Tag: local-government

Fridays Lock-Me-Up-And-Throw-Away-The Key

22 May 2026

Exodus 18:17-23 with a message about wise leadership: “So Moses’ father-in-law said to him, “The thing that you do is not good. Both you and these people who are with you will surely wear yourselves out. For this thing is too much for you; you are not able to perform it by yourself. Listen now to my voice; I will give you counsel, and God will be with you: Stand before God for the people, so that you may bring the difficulties to God. And you shall teach them the statutes and the laws, and show them the way in which they must walk and the work they must do. Moreover you shall select from all the people able men, such as fear God, men of truth, hating covetousness; and place such over them to be rulers of thousands, rulers of hundreds, rulers of fifties, and rulers of tens. And let them judge the people at all times. Then it will be that every great matter they shall bring to you, but every small matter they themselves shall judge. So it will be easier for you, for they will bear the burden with you. If you do this thing, and God so commands you, then you will be able to endure, and all this people will also go to their place in peace.”

Your friendly Councillor Duncan reporting in again, and change is definitely in the air. On Tuesday Taupo Mayor John Funnell has this week instigated a working group to steer the internal amalgamation discussions, comprising himself and Councillors Taylor, Murch, de Lautour and Greenslade reporting back to the rest of us at regular intervals. The particular make-up of this working group was not fully explained and some reservations were expressed that the rest of Elected Members not being invited to fully participate – but there there it is. The question of whether we will be early engaging or consulting with the community like Western Bay of Plenty District Council is about to do did also come up, but the answer was not very forthcoming – so for now I will take that as a no. I myself am keeping an eye on the headlines and talking here and there with Councillors in adjacent districts whom I am acquainted with, and am receiving some interesting perspectives sent to me from local people too. Time to start having some real conversations I reckon with only a couple of months to go, and Councillor Hope Woodward is already trying to kick that off on social media which you can watch HERE.

This week we had a couple of things going on. On Monday we had the second of our Taupo Airport Authority Committee meetings, held at the airport. I do have to say that of all the committees that I have been involved in the past three years or so, this committee has been by far the most convivial and one of the most engaging. It probably helps that the surroundings are so pleasant (the Lil Something airport cafe is easily my favourite coffee haunt in all of Taupo), where people talk to each other like adults and there is none of the politic bickering that seems to happen anyplace else. The newly elected Chair is Chris Grace who is a wonderful and recent retired gentleman of ex Pak n Sav fame, and he was also with us as a member last term. Other Elected Members apart from myself are Councilor Steve Mananui and of course Mayor John Funnell who is obviously taking a keen interest. I know the airport isn’t of huge interest to everybody, and there isn’t a huge amount of news to tell except that members are pressing to more quicky develop a Master Plan for the airport precinct and get some more income generated instead of relying upon fickle Air NZ who could potentially withdraw any time they wish (remember that Rotorua is only an hour away, which is closer than many Aucklanders to their own airport). There is also the untrivial matter of a main runway that may need a $5M or so rebuild in not so many years away – luckily we have a great deal with Ministry of Transport where they pay half the costs and we keep all the profits, long may that continue. These meetings are open to the public (who rarely attend, but this week we had around six people which was a record) with agendas as always available HERE. They are not audio-video recorded but I will request this start happening, because I reckon the airport precinct is a bit of a hidden jewel for the district and something that people should perhaps take more interest in.

We also had a Regulatory Committee meeting on Tuesday which you can watch here if you have an hour to spare. There was only a couple of items for us to get stuck into and make something of a meal of. First there was Item 5.2 Bombay Bistros successful bid to remove three parking spaces from Robert Street for their purpose as a dining area (outside the old Dominoes). You can watch the owners oral submission and the 25min or so debate from HERE. Which I think is fair enough to request, but which myself and Councillor Woodward objected to on the grounds this was a piecemeal approach on the fairly unsubstantiated basis that it will increase the vibrancy of the area – by that argument, why don’t we just remove all car parking from the CBD altogether? Apparently the adjacent businesses KFC and Lone Star are okay with it, but I say the entire street should have been consulted – which they weren’t – with Chairperson Councillor Rachel Cameron implying they would be biased anyway. I’m telling ya people, this sorta thing would not happen in a place like Remuera where shopper car parking spaces get treated like gold – so perhaps amalgamating with a place like Hamilton wouldn’t be such a bad thing after all.

Then there was Item 5.4 which was to inform us about an upcoming Taupo District Wide Reserves Management Plan Project which you can watch from HERE. This seemingly innocuous item I chose to take some issue with because of my past experience with the Motutere Reserve Management Plan Review the year before last which I have already written copiously about. The Reserves Act requires management plans to be kept under continuous review, but it does not prescribe expiry dates or require wholesale rewrites simply because a plan is considered “old” – and what is old anyway? One of the plans listed here dates from 2022, and others from 2015 and 2017, which do not seem especially old to me. I later came to the view that the Motutere review need not have proceeded at all, because not proceeding was itself an entirely realistic and practicable option which was not properly presented then and even more so with these now. So my first and foremost question was is: Why is this now being presented to Elected Members as informational only? These reviews cost staff time, consultant time, and community time. What specific problems are we trying to solve, that are so unworkable that targeted amendments cannot fix? Or are we just creating a process of planning for planning’s sake to create jobs for the staff to do? We also need to be very mindful of public confidence in these processes – whether they are transparent and whether their input will be meaningful. Consultation is supposed to be genuinely open-minded and capable of affecting outcomes, but not in a way that will be disproportionately influenced by vocal minority interests – as I believe did happen with Motutere. What is to stop that happening again? Anyway there is also a presented paper on this topic next Tuesday 1pm 26 May in the full Council meeting which I intend to speak more to. In the meantime I have also asked the Chief Executive to be provided the answer to this question in advance: Can you please tell me the expected cost including estimated staff time and any consultants for the Reserve Management Plan project?

Oh yes and there was that one other little thing about the Broadlands Road landfill which was also discussed in a confidential workshop Tuesday morning. Myself and Councillor Woodward requested beforehand that it did not justify the secrecy, and also agreed afterward about it too. To cut a long story short – the landfill is forecast to be full by end of 2027 with a new resource consent required to expand, and Taupo District Council have left things too late to get it all done and over with in time for Environment Court if objections are received to drag things on. And yes, any objections are likely to stem from the cultural objections of neighbouring land owners, which is why there have been around 14 hapu meetings at maraes about the place in the past few months to try and convince that it is in nobodies best interest if things take that path – starting 2028 we are talking roughly an additional $4M annual costs to truck out waste to places like Hampton Downs (so think an extra 4% rise in your rates). So this is quite a monumental cock-up in my opinion and I am spilling the beans – so go ahead, lock me up and throw away the key. Anyway we are not the only place having backroom conversations when we shouldn’t, as Rotorua Councillor Robert Lee has recently posted about on social media which you can read about HERE, and I agree with this 2025 unsuccessful South Waikato candidate sentiment below:

So what else is new?

Keeping it up Sophie: Local intrepid reporter Sophie M Smith put out a couple of articles of interest this week, the first being Part three in a series about the Council building where it is revealed that the lease hasn’t actually been signed off yet. Yes well, after taking office in October 2022 it was pretty much explained to us Elected Members that it was a done deal and all that needed to happen was approving the $5M office fitout, and the question of it being optional was certainly never raised as a possibility. So the question now given the proposed amalgamation just has to be – what are the ramifications if it doesn’t get signed? On the flip side, at least a 25 yr lease might ensure a Council staff local presence instead of a head office Hamilton… There is also Sophie’s take on Amalgamation and an item on the dubious state of some Mangakino wastewater storage tanks allegedly leaking into the nearby waterways with no forthcoming explanations.

Zebra the problem? Following the incident on 11 May where a pedestrian was struck outside Taharepa shops I am doing what any traffic engineer worth their salt would do and checking out if Council is at least partly to blame. That zebra crossing where it happened was only upgraded a year or so ago and I managed to dig up the independent safety audit where it was noted as a serious safety concern with a recommended speed hump(s) as a solution. Why that didn’t happen is not entirely clear, but I intend to find out because if they had been implemented the consequences may have been lesser.

Proper oversight or lip-service tick-boxing? Kaipara District Council are currently under scrutiny by the Audit Office for their procurement and contract practices. I have no idea what stimulated this but somebody has obviously talked so it will be interesting to see where that inquiry goes. Another space to watch.

How to fix Maori Trust Boards: Now this is a topic I have been thinking of delving into for some time now, but it seems that Whanganui Uri Unite is already making some inroads as this social media post amply shows with this intro: “Have a GOOD look at the names and connections across your current river entity and land entity: • Trustees becoming contractors • Family members employed across entities • Operational roles staying within the same circles • Contracts repeatedly landing with connected people • The same whānau names appearing everywhere you turn”... I am not saying that Tuwharetoa Maori Trust Board works like this, but can anybody properly in the know with their hand on their heart says it doesn’t?

Homeschoolers under threat: If you are a Taupo homeschooler you will undoubtedly already be aware, that the government is trying to throw a spanner in the works with a last minute amendment bill which is not innocuous at all and intended to introduce increased government scrutiny to people who choose to opt out of the state system. The amendment is shown left, and people like Cynthia Hancox are activating the resistance now for apparently the first profound change in homeschooling oversight since 1989. Although my own kids are nearly all through their schooling now, as a homeschool dad myself this is quite disturbing – so watch this space.

