Business Groups Call For Publication Of Council Voting Records

As councils consider their spending and rates decisions for the coming year, and as October’s local authority elections draw closer, business groups are calling for greater transparency on how councillors vote.

"It is time for councils to make it easier to show how their elected members vote at each meeting so the public can make an informed choice at the elections on who should - or should not - get their vote," said Matt Cowley, Chair of the Local Government Business Forum, a group of business organisations that have a vital interest in the activities of local government.

"Over the past two years local government rates have been rising at an eye watering pace. Rates increased by 9.6% for the year to December 2023 and by 12.0% for the year to December 2024. These were the biggest increases in decades.

"Councils across the country are now considering their spending and rates for the upcoming 2025/26 year. Some are consulting on their plans, but others will simply adopt their rates increase at a council meeting. More double-digit increases seem likely, despite overall inflation being only around 2%.

"The transparency around council decisions is murky. Although council meetings are mostly open to the public and decisions are recorded, including votes, it is not easy to understand how individual councillors voted on the issues put to them. Media coverage of council business has become patchy as struggling news outlets scale back on their reporting. Councils like to play down division so they rarely if ever note dissenting votes in their media statements.

"For the public it is mostly only by sifting through meeting reports and minutes that they can work things out. That takes understanding of council processes and considerable patience navigating council websites and finding the relevant parts of reports that are sometimes hundreds of pages long. You really have to know what to look for.

"This makes it very hard for people to understand what positions councillors have been taking, which is bad for democracy. It is likely to contribute to low voter turnout at local elections and risks capture by council bureaucrats and by highly motivated interest groups.

"It shouldn’t be this hard. In fact, there is a council that shows what is possible.

"In February Wellington City Council launched new functionality to its website to make it easier to locate information around voting records and meeting data. In 2024 the project won an award for Web, Digital and Communications Project of the Year at the Association of Local Government information Management. Other councils should look at how they can take this approach.

"That might take a while, so in the meantime when councils adopt their rates for the coming year, their media statements should clearly state who voted for and who voted against the projects that drove the rates increases.

"We also hope councils will explore AI tools to evidence the truth of councillor statements against their voting actions.

"These initiatives should help ensure the public is in the most informed position to decide who to vote for or not vote for," Mr Cowley concluded.

About the Local Government Business Forum

The Local Government Business Forum comprises organisations that have a vital interest in the activities of local government. Its members include Business New Zealand, Federated Farmers of New Zealand, New Zealand Forest Owners Association, New Zealand Initiative, New Zealand Business Chamber, the Retirement Villages Association of New Zealand and Infrastructure New Zealand. It was established in 1994 to promote greater efficiency in local government and to contribute to debate on policy issues affecting it.

The Forum's members are each significant representatives of ratepayers in their own right but the Forum's perspective is to advance community welfare through the advocacy of sound public policy. We believe that local government can best serve the interests of the community and ratepayers by focusing on the efficient provision of public goods at a local level.

The Local Government Forum advocates policies that create a positive economic environment. Recognising the significant role of local government in private investment decisions, the Forum regularly produces publications addressing crucial issues relating to the performance of local government and legislative developments in that sector.

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