MAYORAL CRONYISM HIDES IN PLAIN SITE IN ROTORUA

Press Release by the Rotorua District Residents and Ratepayers, 12 March 2017

Wikipedia defines cronyism as giving favours to friends or trusted colleagues, especially in politics and between politicians and supportive organizations. At Rotorua Council’s Operations and Monitoring (O&M) Committee Meeting on 9 March 2017, a nominee from the Te Tatau o Te Arawa Board (TTTAB) clarified the additional method used by the Mayor of distributing public resources to Te Arawa tribes. He asked about “Protocol Meetings” aka “MOU Meetings”.

The Council’s YouTube record of the O&M meeting between 2:30:35 and 2:36:51 provides evidence of special favours being invited, sought and delivered through the back door, in addition to Council’s funding of the TTTAB.

The Kaitiaki Maori (once a kaumatua committed to interculturalism) confirmed that “Protocol Meetings” are held separately with each of Te Arawa’s tribes under the auspices of longstanding bilateral memoranda. He noted that they are all “chaired by Her Worship” but “fall outside the requirements of my report [to Council]”. Nevertheless, the TTTAB nominee asked “Is there somewhere they can be part of a report? I know there are no minutes of those huis, but a general feeling of what happened would be nice.”

Residents and ratepayers believe it would be even ‘nicer’ if the Mayor publicly accounted for her personal distribution of scarce public resources to these tribal groups.

The Mayor’s claims that “they are open meetings,” and notified, are beside the point. As the Chair of O&M admitted, “We want to make sure that democracy is in it [the system of meetings], because I did not know that one was on yesterday.” The meetings are hidden in plain sight.

As for content, the Mayor disclosed that “We look back at what was promised, what we agreed to do at previous meetings, and we made sure that everything has been carried forward and actioned, and the new addition of talking about The Rotorua Way [the Mayor’s strategic plan] and spatial planning …. They even love to contribute ideas there and then on the spot …. They are informative and focussed, and well supported by staff [officials] who make sure that what we said we would do is done by the next MOU meeting.”

RDRR Chair Glenys Searancke said that “these meetings are disconnected from the Council’s public governance and management systems. The “Protocol Meetings” are actually a private patronage system run by the Mayor to favour Te Arawa tribes using public resources.”

RDRR Secretary Reynold Macpherson added that “this cronyism comes on top of Rotorua Council giving $250K per annum to the TTTAB, $290K in election years, to serve as the political arm of Te Arawa. Worse, the TTTAB is much more expensive to the ratepayer than the community boards combined, and has much more than twice their political power.”

RDRR Treasurer Rosemary MacKenzie asked “Why should residents and ratepayers pick up the tab for the Mayor’s favours to any one community of interest?”

The RDRR will be meeting on the 17th and 24th of this month to advance their campaign against cronyism.

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