Fridays poem of the week, with Peter Hitchens response to a panel question the others dodged – does poetry matter to you?

Fridays Watery Wishlist

15 May 2026

Isaiah 40: 29-31: “He gives power to the weak, And to those who have no might He increases strength. Even the youths shall faint and be weary, And the young men shall utterly fall, But those who wait on the Lord Shall renew their strength; They shall mount up with wings like eagles, They shall run and not be weary, They shall walk and not faint.”

Another week goes by, and things are moving fast in local government. We now have slightly less than three months to decide where this Council wants to go, and as I see it unless a bunch of concerted proposals are submitted by 9 August the government will be putting us all where they want to regardless. If their received proposals are scattered in all directions that will absolutely give them the licence to do that, and like it or leave it I am sure they think that quite reasonably so. So how might those chips fall? Well if a webinar I attended a week ago with the Department of Internal Affairs (DIA) is anything to go by – and these are the people administering the Simplyfing Local Government reforms and making the final recommendation to government – the major factors will be transport and water catchment. As I read it the transport element isn’t of much relevance to isolated places like Taupo, since the state highways which connect us elsewhere are already governed by NZTA – so for us it will be all about water – and as we happen to have the largest water source in the country which feeds about a third of the countries population (apparently), that means a Waikato Super Council just has to be beckoning.

So in the basis of transport I think places like Hutt City Council and Selwyn District Council will find it hard to avoid getting sucked into the new super Wellington and Christchurch super Councils no matter what they come up with, and we are in that same boat with water. But it isn’t a done deal yet, and I figure that roads are a bigger driver for amalgamating just because new ones cost so much to build – so there is still this window of opportunity to bring about a different result if we want it hard enough. And if we end up tied to a place like Hamilton, we will certainly become like minnows in the stream. I have worked out that some other Councils like Waitomo and Otorohunga already have a head start because they have been talking about it for ages, and the South Waikato look as if they are ahead of the game too, let alone Napier and Hastings which really should have amalgamated ages ago. But what do we really want to do? Because whatever we get stuck with could be for the next 40 years. Yes, this does matter.

And it really is all about cost, right? Because its the ongoing rampant rates increases which are the reason that the government is stepping in with these forced amalgamations, and is quite probably the main concern for you too. The fact is that our most vulnerable fixed income retirees are being forced off their land like here, and the implication of that is quite sobering when you consider the below statistics (sourced from a recent Taxpayer’s Union newsletter):

So what else has been happening in Council?

We had our second Water Services Committee meeting yesterday with a few things of interest – and believe it or not, water services can actually be quite interesting once you start looking. You can watch the entire meeting youtube HERE if you have a spare couple of hours, and as always the agendas are available HERE.

Item 5.2 was my successfully passed Notice of Motion for introducing some additional practical measures of affordability to which you can watch my 5 min presentation HERE, where I relate potential water service overspending to the over- complianced road cone nightmare which this country is only just waking up from, and I even manage to pseudo-quote the Lorax when I say: “UNLESS we start asking the right questions, we could end up just like the road cones. And if this Water Committee is the one which starts sounding any alarms, believe it or not then that actually makes us industry leaders”

Next was Item 5.3 presented by Nicola Hancock the Compliance and Monitoring lead who talked about all the water quality data gathering and gadgets which you can watch from HERE (and yes, road cones did come to mind), followed by Item 5.4 which was Tom Swindells Asset Water Manager with a very interesting presentation which you can watch HERE about the history of water treatment in the district from the year dot and where we are headed now. This includes the very compelling case for introducing water meters to every household – it means we might not ever need to build another water treatment plant for Taupo, whereas without meters it could be as soon as just 10 years away, with the long-term prognosis being that we would save around $45M over the next 30 years. Basically, the message is that making people pay for water they use will greatly incentivise water conservation like fixing that leaky tap (other parts of the country which have introduced meters have reduced demand by 30% or so). Anyway there will undoubtedly be another side to this equation, but if it doesn’t stack up then water meters it will just have to be.

In other news:

Talkfests continue: A few more Councillor Connect sessions happened this week and some were even audio-visual recorded like the Wairakei one which you can watch HERE. I gather there were also sessions in Nukuhau and Kinloch but didn’t make it myself to any of those.

Speaking of the devil: There were some Turangi committee co-governance meetings last week which were not audio recorded despite this being requested, because the Chair of that committee Te Wharau Jnr decided to refuse on the basis that several committee members were not very keen. I don’t believe in opacity where local government is concerned, and will be taking this further with the Ombudsman who have already told me they are keeping an eye on this place with this sort of thing. So watch this space.

And on that note: Next week on Tuesday we have a CLOSED workshop on the Broadlands Road Landfill Resource Consent. This is actually quite a big deal, because the hole is nearly full and if we don’t get a consent to make it bigger then we could end up trucking our waste elsewhere like Rotorua does – and that ain’t cheap. So if you are concerned with the price of rubbish bags now, things could get worse. There is a working group that includes Councillors Murch and Taylor who have been looking at this the past few months, and I believe there have been meetings at various marae. But you guessed it that cultural concerns are looking to be the biggest potential hiccup, and when that happens the doors of public scrutiny often get closed. I have requested to the Mayor and Chief Executive for this meeting to be made public and recorded, but so far had no response.

Christine’s Rant’in again: This time Councillor Christine is talking to the other Duncan about things like: state of the nation; local government; co-governance; and how its all going at our place Taupo – and according to Christine, things are looking pretty grim.

In the news: Councillors Wahine Murch, Ngahuia Foreman and myself took the opportunity to respond to journalist Bronson Perich after he contacted Elected Members for comment after the amalgamation announcement week before last, and you can read the article HERE. In addition, Wahine put together a nice 4 min summary which you can watch HERE.

Mosque stirs up: Seems like a new mosque happening in Taupo town is ruffling a few feathers if this social media post is anything to go by. Resource consent has already been granted, but a petition is afoot to try and stop it happening. I don’t quite understand the crux of the objections yet, but am guessing that some people are thinking of what is happening in Europe – but we are a long way from anybody, and boat people don’t come here. Another space to watch.

Te Reo only: New cafe Rumaki is set to open in Rotorua where the catch is you are only allowed to speak Te Reo. I don’t know how successful their shop will be, but as an opening strategy I cannot imagine a better way to get all the free media attention that they are getting, and as a tourist mecca for that sort of stuff must be the best place in the country to try it on. So good luck to them majorly, and it just goes to show that novel ideas are often worth a go.

Lake Rotoaira is doing it better than us: About the Gold Clam invasion that is , with certifications and wash stations at their boat ramps – why can’t we do the same? It doesn’t pay to think about if/when gold clams happen to Lake Taupo, but perhaps that is the biggest problem – we aren’t thinking hard enough.

Fiver ever going to finish?: Okay so my last weeks post which included some words about the Five Mile Bay occupation stirred a few people up. All good I say, and the sooner this is brought to light the better. I have a relation within Department of Conservation (DoC) who is familiar with the way these settlements go down, and he tells me they invariably happen behind closed doors (it was Doc land prior to around 2019). I did some initial investigations a few years ago and at least ascertained that it was Crown land around the year 1900, so it is a very good question as to whether previous to that the land was legitimately sold or confiscated as some maintain. It would take some additional expense to try and get an answer to that question (if there is any documented, that is), but if anybody wants to take it further I may be able to point them in the right direction – so feel free to message me if you are so interested. In any case, it is 100% certain that the old freedom camping area is a designated Recreational Reserve which is meant for the benefit of all the public and not just depending on whose cousin you are. If anybody has any doubts about this, you can check out the Treaty Settlement documents HERE.

Fridays Financial Friedman: Listen to this guy Milton Friedman, I think you’ll find he’s really good.

Fridays Fabulous Blockbuster

8 May 2026

Acts 4:1-5: “But a certain man named Ananias, with Sapphira his wife, sold a possession. And he kept back part of the proceeds, his wife also being aware of it, and brought a certain part and laid it at the apostles’ feet. But Peter said, “Ananias, why has Satan filled your heart to lie to the Holy Spirit and keep back part of the price of the land for yourself? While it remained, was it not your own? And after it was sold, was it not in your own control? Why have you conceived this thing in your heart? You have not lied to men but to God.” Then Ananias, hearing these words, fell down and breathed his last. So great fear came upon all those who heard these things. And the young men arose and wrapped him up, carried him out, and buried him”

A little harsh isn’t it? Poor Ananias was giving to the church but decided to keep a small portion back for himself, and for that he gets struck down? There aren’t many examples of things like this happening in the Bible after Jesus came to earth, in fact I can’t think of another single one. But it just goes to show that it wasn’t the act that condemned, it was the lie. I don’t think anybody can get through life without a few lies being told, but some lies are more damaging than others. God is watching.

Wow, what a week! No more Taupo District Council after 2028! So says the minister of local government Simon Watts on Tuesday in this official announcement which says that unless you are a Unitary Council already you must amalgamate with at least one other Council. I suppose Labour could always try and reverse it if they get into power this November general election, but we haven’t heard any peeps from them yet so my assumption is that it is full steam ahead. And my reaction? About bleeding time – but tempered by my recognition that bigger is not always better; the devil will be in the detail; and based on the Auckland example some wheels will inevitably fall off. Okay so we could have gone the Switzerland route and instead of going bigger gone smaller, but we are not being asked and it is out of our hands anyway.

I think a fairly good analogy of what we can expect is the Auckland Super City amalgamation which happened in 2010. My experiences of it as an Auckland Council staffer back then: Big promises and big expectations, but a quite a few disappointments all round.  The purported efficiency gains of reduced staff numbers were only temporary (which you can read about HERE), and in my neck of the woods only saw additional layers of management being added with reduced responsibilities for lower echelon staff. Local community influence was lessened, and the bureaucrats in Auckland Council and Auckland Transport gained the upper hand over elected representatives. Mayor Wayne Brown seems to have been successful in peeling some of that back recently, but it took all of 15 years to get there. Because I was still contracting for them, I was able to see that it took about a decade for Auckland Council to settle down into some new sense of normalcy. And if the Auckland example is anything go by, we will also be having a lot fewer elected members (Councillors reduced from over 100 to just 20).

So I foresee in two years time there will be no more Taupo District Council, and I won’t miss it so much – at least a bigger Council would undoubtedly have avoided some of the past dubious and daft decisions around here. My own experience with big restructures (both Councils and corporate) is that the doers on staff generally need not fear for their jobs, it is usually management and administration which take the hit. But we are being given only three months to decide who to buddy up with, so who will it be? Rotorua, South Waikato, Tauranga, or even what about Chatham Islands? This is going to be a very interesting time, and I think its quite a good thing we went it alone on the water services thing because those Councils which didn’t will probably feel entwined in those partnerships – but its not too late to unwind.

On local matters, this week we had the first of our community connect groups kick off this week in Taupo central and Mangakino. These were both audio-visual recorded and as at the moment only the Taupo one is available and viewable HERE. I personally don’t recommend it as very watchable unless you mainly want to hear about Chairperson Councillor Rachel Cameron’s view of the world and very little of anybody else’s (I did a transcript analysis, and Rachel did 49% of the talking – yes really). I did get a couple of chances to interject or inform, but was early on advised to basically clam up! (Watch that bit HERE if you like). Anyway my apologies to those who did attend (there were about 15 members of the public), I will try to get things sorted before next time.

One matter which did come up in that conversation was Five Mile Bay which you can watch from HERE. However we didn’t get very far with that discussion, because there is clearly an absence of understanding that there is a breach of the 2017 Treaty Settlement which has been going on since 2020 – the illegitimate blockade and occupation of the Recreational Reserve between SH1 and the lakefront. Maori ward Councillors Wahine Murch and Ngahuia Foreman don’t seem to understand this has caused significant strain on local relations and is a cause of so much mistrust – so why on earth should we consider partnering on a Joint Management Agreement (JMA) for the entire lake?? And all this after such a promising start in 2020 which you can read about HERE, but it seems that all it takes to ruin these things is a few disagreeable characters. This is the promise which was never kept:

On the brighter side, the Mangakino- Pouakani Representative Group was yesterday very ably chaired by Mangakino Councillor Hope Woodward on her first time at that role. There was a large turnout of locals (around 30 I reckon), and just goes to show that these smaller communities really do engage. The main chore of the day was to disperse $20K of community grant funding to $47K worth of applicants, and this was done quite amiably and in my opinion fairly. There was some discussion at the end about implications for the new super-sized Council, and one attendee expressed a negative to South Waikato for reasons unstated. The Waikato River Trails Trust applicant made an interesting comment regarding the recent footpath work done by Council in Mangakino which will apparently service their bike trails – the money spent on it could have funded 11 years of the work undertaken by their Trust (hope I got that right, but can’t check the audio-recording which is not yet up on youtube). Basically he was saying that Council built a flasher job when it needn’t, and the money could have been spent better elsewhere – he certainly isn’t the only Mangakino person thinking the same.

And on that note, I will just highlight a few recent articles about New Zealand’s propensity to overspend on Rolls Royce solutions versus the Toyota (and I would rather drive a Toyota across the Sahara desert anyway). There is Sean Sweeney former CEO of the Auckland City Rail Link (CEL) project who is saying that it could have been built for less than half the cost to save $2B, and that also applies to the latest stadium in Christchurch. The wealthy Danish apparently do things much better he reckons, with similar stations at about a quarter the cost – we all know that the rich hold tight to their money, so what does that make us? Then there is the rural bridge in Central Hawkes Bay which a contractor says he can build for a fraction of the $16M which his Council told him was needed to replace it. I tell ya folks, we need to get back to the No. 8 wire mentality which this country was built on – not always pretty, but it doesn’t send us broke.

A local example of recent infrastructure spending being questioned by a few is the roading improvements currently happening on Roberts Street and Titiraupenga Street in Taupo town central. I understand we are spending around $600K there and have asked to see any option reports that may have been done, because it seems to me that not a heck of a lot is being achieved for such an expense – but we will see. Probably more worthwhile than Christmas lights, but maybe not a few dinosaur sculptures. This sort of thing is the reason I think this Council needs a separate Financial Committee for elected members to have much better oversight of significant expenditure, instead of just tickboxing hundreds of items once a year at Annual Plan which is what happens now – so lets hope the new Council in 2028 has one of those. I have also taken the chance to point out that places like Auckland give out more detailed project information and sometimes even let constituents a chance to have their say before they happen, which is often not the case in Taupo with only minimal information going out.

And while we are on the topic of expenditure, the 2026 Taxpayer Unions Ratepayer Report is now out. So how does Taupo compare with the rest? Well you will have to look for yourself and we aren’t the worst, but we certainly aren’t anywhere near the best either. You can read a Taxpayers Union social media post summary here and a snippet below:

Notice that Christchurch refused to declare their consultant and contractor spend, which is something I have asked our Chief Executive about previously but also been declined – and this is a crucial figure for understanding if Council staffing levels are too high. Of significant note, Taupo District Council was one of only three provincial Councils which refused to provide this data (see HERE).

I will leave you to read for yourself our Chief Executives reasoning, if transparency is a very real thing around here. Note that a 2023 ratepayer report had indicated a $50M figure for the previous year for TDC, but I was never able to confirm.

Just one last thing:

On Local Government New Zealand (LGNZ) membership: Waikato Regional Council did a vote which the Taxpayers Union president had some scathing things to say about, and he even calls LGNZ an immoral organisation (read the full article HERE). I can tell you that Taupo District Council has never had any vote on this in my time there including this year, and reading the room I wasn’t tempted to bother submitting a Notice if Motion for debate.

And that’s all folks I’m done. But I managed to get this one out for Friday, so I reckon that I’ve won.

Fridays tune for any trip or 70’s guitar nostalgia:

Fridays Flashy Burnout

1 May 2026

Genesis 37:5: “Now Joseph had a dream, and he told it to his brothers; and they hated him even more. So he said to them, “Please hear this dream which I have dreamed: There we were, binding sheaves in the field. Then behold, my sheaf arose and also stood upright; and indeed your sheaves stood all around and bowed down to my sheaf”.

Perhaps Joseph wasn’t the best diplomat in his younger days, but things ended up well enough with him in charge of Egypt and able to feed his family through a severe seven-year famine. But he had to be hurled in a pit and imprisoned in a far off land before that could happen, so if you are going through a rough patch too and not all of your own making – maybe, just maybe, it was put there for a reason.

Civil War – couldn’t happen here, right? I’m not so sure. Talking to a fellow from Serbia last week, he says before the strife started over there in the nineties they were all happy families too. Catholics, Orthodox and Moslem all worked, lived together and intermarriage was common – but in the space of just weeks they were at each others throats. Yes, it can happen that quickly, and my pal said don’t ever think that it can’t happen here. The tensions there are all gone now, but only after much bloodletting and new countries coming into being – so war does fix some things. People don’t be so naive that it can’t happen here, and my Serbian pal says he can see some omenous signs. Political leaders need to talk our way out of this, because we can become a Yugoslavia too. Don’t just call me a pessimist, I am only getting real.

Okay on Tuesday we had the April Council meeting which you can watch HERE and read the minutes HERE. The items were fairly mundane this time round and I was prepared to put money that it would be all over in less than an hour, but boy was I wrong there! Two hours later we were still gasbagging on about this or that, and yet everything got tick-boxed anyway – I can tell you this would NOT have happened last term!

The new Three Waters Asset Management policy was approved in Item 5.2 (watch from HERE), where I once again took the chance to put forth my perception of this new Water Services Committee as one where compliance is treated as No.1 with affordability only being a secondary consideration. “Safe drinking water” is apparently whatever the standards tell us it is, and it is to be had at simply any cost. On that note, on 26 April local retired civil engineer Phil Shields wrote a gem of a letter to us all challenging why $1.6M is being spent on a water main renewal project in Omori which serves just 130 properties. You can read the letter HERE, with his recommended course of actions below and to which I look forward to reading our Mayors response:

So please do keep at it Mr Shields, and I do heartily appreciate your educated input. That last recommendation for a new Financial Committee I do especially agree with, and a month ago put up my own 15 min argument for it which you can watch HERE.

Apart from that, the only other thing of note was Item 5.6 where Fees and Charges are being proposed to be hiked upwards for Animal Management (dogs mostly), Food Licensing and Resource Management. You will get to have your say on these later on because they are apparently going to be publically consulted. You can watch it from HERE, and it is fair to say that there was a little bit of disquiet amongst a few of us around the table regarding some of the hourly rates especially ($245/hr for consent staff?). Some charts to compare with other Councils were gratefully provided, and although we are on the higher end of the range even these aren’t able to tell the whole story. My take is that the ultimate test of efficiency is if you are losing customers to the competition, but a fundamental problem with Councils is that there isn’t any competition – and that isn’t such an easy thing to fix.

So what else is going on?

Let’s talk about Turangi buses: Okay it hasn’t gone away, Waikato Regional Council (WRC) are still working in the background to help make a commuter bus service happen. Yes it will require some cash injection (around $170K apparently), and just a month or so ago it was mentioned to us that WRC might have even had some spare funds available – but the fuel crisis has squashed that opportunity, because just like everybody else the diesel prices are hitting them hard too. Our view is simple: if we want to secure long-term funding from New Zealand Transport Agency (NZTA), we need a service that people genuinely use. We’re now trying to work constructively with WRC on options that improve capacity while keeping the service practical for commuters and day users alike, so watch this space and it needs to be decided before the next WRC Transport Committee meeting in June for a September 2026 kickoff.

Chance to meet a Councillor: The first of Taupo District Council Councillor Connnect forums is kicking off next week, so why not come along and meet your favourite Councillor? No promises yet from me, except I will at least be at the 5th May one next week in Chambers.

Councils could or might get GST: It would certainly help things quite a lot says Roger Partridge in this article which you can read HERE. I thought this statement of his below spells it out why quite well enough:

Could be costing us too: Rotoruas waste charges just got higher, and all because their hole in the ground got full and they have to truck it out of district. The current consent for the Taupo landfill is currently up for review, and if that doesn’t happen we could be in for the same. There is a working group of Elected Members negotiating with local hapu now, I am not part of that, but gather for better or worse their input is apparently fairly crucial to the equation. So watch this space because it WILL affect you.

Unethical behaviour, or acting in the peoples best interest? Hard to say from here, and I know not to take at face value any mainstream media headlines like the one you can read HERE. I am fairly confident that Dunedin Councillor Benedict Ong believes he is doing the right thing, but what even really is that? Anyway he is being censored for breaching Code of Conduct, but I know that is just a wet bus ticket to be ignored if he wants and still turn up to Council Chambers for another round. Local Government Politician – about the only job apart from self-employment where you can’t be fired (except every three-years at election time).

Politicians in town this Wednesday, and they even want to charge for it: A bit cheeky if you ask me, but I suppose with petrol prices they need the help.

What is a Council? I was sent this post by Matthew Horncastle which I will repeat below, quite a nice summary I think of what a Council SHOULD be:

Fridays Fable of Fortitude, and oh how appropriate for the pickle we find ourselves now:

Fridays Fixing Bayonets

24 April 2026

Daniel 1:8: “But Daniel purposed in his heart that he would not defile himself with the portion of the king’s delicacies, nor with the wine which he drank; therefore he requested of the chief of the eunuchs that he might not defile himself”.

I had the Biblical character of Daniel pointed out to me twice this week as relevant to positions like mine in secular governance, and the analogy is apt. It is every bit akin to a den of lions, and it takes more than just willpower to overcome the gravity of this world which pulls so hard. Great men, and women, are required to pull this nation back to the greatness it once was and can still be. So stand firm wherever you are, and dare to stand alone. Because others will see and follow.

Council was simmering this week and not a whole lot to report, except it has struck me that the effort to uplift it from its current setting can be extraordinarily hard and perhaps isn’t really worth the sacrifice. Where we have landed I believe, is a place quite different to the past when there was tension in the system to keep a lid on. A time when there was common purpose and intent, and a real sense of public service. I say systemic failure is why rates keep rising, and unless the current system changes the only way I see for tension to be applied is from above – not governments so much because they come and go – but from those you elect to locally govern. What would a true Anzac do?

However, for those you elect to make that change, they have to be able to have their say. Last week Rotorua Councillor Robert Lee walked out of a Council meeting because he was prevented from asking questions of staff (you can view his social media post including the exchange HERE and read the media story about it HERE). I have received that sort of treatment many times before in my three or so years on Taupo District Council, and continue to still do so (local sleuth Sophia M Smith also wrote a recent piece on the topic HERE). At the end of the day, it is 100% the responsibility of the Chairperson to stop this nonsense happening and nobody else, so in Councillor Lee’s case his Mayor was undoubtedly complicit. My number one 2025 election pledge was to Restore Democracy in Council Chambers, because if that doesn’t happen then nothing worthwhile afterward can. Perhaps I should start to walk out more often, what do you think?

On that note I attempted to table a Notice of Motion for next weeks Council meeting which you can read HERE, but thus far have been thwarted by Chief Executive Julie Gardyne’s direct application of a technicality belying one of the very things I am wishing to highlight:

To cut a long story short, my notice was submitted a couple of hours after their official deadline (which I still dispute the interpretation of), and neither the Chief Executive or Mayor are so far willing to exercise their discretion to accept even as a late item. So I guess you will probably have to wait another month to hear how it goes down. Ugh, moving right along…

A couple of workshops we did have this week included a workshop on Property Revaluations which you can watch HERE. Not a lot of consequence that I can recall from that, except that one thing which could make a big difference was not a topic of discussion – Differential ratios between business/commercial and residential. The current setting in Taupo is 1.8 and apparently has been for quite some time, and it would take a Long Term Plan (LTP) round of probably controversial public consultation to amend – because changing that figure would shift the rates burden to either side of the equation. So its not something this Council would lightly dare to touch without much consideration, but I think could contemplate. Of interest a Chatgpt scan of settings elsewhere around the country (shown right) demonstrates that figures can vary widely.

There was a Taupo Airport Authority (TAA) workshop on a proposed District Plan change which you can watch HERE. I have been on the TAA committee the past three years, and it surprised me that there had been little or no protective designations already in place as with most other airports, so I don’t see this as very controversial and just needs to be played out.

There was also a lengthy workshop for Elected Members on Tuesday entitled “Long Term Plan Wrap Up”, and despite all the previous LTP workshops being public viewable was held behind closed doors on the spurious grounds of “the possibility that sensitive material will be addressed, including that they may impact staff employment”. Myself and at least one other Councillor disputed beforehand that there was no justification to keep things under wraps, and as far as I am concerned there was virtually no sensitive material discussed and it certainly was never mentioned the laying off of swathes of staff. Not that the four-hour workshop was riveting viewing or anything, and I rather suspect that certain Elected Members don’t want people to see their commitment to reigning in rates isn’t perhaps quite as strong as some of their election campaigning spoke to. But I did mention that the $70M bridge over the Waikato was surreptitiously put into the last LTP without the required debate, which Deputy Mayor Kevin Taylor probably wouldn’t want you to hear about because he was instrumental to make that happen. And that places like Waikato District Council which managed to achieve a below inflation rates increase this coming year are anomalies which are best not talked about…because they probably fiddled the numbers anyway.

At the outset of the workshop staff presented us with three options: A/ Implement proposed rates cap range of 2-4% from July 2027; B/ Transition to a rates cap range of 2-4% by July 2029; or C/ Wait until 2029 to comply. Instead of any debate, vote or even show of hands, the discussion morphed into something resembling what I have seen every year last term:

Things are tough, we’re doing our best, see it could be worse, now give it a rest.

(Yawn) so apart from all that, what else is going on?

Daring to be Davina: Kings Counsel Colin Judd gives a stirring inditement of Far North Councillor Davina Smolders brave stand against her own bunch of miscreant members elect which you can read HERE. This is a story really worth following and Shane Jones ill-thought words about it I am sure will come back to haunt him. Local Government Minister Simon Watts says he is looking into it and will have a response in about a month. I hope all this publicity makes a difference, because any time I have called on Ministers to help out the response has always been the same: “its a local issue that needs to be dealt with locally”. Not this time around Minister Watts, its time to do your job. But one of KC Judd’s comments stuck with me as quite relevant to the Taupo JMA saga we have going on.

On that note, I was recently sent this 2011 thesis by a Sonja Hancock entitled “Joint Management Agreement between Taupo District Council and Ngati Tuwharetoa: A Summary of lessons for local government”. If we put aside the accusations of me scaremongering for a moment, why don’t you read the concluding paragraph for yourself:

Also on that seeming endless note, I submitted some legal and financial questions about the JMA which you can read HERE and which our Chief Executive neatly deflected. If this Council gets it wrong which it very well could, I perceive an expensive Judicial Review is just around the corner because there are people out there to make it happen. Question is though – will they carry it through?

Late item on Council spending: I used my discretion to include this letter to Mayor and Councillors from intrepid retired engineer and Taupo resident Phil Shields, and his final statements are precisely on point (except I think we do need consultants some of the time):

Fridays I don’t know why but this just struck a nerve for me:

Fridays Stay and Fight or Walk Away?

10 April 2026

Quote for the week: “F… Off” (Mayor Moko Tepania of Far North District Council)

Genesis 16:11-12: “Behold, you are with child, and you shall bear a son. You shall call his name Ishmael, because the Lord has heard your affliction. He shall be a wild man; His hand shall be against every man,
And every man’s hand against him. And he shall dwell in the presence of all his brethren“.

I am no Biblical scholar, but am aware that Ismael the first son of Abraham is said to be the ancestor of Northern Arabs and of the prophet Muhammed himself. That Moslems have been the biggest challenge to Christianity for the past 1000 years or so is fairly indisputable, unless you wish to also count the anti-God movement which enveloped the Western and Communist world since Darwin times of the 19th century – but I am increasingly now seeing that as only a historical blip. The significant majority of people in this world believe in one God who created everything, but its the question of which God that still divides us.

