Local Government Elections

Steadily declining turnouts make democracy into oligarchy. And the PM weighs in on civic leadership.

New Zealand’s local government elections have been accompanied by the usual hand-wringing about declining voter turnouts.

Talking with Newstalk ZB’s Mike Hosking, prime minister Christopher Luxon attributed the low turnout to the candidates and the voters. “Candidates have to be compelling”, he said. “They have to excite voters [and] have a vision of what they want to achieve”. As for the rest of us, “if you don’t vote then you can’t complain”.

Let’s address his first point with a straw poll on the PM himself .

How do readers think the PM measures up on his own criteria for leadership? And I wonder if readers think that Wayne Brown’s vision to “fix Auckland” was so compelling that a second term for his mayoralty was warranted, if not inevitable?

The PM didn’t mention that candidates for public offices should be competent and/or trustworthy. For him, it’s all about having a compelling vision – which presumably compels people’s attention.

• I was recently interviewed by Radio NZ’s Mark Leishman on why Kiwis don’t seem to think highly of either Luxon or opposition leader Hipkins.

Now let’s examine that old maxim: “if you don’t vote, you can’t complain”.

In a democracy, anyone can complain about politics and government, by right, any time they like, whether they voted or not. For the disillusioned, not voting may be a conscientious complaint, and not just apathy. Perhaps that maxim means only that a complaint may be taken less seriously if it’s revealed that the complainer didn’t vote.

Any ordinary person can say, “if you don’t vote, you can’t complain”, but it’s disappointing to hear the prime minister say it. True, it is up to each of us to tick boxes and post the ballot. But the country deserves leadership (dare I say vision?) on questions of democratic participation.

Instead of blaming uncompelling candidates and non-voting residents, it would be better for a prime minister to say that he/she wants to reinvigorate local democracy and participation. There are ways of doing that, and a good place to start would be to invite communities to get involved in planning how.

To give credit, one sensible proposal from the prime minister is to consider having the local elections run by the Electoral Commission, which presently only supplies the electoral rolls.

Local territorial authorities could convene citizens’ assemblies, selected on proportional grounds (including a proportional representation of home owners and renters, among other dimensions). An idea, put by Nick Clark to Newstalk ZB, is to make councils more “local”. Although he didn’t go this far, that could, in principle, lead to an argument against the Auckland Council structure, which is more oligarchic than democratic.

The method of postal voting used in New Zealand’s local elections does need to be looked at. It’s prone to undetectable voter fraud, as a person can fill out more than one ballot and send them in. But I’m not persuaded by claims that young people these days don’t know how to post a letter.

Online voting is not recommended, however. Security risks and the lack of privacy are the main concerns. A person voting on their phone could be bullied by someone standing over them. And general elections still get high turnouts in New Zealand, so the old-fashioned paper-based methods are not the most obvious barrier to participation.

The real problem is a lack of awareness and interest, exacerbated by declining local news outlets. In Auckland in particular, it’s the huge distance between the elected governing body and those they represent. Even the supposedly “local” boards have constituencies the size of cities.

A consequence of the low turnout is that the elections are dominated by older property owners and ratepayers. Hence some elections became rates revolts, and local government in general represents primarily the interests of property.

Māori Wards referendums

Of those local authorities that had to hold referendums on Māori wards, 24 will remove them, and 18 will keep them (as reported by RNZ, but numbers may change with final counts). According to a tally of provisional results reported by Te Ao Māori News, “across the country, more than 444,000 voters supported Māori wards, compared with approximately 257,000 who opposed them - a national difference of nearly 187,000 votes”. Those communities that voted to remove them had smaller populations and smaller margins, as against large majorities in favour in the Wellington City and Regional councils. The country’s biggest council, Auckland, didn’t hold a referendum as it has no Māori wards.

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