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 CouncilCouncillor 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:
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 SandraGreenslade 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’srescue 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?
It’s all very well to say about JMA’s, but what is the point of them anyway?
Genesis 6:3:“And the Lord said, “My Spirit shall not strive with man forever, for he is indeed flesh; yet his days shall be one hundred and twenty years”.
We are not made to live forever, but that verse from Genesis 6:3 isn’t widely interpreted to mean we are capped at 120 years. Its context was that Noah had 120 years to build his Ark before the Flood came, and there is Biblical record of men living over that age well after that time. Noah for example, is said to have lived over 900 years. How so can that be? It is speculated that in the time of Creation, genetics were purer with sickness almost unheard of. There was no prohibition on marrying ones sister, for example (which was hard to avoid when there are only a handful of people to choose from) – and it is held that subsequent corruption of our genetics is the reason we don’t do that now. Sure there will have been accidents, but they didn’t have motorbikes back then.
Hey ya’ll its another week done, and finally we have some cooler weather arrive! About time I say, and its these middle seasons which I like most. So what have we going on in the Council space lately, at least with your Elected Members? Not a lot it has to be said, just some Long Term Plan (LTP) thingamies which wrapped up, an update with Turangi buses, and also an interesting little episode worth mentioning just because it illuminates how this Council can operate sometimes.
Lets start with the LTP. On Tuesday we wrapped up the preliminary workshop sessions which staff are using to set the general direction we want to head, and you can watch that session HERE. But for me the greatest elephant in the room for all of this is that we haven’t set any decisive rate targets to work backwards from, and it appears we might just be going through the motions to superficially justify the carrying on of business as usual – just like we have done every single year I have been on Council. However, even though there is no sign of any sort of comprehensive review of staff numbers and salaries (which comprise the significant portion of operational expenditure), there is at least a few encouraging signs that some staff are taking to heart the community have had enough. Like the idea of selling off Council assets to pay down debt and/or offset rates (otherwise known as ‘rationalising Council assets‘), and perhaps we will start to get serious about things like some sort of bed tax on non-commercial accommodation providers (Rotorua and Queenstown rating models may get a look at). But I don’t see these as significantly meaty to make such a big difference, so we will just have to see how it pans out. As I have stated many times before, and the maths is incontrovertible – unless we fix rates to consumer levels of inflation, then those on fixed incomes will inevitably be crippled.
I do have an update on Turangi buses – Waikato Regional Council (WRC) have told us that if Taupo District Council (or anybody really) can come up with a $170K injection, they will put on a five-day a week 33 seat bus service between Taupo and Turangi with timetable of our choice. We are still to ascertain a few extra details such as if this means any number of trips per day or just a few, but the overwhelming public responses received thus far from Turangi Councillor Sandra Greenslade’s community conversations (including social media) are speaking quite loudly that there will be no problem filling seats. With the price of fuel as sky high it is right now, I reckon this is the least we can be doing to help Turangi out and my money is on it will be popular after the Middle East war is over too. Canterbury Regional Council is also doing their bit to push public transport in these trying times, I reckon we should be doing the same. But we only have a week to decide, so keep your fingers crossed this idea gets past the line. Otherwise the Turangiites may start coming for us, and $170K seems a pretty cheap way of avoiding that.
And then there was this on Tuesday as well: Raukawa Settlement Trust and Taupō District Council Co-Governance Committee hui. What is that all about you may ask, and what has it got to do with me? Some of you will have to please forgive my ignorance, but I only just learned that Raukawa is an Iwi and not a river, and that they have been working a Joint Management Agreement (JMA) with Taupo District Council since 2013. What’s that you say, a JMA? Isn’t that what all the fuss is being made about lately? Well yes, and no. This is a different JMA and only concerns the Raukawa sections of the Waikato river (which bits I am not exactly sure, because I thought they are the same bits covered in the new JMA). But irrespective of all that, I figured this would be worth tuning into just to see how these JMA’s can play out and what good they can do. Because if we are going to do something bigger and supposedly better, that’s a thing to do right? Here is where things start to get interesting…
This Raukawa committee meeting is an annual affair and open to the public, and yet was never advertised (except for a secluded item in the Council website HERE), and as at the time of writing the meeting agenda has still not been made available to anybody else but committee members. A few days prior, I recognised the relevance of this meeting to the JMA we are negotiating now, and requested to our Chief Executive that it be audio-visual recorded for public record. The response I received was that the idea of recording would only be tabled at the meeting and subject to committee member approval. Long story short – the recording started happening a minute or so after that item was voted and approved around 20 minutes into the meeting, so you can watch the remaining two hour proceedings HERE. Fact of the matter though, is that there was virtually no public notification, and that recording might not have happened at all. I had to request from one of the committee members to send me a copy of the agenda which you can read HERE.