Greetings people, and although we haven’t had much formal happenings in Council this past week there are certainly a few things going on in the background like a few wars. The fuel crisis doesn’t seem as if it will be letting up very soon, and quite ironically we have all the petrolheads descending on this town for the Supercar meet. I am not one myself and can generally think of better things to do, but I plan to check it out on Sunday when the exciting weather is expected to arrive and there might be some exciting crashes (Councillors get complimentary tickets). But unfortunately some saner heads than mine have prevailed to reschedule all the big races to finish up Saturday. Having said all that, we do actually get a bit happening here compared to say, a place like Ashburton, and although the loads of people can at times get tiresome at least Taupo can’t be accused of being too sleepy.

This week we just had an Elected Member induction session on cybersecurity and AI, and one worthwhile thing I did learn is that if you accidentally press the wrong button on your phone which goes to one of those dodgy sites which access all your data – immediately press the “Airplane” mode to cease the connection and hopefully prevent further damage. Another viable alternative is to right there and then totally demolish your phone, but the former option is easier and cheaper.

We also yesterday had the second of our Water Services Committee meetings, and if you are interested in water infrastructure I really do recommend you have a watch of the 90 min meeting HERE with the minutes and agenda as always available HERE. We had a very informative presentation by Council asset manager wastewater Michael Cordell about the state of wastewater infrastructure (from about the 2 min mark), and afterwards some discussions about water services policy. The Taupo Wastewater plant in particular is facing some immediate future challenges, with the new wastewater standards in place that more severely limit how much nitrogen we are allowed to dispense to the currently irrigated land disposal sites – Houston, we have a problem. I’ll leave a couple of the relevant slides below, and note that the dotted line forecast departs the current reality in 2027 which is very soon.

My greatest question about this committee and its stated policy objectives is this (and I am not alone):

Will we be testing value for money and affordability, or is the primarily focus on monitoring delivery and compliance?

Thus far, it seems to be heading towards the latter. and I am not assured this committee will not become the tick-boxing exercise I strongly suspect it will. Because you will be the ones paying for it, and there is unfortunately no rates cap going to be in place to affect this very substantial aspect of Council spending.

And as far as drinking water is concerned, as I see it Elected Members in this Water Services Committee have two main objectives: 1/ Ensuring that money is spent wisely; and 2/ Ensuring that drinkable water delivered to constituents is safe. The water regulator and Ministry of Health are not responsible for satisfying these outcomes – we are. And are we over-investing to meet regulatory requirements that is beyond what delivers real community benefit? I strongly suspect that we are, because the benefits versus costs are simply not being measured.

Apart from that, we have:

Joint Management Agreement saga continues: This week Taupo Mayor John Funnell put out a statement about the JMA which you can read HERE that caused quite a stir with Maori Ward Councillor Wahine Murch put out her own social media response HERE where she asserts the Mayor has got it wrong:

“Of particular concern are comments suggesting the JMA would result in “ratepayers being governed by people they cannot remove at an election.” This misrepresents the agreement. JMAs do not transfer governance of our district; they provide a statutory framework for joint management with partners like the Tuwharetoa Māori Trust Board. Mischaracterising it in this way can create unnecessary confusion and alarm” (Councillor Wahine Murch).

I wouldn’t have put it quite the same way as Mayor Funnell did, because in my mind since this JMA retains much of the ultimate decision making to Elected Members then that means it is technically more of a “co-management” rather than co-governance agreement. But there the hair-splitting ends, because I say that enmeshing any private entity into Council operations as the current draft JMA is proposing to do will absolutely have undue influence to Council affairs – it is foolish or naive to think otherwise.

On that note, ACT MP Cameron Luxton put out a social media message recently that pointedly reflects to where places like Taupo find ourselves now (snippet below):

And while we are on that theme, a lot of people including myself are very inspired and impressed by Councillor Davina Smolders of Far North District Council who was this week speaking out against her own Council on the Duncan Garner podcast which you can watch HERE. Man oh man, I thought I had it tough here, but that place is a world apart in terms of the abuse and threats she has copped for speaking out. You really need to hear it for yourself, including that their Mayor Moko Tepania is acting like a complete nob and telling Duncan to F… Off. I know that I give Mayor John Funnell a hard time on occasion, but he has never told me to do that. I really do hope for the sake of Far North constituents that the government steps in to sort that mess out, and it really does sound like a mess. If you want to follow Davina’s exploits you can find her Facebook page here and I have already ticked subscribe.

Duncan bleating on: Although it seems trivial by comparison to the above, to follow up on my failed Notice of Motion last Tuesday to elevate Elected Members to a level playing field with members of the public in terms of freedom of expression in our own Council Chambers, I put together a subtitled version of the unfolding 30 min drama which you watch HERE. I learned a few important things from that experience: (i) we have a Chairman Mayor who doesn’t understand that when you give the majority an opportunity to quench the minority, they will take it almost every time; (ii) our first term Councillors (with the notable exception of Cr Woodward) do not yet appreciate the value of free expression in Council Chambers; (iii) I had assumed this matter was 1 + 1 = 2 to understand, but some voiced reservations by even those voting in support may have swayed some fence-sitters to vote against (only myself and Cr’s Rankin, Greenslade, Woodward voted in support, with the rest against and the Mayor abstaining). So behind the scenes diplomacy in advance is obviously required for even the most basic of propositions to change a status quo, which this surely was.

Councils are not signatories to the Treaty: Michael Laws (who happened to get a A+ on a Treaty of Waitangi paper at university) reminds us on his recent podcast. In this he points out a relatively recent court decision from Marlborough where it was affirmed that Councils are not signatories and have no stipulated obligations to the Treaty of Waitangi. Now I don’t always like what Michael Laws has to say and at times he can be downright rude, but on his call for complete reform of local government to sort out the total mess its in including stuff like this, I totally agree.

Transport going Nuclear? As your representative to the Waikato Regional Transport Committee on Friday I attended the second workshop for the Transport Long Term Plan which you can watch HERE. If transportation is your area of interest I do recommend it worth tuning in, because we are at the stage of putting down all the priorities that will contribute towards where quite a lot of money will go. Okay its not edge of your seat stuff and Taupo is certainly the most strained district in the region for this aspect, but I managed to poke in about a few things. Hamilton Councillor Sure Moroney pretty much outed herself as an avowed climate warrior who several times piped up with comments to the effect that we should be getting all cars off the road. I almost laughed out loud when she also effectively stated that economic prosperity is linked to dependence on fossil fuels! I commented that the last government exacerbated the current fuel crisis because it stupidly pretended we could do without oil, gas and the Marsden Point refinery, or even sensible speed limits – but if in the future we decided to go nuclear then things could turn around. Taupo already has some cooling towers, so why can’t we just build a few more?

Help for the Homeless: Rotorua has a free laundry and shower service for the homeless which is now closing to some dismay. This article only caught my eye because of recent discussions in Chambers about the future of the Superloo toilets in Taupo town centre that is frequented by homeless for a similar purpose, and is being mooted for removal of its shower service because of security concerns. I am in two minds about this – on the one hand we don’t want public facilities turned into unsightly or hazardous places to frequent, but on the other shouldn’t we be offering a helping hand to those most in need? The problem is that these things never come for free, and the Rotorua facility is ceasing because the government funding ceased. I see an opportunity here for some local philanthropy.

Fridays lesson on how to think of your average local politician:

Thursday (not Friday) Depths of Despair

2 April 2026

“The mountain groaned, and gave forth a mouse”

Genesis 8:20: “Then Noah built an altar to the Lord, and took of every clean animal and of every clean bird, and offered burnt offerings on the altar” (NKJ)

Easter is about sacrifice and death, but it is also about resurrection and life. Animal sacrifice is an important theme found throughout the Bible, because: “without the shedding of blood there is no forgiveness (Hebrews 9:22). So although animal lovers might be repelled, it is so written. Jesus died for us to live forever if we can bend to seek His forgiveness, for the things we have done and the things we are yet to do. So you can commiserate on Friday, but do remember to celebrate on Monday. For He is Risen.

Councillor Duncan here on with your Friday update on a THURSDAY, because its just not cricket to put things out on an Easter Friday. And I am afraid that I have some bad news: There is no serious commitment in Chambers to cap rates to inflation, and most of your Elected Members don’t realise they are politicians. Perhaps some of the below will help unpack that, and I apologise if it seems a bit of a hodgepodge. This follows the Tuesday 31 March Council meeting which went for an epic four hours (that’s what happens when you try to pack too much stuff into an agenda). For those really keen you can watch the whole thing HERE, but for the more time pressured I will put some timestamped highlights below. You can also read the agenda and minutes HERE.

Lets start with this: Some of you may recall that one of my 2025 campaign pledges was to Restore Democracy in Council Chambers? What we have going on at Taupo District Council is quite a stunted version of democracy, because right now Elected Members have less freedom of expression in Chambers than a member of the public – yes really. Thinking this should be a simple enough job to fix, and because our Mayor refuses to do it himself even though he could have unilaterally decided in a heartbeat, I tried to remedy this nonsensical situation with my Item 5.2 Notice of Motion to introduce a “General Matters” item to Council agendas. To my bewilderment, I was then subjected to a barrage of disparate accusations and assertions which left me so angry I was barely able to stay in the room afterwards. You can watch the 30 min debacle HERE, read my Notice of Motion HERE, and for a transcript of my introductory presentation read HERE. As heartening as it was that Councillors Rankin, Greenslade and Woodward were backing me up, the fact of the matter is that we have a significant majority of Elected Members who would rather silence themselves than have to listen to the likes of us. That is now the shameful reality of this sorry Council Chambers, and entirely to blame is the Mayor for allowing it to happen. Ugh, somebody…anybody…please get me outta here.

