27 March 2026

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 Trust has 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.

And on that note, it just has to be said…

Fridays undisputed best balloon song of all time: