campaign priorities I am putting out now because these were submitted several weeks ago.

Legal costs mounting? I reckon an interesting metric to compare Councils would be legal costs per ratepayer (including payouts), because I have a sneaking suspicion that Taupo District Council could be near top of the list.  Just looking back to the John Hall debacle of 2023 where hundreds of building consent producer statements got signed off fraudulently over a several-year timeframe, I never did get satisfactory answers to my questions at the time.  Like say: how many of these were simply vetted for quality purposes (because sloppy engineering practice is a much bigger problem than fraud)?  Or even: have the processes since been improved to prevent it happening again?  But the walls of The Council Machine went up very quickly with self-preservation at No.1, so I gave up trying. 

Power back to the people: Auckland Transport to be stripped of most of its powers, with Minister of Transport Chris Bishop saying: “These changes mean that Auckland Council’s elected members will be directly accountable to the public for most transport decisions that affect the daily lives of Aucklanders”. I reckon the same needs to happen for elected members in Taupo, who for too long have been treated as tick-boxers for significant transport issues affecting the entire district. We just need the right leadership to get elected in.

Friday insider peek at… TRAFFESSIONALS, your local shop for traffic engineering advice:

The Bottom Line on Conflicted Interest – is YOU

2 September 2025

Earlier this month, I submitted a formal letter of complaint to the Office of the Auditor-General regarding a potential conflict of interest involving Councillor Danny Loughlin. My concern was that as a Board Member of the Tūwharetoa Maori Trust Board (TMTB), he had failed to step back from the Council table during the Joint Management Agreement (JMA) deliberations on July 31, 2025. That, to myself and many others, clearly crossed a line of acceptability.  Mayor Trewavas declined to intervene, and the Chief Executive even refused my request for independent legal opinion ahead of the meeting. I see those responses as irresponsible, bordering on reckless disregard.

Let’s be clear: if Councillor Loughlin was simultaneously a director of a construction company bidding for a Council contract, they would almost certainly be required to recuse themselves. In fact it would be laughable if they didn’t.

So how on earth can a sitting Councillor, who is also a Board Member of a corporate entity proposing to engage in direct partnership negotiations with the Council, be reasonably considered free of any conflict of interest – financial or otherwise – when both organisations stand to benefit from the arrangement?  After all, isn’t that always the reason to have any agreement at all??

My complaint was about a non-financial conflict of interest given his governance role and Iwi affiliation, and my 4 August 2025 letter can be found here.

Last week the Auditor-General responded, you can read it here. The short version: ‘It’s not our job to rule on non-financial conflicts’.

So at the end of the day it is up to politicians to police themselves, and there isn’t anything anybody can do about it.  That is, apart from shaming people as Mayor David Trewavas attempted to do with me on 28 June last year in the final edition of the Taupo Times local newspaper:

“While Cr Campbell has repeatedly made his engineering qualifications known to the community, he and every councillor was elected to represent and advocate for their community, not provide specialised advice in their particular field.  That would represent a significant conflict of interest, one that this councillor has repeatedly failed to grasp”.

Perhaps next term instead of trying to helpfully contribute on a topic on which I know more about than Council staff, I should instead put forth a partnership deal with my own company and vote YES to it (that is, if I get elected in October).

A broader pattern?

Councillor Loughlin isn’t the only elected member facing public scrutiny around potential conflicts of interest. A recent article by Sophie M Smith raises community questions about Councillor Yvonne Westerman’s position, particularly given her professional background in property and real estate – an industry that naturally intersects with Council decision-making.

While no formal allegations have been made, perceptions of conflicted interests continue to surface (for example, there are reports of seeing her business signage on properties listed for sale that are owned or managed by Council). Real estate, of course, is one of the few industries that could be seen – rightly or wrongly – as benefitting from early insight into proposed District Plan changes. That perception alone underscores the need for greater transparency.

So then, the bottom line is really … YOU

There are very few public spaces where this kind of blurred line between public duty and private allegiance would be tolerated. But local government seems to be the exception, and no-one including other elected members have any real power to force recusals

This is not about attacking individuals, but as public figures they shouldn’t be above receiving that either.  It’s about ensuring that our decision-making remains above reproach, especially in politically and culturally sensitive areas. If the rules aren’t fit for purpose, then perhaps it’s time they got changed.

The Auditor-General mentioned at the end of their letter that they are developing some practice material around Treaty settlement entities like TMTB, which is all good and fine. But it sounds like that’s all they will be: Guidelines. I think we need something harder than that: Rules.  

Until that happens:

It’s on YOU to vote in some people who you think can tell right from wrong, and will represent YOUR best interests and not just their own.

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.