Rates Cap Renege: In other news, this new Council is not going to be tagging rates to inflation any time soon. There are some voiced intentions, and a few promising signs that staff are starting to contemplate frugal spending more seriously than before – but there is zero commitment from Elected Members to actually start making it happen this coming financial year. That means that there still is no bottom line, and some of you are going to get kicked out of your homes because you cannot afford the rates and insurance. You can watch about it during Item 5.6 Annual Plan 26/27 – Draft Financial Direction HERE. It is sad, but also quite maddening – because an answer recently popped up as obvious enough to me. Last year this Council earned $5M profit from land sales on Crown Road, and instead of using it to offset this coming years rates rises is instead putting it all towards paying off the $200M or so debt we already owe (saving around $200K of interest payments). You can watch the discussion about that during Item 5.8 Request to Approve Use of Strategic Property Reserve to Pay Down Debt HERE. Don’t get me wrong, I do believe that clearing debt is a good thing. But we also have a Mayor who pledged in his campaign to not let rates exceed inflation, and like a few other things is having not very much to say about it.

From the original forecast of 6.7%, Council recently announced that we are now looking at 6.6% – so a drop of 0.1%, or $100,000 from the total rates intake.

The mountain has indeed groaned, and let forth a mouse.

A positive take but not entirely: I happen to think that we are in a period of flux that won’t last forever – in other words, I am an optimist. When any business has it too easy for too long it becomes bloated with inefficiencies, as anybody who has ever worked in a Council for any length of time will probably agree. Putting a lid on things with a rates cap does mean that a change in outlook is required, and that doesn’t just happen overnight. Despite some of the negative press I sometimes exude, I do actually have faith that the staff of Taupo District Council are capable of thinking outside the square, but also that a more pressured environment is a required incentive to make it happen. Already we are talking about selling off Council assets like reserves, and a Bed Tax to fund things like Destination Great Lake Taupo as happens elsewhere (Rotorua, apparently). So I say: Yes we CAN do it, and until then we should be giving immediate relief to constituents where possible. But we aren’t going to be doing that.

Item 5.7 Establishment of Mangakino-Pouakani and Tongariro Representative Group Committees watch from HERE caused something of a stir with especially Councillors Greenslade and Woodward who viewed the new status of their Turangi and Mangakino committees as a downgrade along with deleted remuneration for the Chairs. I know these small community Councillors get a lot more community flak compared to urban ward Taupoites like me, although it seems I unfortunately dropped the ball when it came to voting on the remuneration aspect and actually voted against their interests – sorry girls my bad – although it looks like the rest of the room was also against. All I can say is that I am glad that I am not a small community Councillor, because it looks like quite hard work.

And in other news:

Turangi Buses, Ferries Galore: On Wednesday Councillor Sandra Greenslade posted a roaster of an April Fools on the Turangi Noticeboard (see below) which took quite a few people in and even got reported in the Waikato Times, but there is a dark side of this which does need retelling once again. Waikato Regional Council have told us that if we get $170K together then they will add a five-day a week Taupo-Turangi 33 seater bus service with timetable of our choice, but discussions about it in Chambers of late have fallen very flat indeed. Apparently this Council is too poor to afford anything much at all really, even to relieve an urgent community need at a crucial time as this. To be honest I really thought this would be something right up Mayor Funnell’s rescue mindset alley, but apparently not if the absence of decisive words or action is anything to go by. After all, if Auckland and Christchurch are now deciding to urgently prioritise public transport because people can’t afford to run their cars, why can’t we? One urban planning lecturer is even promoting that if the government spent $300M nationwide for free buses for a year it would be cheaper than some of the other ideas being floated.

Thursday fun day at the marae: I’d like to be able to tell you how it all went down today at the Induction with Ngāti Tūrangitukua for Councillors and Staff at their Turangi marae, but I decided not to attend. You see when three years ago I attended much of it was presented in a language I didn’t understand, and I noticed that activist Tina Porou will once again be presenting her version of Council obligations to the Treaty of Waitangi and probably the sins of colonialism too. My biggest concern (apart from an entire day out of my life to no great purpose): this marae visit also serves as an induction for Council staff (nine carloads of them, apparently). Having said that, I do recall there was a welcoming air and the luncheon was quite fine – and I realised much later, probably paid for out of the annual $500K fund set aside for “improving Iwi relations“.

Soothsayer Duncan says: This has been sitting with me now for quite a while, but I feel after the defining moment of Tuesday this is the right moment to say aloud. Except for sorting out the Joint Management Agreement (JMA) which seems to be Mayor John Funnell’s main purpose to be there, he has reneged on all the other election platforms which I recall (my paraphrasing): Capping Rates to Inflation = Too Hard (after looking at the books…); Greater Transparency = Even Less (advocating for Code of Silence sessions for Councillors); Referendum for JMA = Remember That Idea?; and Greater Democracy in Chambers = Tyranny of the Majority (example described previous). If I were in his place and didn’t need the money, I reckon that I’d be planning my departure by now. Take it or leave it, and I’m just saying.

On Propaganda: Rates are going up – but are you looking at it like a Rachel, or a Duncan?

Fridays just because its there:

Fridays Black Who’s for the Sack?

13 February 2026

Pride – the worst and the essence of all sins. It is also the hardest of all sins to detect in oneself, and I count myself as no exception. As Proverbs 16:18 puts it: “Pride goes before destruction, and a haughty spirit before a fall” (New King James Version). I think it is more than just a strange coincidence that a movement is so bold to label themselves after it, but perhaps they are only being the most transparent. This country called New Zealand is rife with it, and it will be our downfall – correction – it is our downfall.

But there is also a thing called dignity, and this week in Chambers I think it was demonstrated there is not enough of that going round. Recall last week that I was refused a Public Forum showing on the topic of financial delegations? (for the record, here is my complaint to the Ombudsman about that episode) Getting Elected Members to take more direct responsibility for major decisions is something I reckon could shave $M each year, and I know the Mayor and many of the other elected members do want to hear about it – but virtually none of them wish for my 10 min presentation to be audio-video recorded and on public record. The given reasons: it would set a new precedent for an Elected Member to be given such a platform, and could be seen as official endorsement of viewpoints which are mine alone. Another reason not mentioned but I strongly suspect: a few of the old-hand Elected Members don’t wish for it to be highlighted that in November 2021 they recklessly handed over all fiscal responsibility to the Chief Executive when they really shouldn’t have.

I am refusing to bow down to such intransigence and hypocrisy, because I believe that transparency is not just a word and it actually does mean something. So I will instead be putting together a video release for public consumption which the other Elected Members can view just like anybody else. It is a shame that their responses will not be collected for public record, but that is on them. If nothing at all else, this little episode should highlight to you all just who actually runs the shop of Council, and even though they could be it certainly ain’t this current batch of Elected Members. And for goodness sakes, why on earth do the opinions of Council staff get held up as so much more authoritive and objective than anybody else?

But honestly in the bigger picture and for all the ill feeling this has caused between myself and the Mayor who can by executive decree make it happen, wouldn’t it have been so much easier to just give me my damned five minutes last week?

One other cause of angst between myself and most of the other Elected Members: my once again refusal to adhere with proposed one-hour code of silence sessions on our regular Tuesday catchups. This has come up before and I thought we had dealt with it, but the Mayor once again went around the room to get virtually everybody else’s support in order to pressure me into acceding. I tell you people, this role has hardened me and I am no longer the nice guy I once was. Three years ago I probably would have folded, or if I didn’t would have been sweating it big time. This time round though, its like water off a ducks back for me and I know they can’t do a damned thing about it. I will not put up with any more small town small-mindedness, because Taupo is too pretty for that.

As a sidenote to the above unsavoury conversation and at my prompting for past examples of confidential information being unduly shared, Deputy Mayor Kevin Taylor recycled up an incident from 2023 where I apparently did breach the Code of Conduct. Some of you may recall the John Hall building consent fraud case which I won’t bother you with all the details, but will show my quite firm rebuttal at the time:

29 June 2023

Dear Mayor, CEO et al,

As elected Councillor I reject the allegation of breach of code of conduct with respect to sharing of confidential information as stated at a closed councillor meeting on the morning of 27 June 2023, on the following grounds:

  • As an elected official I have a fiduciary duty to the people of Taupo District, and by that I have an obligation to seek independent sources of information, and not just from the CEO and council staff.
  • I am a Chartered Engineer and did seek advice from both Engineering NZ and fellow Chartered Engineer Mr John Scarry.  The intentions of my questions were mainly around potential council liability with regard to the situation of Producer Statement fraud, but also to get a better understanding of the Producer Statement process.  I did not divulge the name of any individuals involved or any financial or commercial sensitivities, and to the best of my knowledge there is no possibility of any personal gain to myself from these enquiries.  Izaac Sugrue of Engineering NZ informed me that they were already well aware of the issue through previous discussions with Taupo District Council. 
  • Mr Scarry is a structural engineer with extensive experience in the industry who has informed me that he has no prior knowledge of this fraud case in the Central North Island.   What we talked about was strictly within the bounds of one professional engineer seeking advice, in confidence, from another professional engineering colleague, regarding engineering matters of very great importance to the public.  I believe it would actually have been unethical for myself as a professional engineer, not to have sought such a discussion.  Mr Scarry gave me helpful background information on the various types of Producer Statements and their standing in relation to the Building Act, Building Code and the building consent process, and from this I was indirectly able to gain some impressions of potential council liability and responsibilities. 
  • The identity of the accused fraudster appears to be quite well known amongst the building industry in Taupo, and indeed in the past five or six weeks I have heard the case mentioned by several people in passing well before we had our meeting in confidence about it last week.  It would be a strange situation indeed if elected representatives are unable to exercise due diligence when any other member of the public is able to, and especially at this point in time with an apparently similar availability of local information.

I therefore would appreciate a redaction of the alleged breach of code of conduct please. 

Thankyou,

Duncan Campbell ME (Hns) CPEng IntPE(NZ)

To the above I never did receive any reply, except that the Chief Executive subsequently contracted an expensive lawyer from Hamilton for an hour or so training session to help me understand that ‘this is not how we do things around here’, and from then on because I was still unrepentant did sense a labelling as somebody who cannot really be trusted. As to my original concerns about the above building consent fraud case, I never did get satisfactory answers to affirm that Council staff had not been sloppy in their vetting of consent applications or even that the process has since been improved – this is also on my list of things to bring up in the nearish future.

Alright enough of all my people problem bleating – and politics is all about people problems – what about some of the other stuff going on?

We have all f….ed up: Mangakino ward Councilor Hope Woodward gets herself in the mainstream news with a tirade about the condition of her part of the Waikato River and wants something done before “it turns into something from the third world”. Waikato Regional Council get most of the blast but Taupo District Council does not get completely unscathed, and Mercury’s use of the chemical diquot to kill hornwort further upstream is said to be adding to the problem. It has apparently gotten so bad that some residents are selling up and summertime visitors are deciding to holiday elsewhere. However, I do think it is ironic that a labelled baddy the chief operating officer of Mercury goes by the same namesake as our esteemed Deputy Mayor Kevin Taylor. So watch this space.

Cemetery update – Some of you may recall that from a Facebook post by a member of the public before Christmas I said that I would look into this Council’s policy around cemetery decorations. Well from brief tours of Taupo & Turangi cemeteries I have identified that there certainly are some questions with respect to even-handedness. So I still have unanswered questions about how the policy on lawn cemeteries is put into practice, and also how a change in policy was slipped past us in Chambers when it was revised just a couple of years ago – and I do say that with a degree of conviction because although I don’t always pay attention to every detail, I am fairly sure that if that change had been pointed out I would have had something to say. Anyway, I have been told that we are going to be looking at Cemetery Management Plans in the next 12 months and that will be an opportunity to revisit. The issue is really all about cost-effective grounds maintenance, but I think there should be opportunity for people who want to decorate atop the grave in designated areas if they wish to pay a little more. Pasifika people in particular know how to turn a place of the dead into a place of joy, and if Auckland allows for it then why can’t we?

Growth assumptions or stabbing in the dark? Yesterday we had a workshop where Council number crunchers shared their predictions of population increase for the district, along with the currently designated and anticipated areas where residential housing will happen. You can watch the one hour presentation here. I am not 100% convinced that these people have got it all right, but we have to start somewhere otherwise bad things can happen. We need to plan for future water and wastewater infrastructure, and absence of that will throttle development. Likewise, if we overestimate growth and build bigger infrastructure than actually needed it could bankrupt the district if the expected increase in residential rates intake doesn’t eventuate. I have heard anecdotal stories of just that happening to a smaller Council in 2006 which so overstretched themselves they were forced to amalgamate with a bigger entity just to stay afloat – so these things do matter. Of note it was also pointed out the rapid increase in Kinloch residential housing in the past 10 years compared to other areas, but I am already hearing some rumblings from the Kinloch quarter that Council is getting it completely wrong by saying it will flatten. Says one member of the public observer of this workshop:

“In that entire room, there seems to be a lack of understanding of where growth comes from. Its like they think it ‘just happens’ all by itself.  Because of this lack of understanding there is a feeble effort to promote and attract growth. Growth is nearly always created by the private sector.   I realise this is political, because a lot of people don’t want growth, they want it to stay the nice little Taupo that ( in their minds) it used to be. But they do want better shops, better hospitals, better schools, and more jobs that any growth brings”.

Just tell us how much: We also had a staff presented workshop on Tuesday where Elected Members were asked the burning question: How much do we want rates to increase for their Long Term Plan (LTP) calculations? The next LTP is due out in about 17 months time, and given the government intentions of rates capping to inflation to kick in 2029 they were seeking some direction. I can tell you that no such firm direction was given, and I see scant chance that your 2026/27 rates bill will be anything less than the 6.7% increase already set out in the 2024/34 LTP. My own commentary included that rate capping to inflation is not to be relied upon as a government imposition because future governments could scrap it altogether, and I would much prefer that rates-capping to inflation become not only a voter expectation but an outright demand. You can watch the one hour workshop here. I also foresee that a new rate capping regime will force the hand of not only Councils but organisations like Ironman NZ and Supercars to seek alternative funding than just the hapless ratepayer, and which seems to become a competition amongst Councils – and that won’t be such a bad thing at all.

Zoran the Zorro of Selwyn: On that note, I think this submission by Zoran Rakovic during the Public Forum of a Selwyn District Council meeting in December is well worth a listen. Zoran didn’t manage to get elected himself, but he is very engaged with the way his Council operates and even went so far to prepare a Notice of Motion for Councillors to use if they so wish, in order to demonstrate their public commitment to keeping rate rises at bay. I reckon that such a Motion would go a long way to letting Council staff know just what is expected of them, something currently missing at Taupo District Council. I wonder if they would have let Zoran speak so openly and in a Public Forum if he were a Councillor?  

Shopping elsewhere next time please: Here is a copy of my complaint to the Minister of Local Government about our contracted electoral provider Electionz.com, who I felt was unnecessarily intransigent in their response to my questions about the data collected. I was only doing my due diligence to try and affirm that no election fraud might have been happening in this district similar to what happened in Manukau, and their employee Warwick Lampp steadfastly refused to respond. I also tried to find out how much we paid for their services, but that request was turned down by Council staff on the grounds of commercial sensitivity. Wow, whatever we did pay I say it was an absolute ripoff.

Buses and disabled take note: As your representative member of the Waikato Regional Transport Committee, I have until 20 February to make a submission around what we would like Public Transport and Total Mobility to look like in the future for our region. So I am coming to you for ideas. Public transport is handled by Waikato Regional Council (i.e. NOT Taupo District Council) and a portion of your Regional rates gets put toward this.  By Total Mobility we are talking about: “Assisting eligible people with long-term impairments to access appropriate transport to meet their daily needs and enhance their community participation. This assistance is provided in the form of subsidised door to door transport services wherever scheme transport providers operate” (for a fuller description see the NZTA website here). I also posted this request for public feedback on Facebook a few days ago and some of the responses are already quite informative, so feel free to put any comments there.

Zero rates rise for Northland so why can’t we? Northland Regional Council chairman Pita Tipene believes a 0% increase in rates take is achievable for the upcoming financial year, I wonder how they can manage but we can’t?

Lake Okareka locals take gold clams seriously so why can’t we? Isn’t it interesting that some people are taking the gold clam threat a lot more seriously than here in Taupo, like say Lake Okareka locals including Te Arawa Lakes Trust who are imposing all kinds of restrictions like warranted officers and community volunteers manning boat ramps to check those entering have followed the “Clean, Check, Dry” procedures. Food for thought there, and I don’t mean gold clam soup.

Almost free entry for youth: Hastings District Council has just introduced a scheme whereby youth get $1 entry into Hastings District Council-public pools and Hastings Sports Centre has been launched in a bid to encourage young people to be more active. Available to all young people living in Heretaunga Hastings aged 12 to 24, and interesting that with all their challenges from last year’s big storm it is reckoned as affordable. I say if youth don’t keep themselves occupied they can only cause more trouble for the rest of us, so I would like to know why we can’t do such a thing here too.

Like this guys style?  This guy Geoff Upson is a sitting member on Rodney Community Board up in Auckland, and he is already casting himself as the Opposition! I have thought of myself the same way for quite some time now, but never thought of actually labeling myself that. Perhaps I need to start talking more straightforwardly like Geoff.

Fridays Freak’in Fantastic: Amazing photo taken up Mount Tauhara on early Christmas morning of 2025, and believe it or not the silhouette in the middle of the rainbow is me. Rain or shine, that wonderful place is always stimulating.

Fridays February We’re Back!

6 February 2026

Okay folks, I’m back and to explain my absence: we have our first Council meeting of the year just yesterday, and until now there really haven’t been any Council happenings worth reporting on since Christmas. Basically over summer your Elected Members had around six weeks off with virtually nothing on our calendars. That is not to say that none of us did community stuff in that period, only that we aren’t called on to debate or decide anything.

Now for the bad news: I do believe our new Mayor is a dud, and I’m calling him out now.

Just like the Mayor before, and just like the past twelve years.