Okay Duncan, so apart from that yet another example of closed door opacity from this Council, what else is there to be made of all this? Well you probably have to watch for yourself and truth be told I put it on 1.75 times play speed to get through it, but my take is that this committee has all the hallmarks of a friendly hui without much doey. There was an early suggestion to change the title from ‘Co-governance‘ to ‘Co-management‘ (for political reasons I am fairly sure), and a few interesting things got raised by Mangakino Councillor Hope Woodward with questions to Council staff about experienced river water quality problems (watch from HERE), and there is a recent Waikato Times article emphasising that point. But as far as I could tell this committee made absolutely no decisions at all, and anything that does eventuate only happens in the background as implemented by Council staff. But I suppose that is inevitable for a committee which meets only once every 12 months, and if this is an example of how a JMA can work in practice then the public should at least be concerned about such lightweight governance – and for that reason alone, was perhaps why it went unadvertised. But I do hear that the subsequent afternoon tea went down very well.
And on that note, I caught a recent social media commentary regarding the proposed JMA for Taupo waters:
“I want to offer a word of warning to Council about an element of the Act that gives me grave concern. As background, before retiring I was a Commercial Manager who was involved in the development and negotiation of many commercial contracts and I would never enter into a contract that could not be terminated once established which I understand is what the Act anticipates in the JMA. Contracts are put in place to formalise conditions that the parties would like to operate under as things are known today, but no one is able to foresee what will happen in the future that could make the contract unworkable. Therefore the Council should not enter into any agreement that cannot be terminated. This is just good contractual/commercial practice! The Council has no control or power over what another contracted party, such as the Tuwharetoa Māori Trust Board, may evolve into over time. Hypothetically just to emphasise this point only, what if the TMTB were to be taken over by a foreign political or ideological movement as an extreme example? Would we still want obligations to that evolved party? My suggestion is for Council to advise government that it cannot enter into good faith contracts on a “no termination” basis and advise them you will not progress until this is removed as a requirement of the Act!”
And after I commented that it was spurious to believe Tuwharetoa Maori Trust Board (TMTB) can possibly represent the best interests of all Maori, I received this response:
“You act like the Tūwharetoa Māori Trust Board is an unregulated entity. Of course they are accountable. They operate under the Māori Trust Boards Act 1955, which sets out governance, financial reporting, and accountability requirements, just like any other entity. They’re required to produce annual reports, have audited accounts etc. It’s no wonder you are getting hammered with accusations of racism, your comments are so out of touch. Do better”.
So I decided to do better and ask Chatgpt this question: “What can you tell me please about the legislated ‘transparency and accountability’ of Maori Trust Boards to the public and their own members, relative to the requirements of local government? I have been pointed to the Maori Trust Boards Act 1955 (which was apparently superceded in 2011)”. You can read the full ChatGPT response HERE but here are a few snippets below:
And for a supplementary question about the transparency and accountability of specifically Tuwharetoa Maori Trust Board to its own beneficiaries:
So until I receive evidence to the contrary, I remain undeterred in saying that the public has every right to be concerned with any partnership deals and whatever they are called. Down south Federated Farmers are up in arms about impending Nga Puhi undue influences to their way of life (will they be doing the same here?), and Hobsons Pledge are putting out some alarm bells about Taupo as well.
So what else is new?
O Delegations, Delegations, Wherefore Art Thou Delegations? Following the release a few weeks ago of my presentation on Financial Delegations which you can watch HERE, I had one of the elected members follow up with a couple of questions:“Why would staff need to work the weekends if they do value for money projects”, and “Isn’t doing the cheapest job more expensive in the long run?” My responses are shown below:
“Throwing a big pile of money at a single project is virtually always less time consuming for project managers than trying to handle multiple projects, and I have certainly experienced this first hand. Especially if that work gets handed to contractors or consultants to undertake as usually happens with almost all Councils nowadays. Yes there are lazy Council workers who take the easy path as at any other workplace, but with their performance is often not measured by results on the ground but by accountants who look at balanced books and budgets spent on time.It is also my experience in the public sector, that people are more likely to be elevated past their level of competence.
On your second point, I will defer to the Dunedin cheapy roundabout example. They may seem more expedient than the ideal, but the cost of doing nothing has to be weighed up also. Intersections are the flashpoints and bottlenecks of any transport network, and waiting to do the rolls royce option every time is simply not tenable when we have crashes and driver delays happening every day. These are costs to society which is the role of a Road Controlling Authority to duly address, and I was greatly surprised to find after moving here that instead of No.8 wire solutions which I would have expected of an overstretched provincial place, I see the rolls royce happening (and a few road safety disasters as well). That was entirely my original motivation to stand for Council”.
Dog attack in Turangi: Last weekend a roaming dog attack left a woman unconscious in Turangi when she tried to protect her toddler. I am not sure if it has been properly reported to Council yet or even if it is widely known about in the Turangi area, but this coincides with a recent government announcement to try and tackle this issue more seriously. In the meantime though, I see that the only measures for the average person are: (1) Public need to report in detail about any incidents including dog identification, because action cannot be taken without this happening. Taupo District Council’s Antenno App is easy to use, and allows for anonymous reporting if you really wish; (2) Carry a big stick. I used to be a bicycle postie back in the day, and have figured out that unless a dog is on their own property some aggression on your behalf can often go a long way to defusing the situation.
Aussis get serious, so why aren’t we? Over the ditch it seems they aren’t very keen on E-bikes being used in an anti-social way, and that includes seizing and crushing any which go faster than their imposed 25 km/hr speed limit. As somebody who is great fan of personal mobility other than large boxed motor vehicles, I think they are taking things way too seriously – but I am sure there will be many Taupoite lake path users who will disagree.
Give money for more sculptures: If you liked Boom Boom the dinosaur or even if you don’t, the Taupo Sculpture Trusthas a new website where you can keep informed with the latest developments and also give them some of your hard earned money towards the new. I am pretty sure that back in the day of Michelangelo it was only through individual sponsorship that the great classical sculptures ever happened at all, so here is a chance to be a part of it.
Balloons over Waikato : Last weekend I happened to be in Hamilton for this annual event, along with I estimate around 10,000 people who had a great time in the early morning seeing them all off. The Nightglow experience that evening with music set to earth-bound balloons – less exhilarating, and by all accounts the public transport after was absolute chaos as reported here.
Question of the day: HOW MUCH DOES IT COST TO PREVENT HOW MANY PEOPLE GETTING SICK?
Genesis 1:26: “Then God said, “Let Us make man in Our image, according to Our likeness; let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, over the birds of the air, and over the cattle, over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth””.
Some people don’t like that phrase about man having dominion over all the living creatures, and I say fair enough – but the only problem is that it happens to be true. Anybody from the past who was transported to the 20th or 21st centuries will be presented with overwhelming evidence to that effect – some positive, but the negative will stand out loud. If there were any doubts in centuries past they should be well assuaged by now, and the enormous powers of mans destruction are all around us without me even having to go into them. So whether you agree or not that man should have dominion, the inescapable fact is that because man has the power to destroy then that makes it so.
We had an Ironman on Saturday, although I figure once you’ve seen one Ironman you’ve seen them all and it was a bit too stinking hot of a day for me to envy anybody running or biking. But it can be a wonderful party day for Taupo town well into the night, and a nice time to walk or meander around on a bicycle on closed roads just like those funky Covid holidays we got back in 2020.
On Monday I attended the Waikato Regional Council building in Hamilton to talk about transport and public transport stuff, and did quite well on your behalf if I may be so humble to say so – I will talk about that more below, and it really has more to do with Turangi than anything else. We had another workshop yesterday for the Long Term Plan (LTP) where we talked about such exciting things as selling off Council assets on your behalf, swimming pools, and housing for the elderly. And we also yesterday had the inaugural meeting of the newly formed Water Services Committee, a not very auspicious start in my opinion but you can read about that below.
And by the way if anybody is interested in tuning into these LTP workshops (as they assert expenditure for the next ten years 2027-37 they are not unimportant), below is the schedule of topics discussed:
Okay let’s start then:
Long Term Plan thingies: We had the third LTP yesterday which you can watch HERE but at over two hours long you will need a bit of spare time. The most exciting thing discussed in terms of potential to smash your rates bill is the rationalisationof Council Strategic Assets which places like New South Wales have successfully actioned in their rates capping regime. Staff financial officer Sarah Matthews went over to New South Wales last year on a self funded trip to suss out how they do things, and tells us that similar sized Councils to us operate with around 90% less debt than here. That is a pretty big number folks, although there are a bunch of other factors than just selling the family silver to make that happen. But it would be a good start for a district like Taupo with oodles of surplus public land in its holdings, and elderly housing got passing mention in that too. Councils are not eligible for the governments elderly housing subsidies (even though they really should be), and even handing them to a private provider would be better that how we run the 57 elderly housing units which are 60% subsided by you. And if you are wondering what public reserves might be surplus and worth selling, try and think of say, a prime lake front location which hardly gets used – I can already think of one, can’t you? Anybody on neighbouring streets needn’t panic quite yet though, because it will take quite a bit of paperwork and public consultation before anything like that can happen. But something has to give if we are going to have any chance of seriously tackling the rates emergency we find ourselves in, so sometimes the few have to lose something for the betterment of all. And as I have been saying for quite some time now, the good thing about rates capping is that it can force some thinking outside of the square to help make ends meet. I do believe that is happening here, so its a well done to the Council staff from me.
Apart from the above we did discuss swimming pools and waste management, with Turangi Cr Greenslade and myself plugging once again for free entry for under 16’s at the Turangi pools, and also a brief discussion about the expensive incineration option which a few people consistently ask about (watch from HERE).
Water Services Committee but what is it really? I have to say after yesterday’s inaugural meeting (which you can watch HERE) under the newly appointed independent chairperson Brian Hannah former Mayor of Waitomo and a few other credentials including farming, I really am wondering. Brian gives a rundown of his background at the very beginning of the meeting, and was selected after a lengthy interview process with many able applicants. But this isn’t the Infrastructure Committee which it was first mooted which could have offered oversight to things not just about water, and our chair doesn’t appear to be much interested in challenging any status quos. We had an online presentation from Tim Cadogan of the governments Water Service Authority Taumata Arowai, after which I raised the question about the Water Drinking Standards being too costly for our own good (watch from HERE). My take is that as your elected officials our role is to both ensure we are getting best value for constituents to keep rates affordable, but also that the Council provided drinking water is safe to drink. That means we don’t go spending money that we don’t really have to, and we certainly shouldn’t be putting stuff in the water that makes people sick. On that last point I raised the question of Fluoride (watch from HERE), because as a few of you may recall I am quite a sceptic of its value and an advocate for its removal. But our chair seems to think that the issue of spiralling infrastructure costs and fluoride are outside the remit of this Water Services Committee, and that water regulations are sacrosanct to be beyond reproach. I heavily disagree with this point of view, and because money doesn’t grow on trees the role of the elected is to oversee that budgets are being spent wisely and to always weigh up the benefits versus costs of any project we do. For drinking water projects, this means the question should always be:
HOW MUCH DOES IT COST TO PREVENT HOW MANY PEOPLE GETTING SICK?
But that question doesn’t ever seem to get asked, and so we just keep on spending. So I laid out my challenge to the chairperson near the end about the purpose of this committee (watch from HERE), and Brian’s answer seemed to imply that we are here to just oversee more stuff getting built and not be asking too many probing questions. So for me, this Water Service Committee is already looking tiresome, and it is a real crying shame that the governments new rate capping regime won’t be including water services. Because if it did there would need to be a lot more critical and bottom-line thinking, and I cannot help but think of an analogy with the road cone nightmare which we are only now trying to pull back on.
Yes to Public Transport but not like that please: Okay Turangiites, I stuck up for you on Monday to push back on the Waikato Regional Council (WRC) proposed bus timetable changes to be implemented in May of this year – and I won. You can watch HERE and read the agenda item 6.3 HERE. If you weren’t aware, the Connect2Taupo bus services have been running around six years now (still described by WRC as a ‘trial’), and WRC staff came up with some proposed changes to present at the WRC Public Transport Sub-committee to which I am your representative. This is a result of public surveys that include changes to Mangakino, Tokoroa, Acacia Bay, Wairakei and Kinloch, but it was the Turangi changes which although well intentioned stuck out as decidedly dodgy. The 12-seat buses which operate two days a week to and from Turangi can get quite oversubscribed at times, and there is no on-line booking so people have on occasion been stranded.
The WRC idea was to introduce a new 33 seat bus service and for an additional day besides, but the catch was that people coming to Taupo for the day would get a reduced window of just two hours before the next bus home, reduced from the current three hours. So that would mean two hours to do all your stuff like get to the bank, shop, hospital or whatever for an equivalent duration of travel. Turangi Councillor Sandra Greenslade was instrumental in educating me about the implications, and I also took a bus trip to Turangi for the first time to have a try for myself and talk to some real users (by the way it was excellent value at just $7 each way, much better than driving that challenging road and some good conversations too). To cut a long story short, my commentary at the meeting was first about the absence of communication to Taupo District Council or bus users about the proposed changes before they were tabled on Monday for approval, and secondly to try and hash out some kind of solution because we could end up with a 33 seat bus driving around with even less passengers than before. We weren’t able to do that, so the decision (greatly assisted by chairperson WRC Councillor Liz Stolwyk) has been to defer the changes until we work with WRC staff behind the scenes. One of the bottlenecks as always is money, and an opportunity was mentioned for Taupo District Council to inject some more into it to help make things happen (remember that Regional Council rates pay for buses) – and this will need to be discussed very soon. So watch this space, and by all means try a trip on the bus to Turangi because it is great value – but please don’t push the regulars off as there are only limited seats.
Total Mobility is also part of the above committees remit, and is going to be reviewed in coming months including the capped individual trip rates for each region (Taupo’s cap is only $18.75 as opposed to the $75 used in Waikato District, for example).
Other Regional Transport highlights: On Monday I also attended the WRCRegional Transport Committee which meets quarterly, and I did learn a few things that I didn’t know before. If you want to watch all three and a half hours of the meeting you can watch HERE and HERE. This committee is going to soon be workshopping the next ten-year transport plan for the Waikato, so now is the time to get the rest of the region thinking about things like say, an alternative inland route for SH1 between Taupo and Turangi. There was some disgruntled murmurs from Councillor Mike Keir of Waikato District Council about operational inflexibility and the excessive cost of infrastructure (Mike is a civil engineer like me and we hit it off quite well), and also from the Mayor of Thames-Coromandel District Council Peter Revell who expounded that the Bailey Bridges being used in the recent emergency response work going on up there could be multiplied all around the Coromandel as a cheap operational fix to solve so many problems.
My own contribution on this theme was to emphasise that because we are in such a rates constrained environment, our first priority as elected representatives is to keep rates affordable and that means that No.8 wiresolutions instead of Rolls Royce need to start happening a lot more. I gave NZTA’s $6M installation of 5km of wire rope barrier on SH1 between Taupo Airport and SH5 as a classic example of wastage given that it only increases the cost of maintenance with virtually no safety benefits (there haven’t been any serious or fatal crashes on that stretch of road since its opening in 2012). I say that we need to get Back to Basics, and that means thinking hard about why we are doing things and not just pick out the cookie cutter solutions to try and fix all.
I also learned that Stratford District Council in 2022 introduced a targeted rate for forestry plantation owners to help pay for damaged roads around the district. I bet that was controversial at the time because truckies can rightly argue that is exactly why they pay Road User Charges (RUC’s) for, but I haven’t heard of this type of rating before so it should be something we can keep up our sleeves for a rainy day.
And on the topic of an inland Taupo-Turangi route, wouldn’t it just be so nice for it to happen one day? For the current lake route to turn into a tourist route only for people with time to kill one rain or sunny day, our very own Route 66 to be driven for pleasures sake and not necessity. Interestingly some representatives from the trucking industry were also presenting at the meeting, and I asked them about the challenges of the existing lakeside road and possibility of a toll road alternative. The response was that it presents no greater hazards than many drivers are used to in other parts of the country (including one-way sections for trucks as at Tauranga-Taupo), and that a toll of $5-8 would be quite acceptable. I believe it is not just a pipe dream, and just like the ETA SH1 Taupo Bypass done in 2012 that perhaps this Council needs to start making its own waves to make it happen. I don’t mean just bleating and pleading to Wellington, I am talking about negotiating with landowners and drafting up some plans and costings. That is apparently how the ETA came about as a proposal the government couldn’t ignore, so if we did it once then we can do it again. Lets get on with it.
And in other news we have:
Hot off the press a NEW National Code of Conduct for Elected Members!!! Yes you read that right, we now have a nationwide Code of Conduct(CoC) that is to be adopted by every Council around the country in the very near future. It’s actually a surprisingly readable document and contains a few provisions that could affect how councillors speak publicly about council decisions. You can read the final version HERE
Last September I made a submission on a number of points including conflicts of interest, confidentiality, Treaty of Waitangi, and the laying of official CoC complaints (the draft version was for opening it up to members of the public – just imagine that!). My concerns were only partially addressed, and we are still left in the situation whereby information can unaccountably be classified as confidential with no measurable threshold, and there is little headway on the methodical and objective identifying and addressing of real and perceived conflicts of interest. Not only that, but staff are now able to lodge CoC complaints about Elected Members where they weren’t before (good luck on that!). I also fed into ChatGPT the new CoC to compare with the old TDC one, and here is what it came up with:
Despite the fanfare, the new Code doesn’t actually give councils much more power over elected members than they already had. The main penalties remain things like requiring an apology, suspending a councillor from committees, or restricting contact with staff. Importantly, a Code of Conduct cannot remove an elected member from office – that decision ultimately rests with voters at election time.What has changed is the process. Complaints will now be screened by an independent assessor and, if necessary, investigated by an independent investigator before the council itself becomes involved. The idea is to filter out trivial, vexatious, or politically motivated complaints before they escalate.
Interestingly, the Code explicitly states that it must not restrict robust political debate or freedom of expression. In other words, councillors are still entitled to publicly disagree with council decisions and with each other – which is an important part of a healthy democracy.There are a few subtleties councillors will need to watch. Investigators can consider patterns of behaviour over time, not just single incidents, and the Code warns against misrepresenting the statements or actions of others. That means anyone speaking publicly about council matters needs to ensure their commentary is grounded in verifiable facts.
Overall, the new national Code seems less about increasing punishments and more about standardising procedures across the country. As always, its real impact will depend on how it is applied in practice.
So for my part as Councillor Duncan, I will continue to advocate for transparency, open debate, and accountability. After all, we are elected to represent the public – not to sit petrified in the corner when difficult issues arise.
Mango makes the headlines:Mangakino Councillor Hope Woodward is keeping up the pressure to clean up the Waikato River lakes in her neck of the woods, and made page one of this weeks edition of the Waikato Times with an article you can read HERE
Why can’t we do it like that here? I have noticed that Invercargill and Queenstown have some independent media which are quite interested in what their Councils get up to, to the point that they reported in detail about Elected Member conduct during what looked to be a fairly trivial debate around a historic clock tower. I know we have a couple of independent local outlets like LakeFM, but there just isn’t the same level of interest I see happening in those places. Have a look for yourself at Crux media and Whatsoninvers to see what I mean, and I greatly encourage any would-be journalists to get your act together and make something like that happen here too.
At least we’re not Wellington: This is an interesting read from NZCPR of how Wellington politicians in 2021 chose nice-to-haves over necessaries and prioritised cycleways over water and wastewater infrastructure with now dire effects.
Timber Museum good: Anyone who hasn’t visited the Timber Museum in Puraruru simply should. I did on Tuesday and was blown away by how interesting it all is and what an icon it must be for the district. As a former timber mill the land and buildings were gifted(?) in the early 1970’s and it seems to have become a place to put all the local historic buildings. Its on the way to most places north, so I really do recommend a stop in and it has a good coffee shop too.
Fridays Future Forecast: Another poignant hit from Canadian singer, poet and sage Leonard Cohen, and the Oliver Stone movie Natural Born Killers it was used as a soundtrack is not too shabby either:
duncandoestaupo.com 