New Zealand’s largest ratepayer groups are slamming The Future of Local Government Review panel’s proposal for a new legislative framework to embed co-governance arrangements within local councils and deconstruct democratic accountability.

The panel’s draft recommendations are available here and include a statutory requirement for council staff to conform with ‘te ao Māori values’, and taxpayer funding of ‘Tiriti-based partnership in local governance’. The new framework would transfer more power to hapū/iwi and other significant Māori organisations. This could include the appointment of unelected positions by mana whenua to supplement elected members.

The Review Panel has also recommended extending council terms to four years and lowering the voting age to 16. 

Taxpayers’ Union Campaigns Manager Callum Purves says:

“These reforms would further erode local democracy in New Zealand by transferring more power from elected members to unelected groups without any democratic accountability. This will worsen, not improve, the democratic deficit in local government.

“The only people who should be making decisions in the council chamber on how taxpayers’ money is spent are elected representatives who are directly accountable to their constituents.”

The Taxpayers’ Union met with the Review panel in July on request. The panel confirmed that it had not directly sought feedback from any ratepayer groups as it did not consider this a ‘good use of time’.

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