To explain myself:

Some of you may recall my 2025 election #1 priority to Restore Democracy which included to cease and desist the cynical use of Standing Orders to shut down debate and discussion. I can tell you that nothing has changed on that front and it was demonstrated quite clearly at yesterdays Council meeting, when my application to appear in the public forum to give a five-minute presentation was refused by Mayor Funnell – in direct breach of Standing Orders and under the artless claim that ‘an elected member is not a member of the public’.  You can watch the video recording here if you like, and it took several times longer to debate than it would have to simply hear me out. Pitiful, un-necessary, and all of it total bullshit. Basically in order to people please some others, Mayor Funnell decided to squash on me. I was hoping that the Mayor would get the idea after I wrote him this recent letter on freedom of expression for Elected Members, but it obviously didn’t register.

My #2 campaign priority was to Take Back Control of Council, and that means doing transparency for real by making sure that important discussions of Elected Members be audio-visual recorded for public record. Because so many times have I experienced the dark hole of that place, that I now count anything not done in the public arena simply doesn’t matter. The topic of my presentation: Delegated Authority of Elected Members. The current setting at Taupo District Council is that the Chief Executive has almost total unfettered control of financial expenditure with little accountability to Elected Members – and that is just mental. But they didn’t want you to hear about it, nor of the change made in 2021 which you never heard about to make it so. You see, they simply don’t want to be embarrassed by the fact that probably hundreds of dollars could have been shaved off your annual rates bill, if responsible fiscal oversight hadn’t been just willingly given away in a debate which probably lasted all of three minutes.

What has Mayor Funnell got to do with all this, you ask? Because he is the one who been delaying and deferring about my offered presentation on this topic since before Christmas, and he almost certainly doesn’t want it aired in public view. This is despite his campaign pledge for transparency and accountability, and along with his commitment to tie rates to inflation (which won’t be happening any time soon) – I do believe we are experiencing just another windbag politician. I was really hoping these next three years weren’t going to be a repetition of the last – and to be fair, we have some spirited newly elects who won’t let that entirely happen – but without firm and wise leadership at the helm I am already seeing the writing on the wall. Leadership isn’t taking a vote on every decision under the sun which is within the Mayor’s authority to make (as happened yesterday with the public forum) – instead that is a recipe for the continued tyranny of the majority. Just. Like. Before. And if we can’t even get the democratic institution of Council Chambers working properly where Elected Members are able to talk freely or even be granted equivalent speaking rights of an attending member of the public – there really isn’t any point of having elections at all. Making any worthwhile changes to the current direction set by the Chief Executive simply becomes impossible.

However I do believe in Miracles and make no claim to 100% know the future, and perhaps this post will help push for drastic change and very soon.

Okay apart from all that which was quite regrettable to have to write, what else do we have going on?

Community Forums/ Committees / Representative Groups / or Whatever: You may be aware that a bunch of talkfests have been happening the month of January about the way Council engages with communities going forward, and I turned up to a few of these myself. To be honest I haven’t taken great interest in this issue, because I believe that the mechanism of community engagement is a moot point if Council always just does what it wants to do anyway and irrespective of what the community say – and there are so many examples of that in recent history around here. But it is always good to get out and about every now and then, and I did get to visit the wonderful Waitahanui community hall and meet some of the people there (for one thing, I reckon they could do with a new basketball court). And I was reminded of the No.1 concern for Wairakei people which is their landlocked state with regard to walking and cycling.

Planning Bill Submission is there any point: We did discuss another couple of items on Thursdays meeting, and one of these was Councils submission to the two bills set to replace the Resource Management Act (RMA): the Planning Bill and the Natural Environment Bill (read the minutes here, and watch the recording here from 17 min). I have to say that my own impression of any changes to the consenting process regime can be secondary to the manner it gets applied. In my own profession of transport engineering I have been involved in resource consent process for around 30 years – same RMA as back then, but a great shift in the way Councils have become much more of a hindrance than the help they used to be.  For example I can think of a time when Council officers had to find some very good reasons to justify to management why they want to decline. Now, the situation seems to have flipped 180 degrees so that the applicant has to justify why they deserve to be approved. This may sound like an inconsequential difference, but let me tell you it is not.

Our submission also mentions some trepidation about the Retail Distribution effects, and that we could end up with large Box stores or Malls in the suburbs and the Taupo Town Centre will die (as per places like Rotorua). Until now I had not appreciated that for Taupo this was a concerted policy of the planners, but if I am right to assume that the politics of Taupo is a main bottleneck – then things won’t be changing very much in a hurry anyway.

Climate Change Really? On Thursday we also received a staff paper which was entitled Review of Climate Change Risks (watch here from 46 min). My own thoughts on this topic are that apart for the ski industry and perhaps the odd brush fire, colder climates present greater challenges for this district than warm – and that is just a reflection on human habitation globally which has always flourished more easily in warmer climates. And I do know enough about climatology that things will get colder sooner or later (perhaps much soon than anybody expects), so when that happens it will present a much greater challenge (ski industry excepted).

We were presented with some extrapolations of future flooding, but I do have to admit a degree of scepticism because of two things: 1/ Our blessing of free draining volcanic soils (which is also a curse for farming); and 2/ We have about the mildest weather in the whole of the North Island, and as someone who likes a nice storm every now and then I do so miss the more exciting stuff they get on the Coast. We also confusingly heard that annual rainfall and number of heavy rainfall events are not predicted to increase, so that would mean many more sunny days and I can’t see that as a very bad thing.

Capping Rates Yeah Right: Yesterday we also had a workshop entitled Annual Plan: Initial Budgeting and Direction where staff gave us a heads up opportunity to influence the setting of budgets for the upcoming financial year (the workshop was audio-visual recorded so when that becomes available you can watch it here). I gave it my best shot to advocate that we stick to capping things off to the government imposed maximum of 4.0% even if it won’t be mandatory until 2029, and I am hoping the staff will present us with a decent set of scenarios to make that happen (we are talking around $3M of operational spend reductions). But I am clearly in a very small minority of Councillors prepared to even consider that notion, so it looks like we going to get lumped with the 6.7% as set out in the 2024-2034 Long Term Plan (LTP) and not a smidgen less.

Is this bias or what? Some of you may recall that during our Joint Management Agreement (JMA) workshop in December, I challenged the presenting lawyer, Paul Beverley, over his previous statements that “Māori have a deep and innate relationship with natural resources”, which to me suggests an assumption of environmental authority that not everyone would accept. At the time, he advised this position is reflected in legislation and offered to provide examples. I couldn’t turn down that offer, and a few days ago received the follow-up response from Paul, which you can read here.

After reviewing the material provided, I remain unconvinced that legislation establishes any inherent or exclusive environmental authority. The references cited recognise Māori cultural relationships with the environment, which councils must respect, but they do not require governance concessions beyond statutory obligations.

As elected members, we are expected to rely heavily on professional advice, which makes it even more important that such advice is carefully examined and openly tested. Given the long-term implications of a JMA, it would be prudent to ensure advice is tested from multiple governance perspectives, rather than relying on a single adviser whose philosophical framing and cultural premises may shape outcomes in subtle but significant ways. This JMA will therefore require very careful scrutiny to ensure it remains fair, proportionate, and accountable to all residents of our district. I encourage residents to read the material themselves and stay engaged as this agreement develops.

Speaking of consultants: One of my things to do under my #2 campaign pledge to Take Back Control of Council was for Elected Members to be able get independent opinions for all sorts of things from legal to engineering, and was thinking an annual budget of say $10K per Councillor could be set aside for this purpose. I don’t know of any Councils which have that policy already, but Wellington Mayor Andrew Little apparently did commit to this in his election campaign:“Give Councillors the ability to test the Council’s legal advice through a $50,000 per annum contestable legal advice fund.”I am told that in the last term Wellington had a lot of problems with Council officers telling Councillors they couldn’t do things “due to legal advice”, and sometimes even refusing to even provide Councillors with that advice.  I’m telling ya, this thing is a live issue around the country.

And what about the staff? Yesterday Elected Members also had a staff led training session about the Councils Procurement process, which is pretty much as dry a subject as it sounds. But I took the opportunity to express what I see as its biggest achilles heel and especially as it relates to a provincial town as Taupo: staff qualifications and experience, or lack thereof. Because staff are the ones who set the context and framework of any awarded contracts, so it can totally depend on what they do or don’t know, including what they are unaware of to even know to seek advice on. I have seen this so often in my professional engineering career it is just an assumed thing of the industry, and there is no way it doesn’t also apply here in Taupo.

Wayne Brown doesn’t have manners: Apparently leadership has many different faces, and it isn’t always pretty. Threatening to rearrange a journalists face is not exactly model behaviour from the Dummies Guide to Being a Mayor, but he did it.

JONESIE awards due 12th February 2026: For those who reckon Council wastes a lot of your money on stupid stuff, you only have another week to make a submission for the Taxpayer Union Jonesie Awards for wasteful government expenditure. You need to get specific examples with a full back story to have a chance of winning, I did have one lined up for submitting but as there is still a chance it won’t happen so might save it for next year. However for anybody out there who does have something I do encourage you to send it in.

Waitangi Day: Oh yes its Waitangi Day.

Fridays Finish Finale Finaali : Even though I have never been there, Canada and Canadians strike me as so similar to New Zealand and New Zealanders just without the sunny beaches. So sit back and enjoy this wonderful piece from my favourite Canadian poet/singer Leonard Cohen with a message to all those with hearts to hear and bear it:

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: