November 28, 2024 • 22 mins
The Government has appointed a Crown observer at Wellington City Council. The council has been called “a shambles” after it stopped the sale of its stake in the airport and now has to cut community projects to plug the resulting hole in its budget.
On this week’s episode, Georgina speaks with former Cabinet minister and current Nelson mayor Nick Smith about how Crown observer Lindsay McKenzie can help turn things around at the troubled council.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:07):
Kylder and welcome to On the Tiles, the Herald's politics podcast.
I'm your host, Georgina Campbell and this is a local
edition episode. Well, it's finally happened. After years of various
calls for the government to intervene at Wellington City Council,
(00:27):
local Government Minister Simeon Brown has appointed a Crown observer. This,
of course, is after the council stopped the controversial sale
of its stake in the airport, upending the long term
plan and triggering hundreds of millions of dollars in budget cuts.
Joining us to discuss this latest chapter in Wellington City
Council's Wowes is former local government minister and National MP
(00:51):
and current Mayor of Nelson, Nick Smith Kielder, Nick, and
thanks so much for joining us.
Speaker 2 (00:57):
You're lovely to be on your podcast, Georgina.
Speaker 1 (00:59):
So Simeon Brown has said that the decision to appoint
a Crown observer at the council is not one that
he took lightly. I know you weren't the local government
minister for that long, but just given that experience that
you have, can you take us through why this is
such a serious decision and why there is such a
(01:20):
high threshold for the government to intervene in local government.
Speaker 2 (01:24):
Well there's always been debate and nervousness in Wellington about
the degree to which you respect the local democracy and
local councils getting on with their business. On the other hand,
government can also be criticized for turning a blind eye
when things clearly become dysfunctional and start having a flow
on effect in terms of the national scene. Now, Wellington's
(01:48):
been a difficulty for some time. I actually feel a
little bit sorry for me. Tory found out in that
many of the issues that I see in Wellington actually
go back a long period, particularly around the significant underinvestment
in the infrastructure, of which water is the worst. But
(02:10):
when those sorts of issues are coming to the fore
quite embarrassing for New Zealand with the number of failures
of their water network, government not having the confidence that
the sort of council's got the capacity to deal with it.
And then the other part Georgiana was the Local Government
Act previously really own the areat what I'd almost call
(02:33):
the nuclear approach to intervention, effectively just to sack the
council and put commissioners in. We were involved in the
key government and putting amendments in that gave a number
of lesser options. I think that was a good reform
because what it does is allow the government to sort
of give a warning shot as well as assistance with
(02:56):
the appointment of a Crown observer to a council when
that's quite shaky. Maybe not at the point where you
would appoint commissioners, but at the point that if you don't,
there's a risk we end up with that more extensive
intervention in the affairs of a council.
Speaker 1 (03:16):
Yeah. I think it's almost like anything in life, or
how I would approach life, is that I think it's
always important to give the person or the entity the
chance to change, and I think having those lesser forms
of intervention like appointing a Crown observer provides the council
with that opportunity. Do you have any thoughts around why
(03:38):
the government might be particularly hesitant to intervene in a
council like Wellington, which is quite left leaning and obviously
has a Green endorsed mayor There's some optics there that
they also need to consider.
Speaker 2 (03:51):
A look, politics is a tricky exercise and the danger
for the government is that at the moment you start intervening,
then it becomes your fault. And so there's always you know,
deep levels of public concern about issues about what the
rate increases are and whether the council's making the right decisions.
And one of the risks for government when you do
(04:12):
interven and I was involved in intervening an environment Canterbury
the last government in Taranna, is that it becomes the
government's fault. So they would have thought about it pretty
carefully about walking that fine line between are they being
political are they playing with a straight bat. One of
the reasons that I wrote to the Local Government Minister
(04:32):
and recommended Lindsey McKenzie as their Crown Observer was that
he comes with a very strong local government background. He
doesn't have a political bone in his body, and that
in my view one I think he will do a
good job for Wellington and help that council, but also
a view that it would be difficult for anybody to
(04:55):
put a political flavor on an appointment like Lindsay mcken
to assisting the Welton City Council.
Speaker 1 (05:02):
Yes, so how do you know Lindsey, what's your relationship
with him?
Speaker 2 (05:07):
Well, Lindsay McKenzie's historic background was he's been in local
government in Southland, which is where he originates from. He
was so knew him as an environment minister back in
the nineteen nineties. He then went on only knew him
as a professional advisor then not that well. He then
(05:31):
ended up as the Chief Executive of the Gisban Council
and did a good job there. The main way I
know him was that he was the chief executive of
the Tasman District Council that incorporated a significant portion of
my Nelson electorate when I was the Member of Parliament,
(05:53):
and just found him a very sensible, non political, safe
set of hands in the local government sector. And then
the last part was that when I became the Mayor
of Nelson, the Nelson Council had significant governance issues. There
was a runoff Code of Conduct complaints, there was huge
(06:14):
tensions around the council table. People openly talked about it
being dysfunctional. The previous chief executive had announced his retirement.
I had a proper process and a gap in terms
of recruiting a new chief executive and so with council support,
(06:34):
employed him as an interim CEO in Nelson. During my
first four months as mayor, and I just found his
advice in terms of both the staffing as well as
the elected council really helpful in getting the Nelson City
Council onto a more constructive footing. I also knew of
(06:54):
his work and in Vericago, where the very public issues
with Mayor Tim Shedbow, and where the reports I'd heard
was he had done a really good job of helping
get them out of a hole. He had also played
a similar role in christ Church and so on that basis,
both in terms of wanting Wellington City Council to get
(07:15):
out of their hole and also wanting the government to
find the right person for the job. I wrote to
Sibney and said you should consider Lindsay.
Speaker 1 (07:24):
I met Lindsay this week for the first time. Wellington
City Council had its big budget meeting and it lasted
for seven hours, and I said it must have been
like capital punishment for him sitting through the winter essentially
long Wellington City Council meeting. And I went over to
him and introduced myself. I had asked for an interview
(07:45):
and he said, look, I'm going to have to respectfully
decline in terms of my first impressions of Wellington City Council.
I really have to save those impressions for my reports
to the Minister. He has to report to the Minister
monthly and so as a result, I suppose Wellingtonians don't
really know very much about this Crown observer, and you
(08:06):
certainly painted a more detailed background of his experience than
I've read. How would you describe his personality?
Speaker 2 (08:15):
Though very low key, this is not a person who,
even in those roles as Chief Executive of the Gisbon
Council or tasmould have had a high public profile. This
is a behind the scenes, competent operator who's able to
work across the political spectrum and try and get people
(08:35):
to constructively work together. And it does not surprise me
that he declined your request for an interview. Success, in
my view for Lindsey will be in the conduct and
the professionalism of that Weldon City Council as it deals
(08:56):
with its pretty difficult challenges that it gets through, and
so I think his approach will be want of not
speaking with a megaphone through the media, but talking privately
with the counselors and the council staff and coaching them
about how they can get themselves out of.
Speaker 1 (09:12):
Their whole and so just given how difficult some of
the issues are at Wellington City Council, and as you say,
this hasn't just been happening under Tory Farno's watch. We're
talking about decades of under investment and infrastructure and they've
been calls for government intervention under Andy Foster's term for
(09:32):
example as well. What confidence do you have that they
can actually get on top of its problems only a
Crown Observer in place, and that the government doesn't have
to resort to, you know, other interventions like commissioners for example.
Speaker 2 (09:48):
I've gotten not a shadow of doubt that with the
Crown Observer and Lindsay McKenzie it will make a positive difference.
Will it be enough, Hey, that's a bigger open question,
and in the end that will come down to the
decisions of the counselors and the mayor and how they
try and navigate themselves through a pretty difficult situation. Those
(10:11):
financial pressures are nationwide that are more acute. I do
think there are some structural issues that go bigger than
the personalities around what's gone on in Wellington. I was
very involved in the work of setting up Auckland's water
Care Services. And the key difference between Wellington Water and
(10:34):
Auckland Water Care Services is that the Auckland Water Care
Services is an asset owning gets the set it's charges.
I think there was a major failure at a policy
level in setting up Wellington Water when they set up
this organization that's got the day to day management role
(10:56):
of those water assets, but has got no power to
be able to set the level. And so what you've
seen in my view in Welton is multiple It's not
just the Wellington Council. You know, there are five councils
that are involved in Welton Water. All when there was
a problem with water infrastructure, say not our problem, that's
(11:16):
Wellington Water. At the same time, when it comes to
those hardest decisions of local government of how much money
to give them and how much to put the rates up,
put them on very austere rations that has seen the
quality of that infrastructure declined for more than a decade.
The model was flawed and that's all come to a
head and that is compounding itself now with massive multi
(11:41):
billion dollar investment required at a time when the economy
is tight and those councils are struggling. So I think
the intervention of the Crown Observer is a good thing.
But actually there are some fundamental, deep seated, structural flaws
in the way that Wellington water is structured that will
(12:01):
need to be fixed if Welton is going to get
on top of its water problems. The water problems are
just part of some of Welton's bigger problems. And with
any sort of failure or where an organization gets in trouble,
it's often not just a single thing, it's multiple things
that have contributed to getting where the Welton Council has gone.
Speaker 1 (12:24):
And so the fix that's on the table, of course
is the current government's local water Done Well policy. Just
while we're talking about that and how to make structural changes,
what do you think of that policy?
Speaker 2 (12:40):
Well, I think you need to go back and look
at some of the political motivation behind the previous government's
three Waters and look, I make no bones Georgia about
being pretty vocal on this. Nelson City Council's water is
a very good shape in the three waters analysis that
was done by the previous government and current built a
big dam, introduced water meters way back in then nineteen nineties,
(13:01):
got good water treatment spent tens of millions of dollars
on new water treatment plants, and the expectation in Wellington,
and it's actually the whole debate around three waters to
some degrees mads Wellington's problems worse in that the Welton
Body politic is very keen to find some other people
to meet their bills for the billions they need to
(13:22):
spend upgrading it. And it won't surprise you, Georgiana that
I'm saying, well, how on a moment, why should the
people of Nelson, who've done a pretty good job at
managing their water barl out a community like Wellington City
that's one of the most wealthy per head of capita
incomes in the country. And so all that debate about
three waters or local water done well has been a
(13:45):
bit of a distraction and actually made the problem worse
because Wellington has the impression that there is going to
be a sort of someone else that's prepared to pay
their bills, and whether that be the tax power or
and I think the problem in Wellington is going to
be if you were one of the surrounding councils, say
up in Capitdi or the Lower North Island or for
(14:06):
that matter, Nelson molbretasman. Why do we want to be
join a water entity with Wellington when there are, like
I say, billions of dollars that need to be spent
for catchup And so I think the Wellington water problem
has been made worse by all those reforms because it
created an expectation that there was going to be a
(14:26):
knight and shining armor that would come along and solve
Wellington's problems for them. And I do think whether it
be local water done well or they go with the
Crown intervention, is that Wellington needs to bite the bottot,
stop pretending that either the taxpayer or some other unit
of local government is going to pay their bills and
actually find a sustainable plan to fix Wellton water.
Speaker 1 (14:50):
We're going to take a short break where we'll be
back soon. Welcome back to on the tiles. We are
talking to Nelson Mayor, Nick Smith and former local government
(15:11):
minister and national MP about Wellington City Council and the
recent decision of the government to intervene with a Crown observer. Nick,
one of the things I really wanted to talk to
you about was your experience with e CAN, which you
mentioned earlier. In our chat, I just wondered, could you
(15:32):
take us back to that time and what was happening
at that regional council and maybe how that compares with
the situation at Wellington City Council.
Speaker 2 (15:41):
I think the circumstances are quite different in that it
is a regional council rather than a city councilor the
responsibilities are different. But the view I take of what
occurred environment Canterbury is thus firstly, move away from the
issue of your reticulated water supplies and your wastewater. The
issues in Canterbury are all about managing that massive natural
(16:05):
freshwater resource, absolutely vital for the country from an energy perspective,
with the major hydroelectric schemes in the Waitechi that are
not just important for the amount of electricity they generate,
but also vitally important from the point of view of
the amount of storage that is provided in that water system.
The second thing is that if you take the issue
(16:27):
of agricultural use of water, and it is an order
of magnitude larger than the amounts of water that we
use for drinking, and seventy percent of the irrigation in
New Zealander is in Canterbury. And then on top of that,
whether it's the issue of the heightened levels of nitrogen,
(16:49):
whether it's managing the massive intensification of a dairying that
has occurred over the last thirty years in Canterbury, massively
challenging issue around how do you manage that freshwater resource
in that region that were nationally significant, a really big deal.
And the frustration and the fundamental reason for the intervention
(17:11):
that occurred in Environment Canterbury that twenty years after the
passage of the RMA, Canterbury had not been able to
work out a plan as to how they would deal
with that water and the whole system was literally falling apart,
both from an economic and environmental point of view. Now
you had all ten local councils in Canterbury saying, e
(17:36):
cans a copcase, you need to intervene. We actually got
an independent reporter before we made the decision to intervene
and made that pretty tough decision to effectively sack the
entire Environment Canterbury Council and to put commissioners in. Now
won't surprise you, Georgina that in making that intervention highly
(17:59):
risky for government and you need to satisfy people that
this is not being politically driven but trying to do
the right thing. And that's why I put one of
New Zealand's most respected public servants, Dame Margaret Baisley, in
his chair and then the deputy chair was David Cagle,
who was a very high profile labor politician, and that
(18:20):
was quite deliberate to provide me with cover and to
try and satisfy people. Look, this is not actually about
trying to screw the scrum, either in favor of the
tensions that exist in water management in Canterbury towards the
farmer or the environment, but actually just trying to get
good systems in place. And in my view, the intervention
was successful in that we actually got a proper resource
(18:45):
management plan for the management of fresh water and Canterbury
and that was a key outcome that we sought. It's
transitioned back to an elected council, it's still got some
tensions around the council table, and hoping that it can survive.
My underlying view when I reflect on it historically, was
(19:08):
that the scale of the issues, whether it be in
terms of the energy sector, the massive irrigation, the intensification
of dairying, that just got too big for a local
authority to be able to get on top of, and
it needed the serious grunt of people like Dane, Margaret Basley,
David Cagle and the other commissioners to actually get on
(19:30):
top of that big issue. And the issue was bigger
than Canterbury. It was really up to the point where
it was a national issue Georgiana.
Speaker 1 (19:37):
And look, just finally, Nick, while we're at it, since
you are the mayor of Nelson and we are very
interested in local government in this podcast, what are the
big issues for you there at the moment and how
are you going?
Speaker 2 (19:51):
Well? Yeah, look, I'm loving the privilege and the role
that I've got as mayor of this community, actually enjoying
it a lot more than I've thought in making the
transition from central to local government. The part that I
really enjoyed, Ordina, is that, in a way that you
don't get as an MP or a government minister, people
do give you the benefit of the data that you're
(20:12):
trying to do the right thing for the city. So
I'm noticing a lot lesser level of personal animosity than
what I experienced in my previous roles. The really big
challenge for Nelson is that we had a wicked storm
in August twenty two about sort of ninety million dollars
worth of damage to council infrastructure. So my first two
(20:33):
years as mayor has been not dissimilar to the Hastings
and the Aucklands and the others that have had these
massive storm recovery issues. The part that I'm quite excited
about is that I think we've largely got that problem
under control and so we're able to move on to
some of the issues around the revitalization of our city.
(20:53):
We face similar problems to many provincial cities with it
and the difficult economy. We've got, still got issues with infrastructure,
and where I do have somewhat controversial but view is
that in terms of organization of local government, nothing would
(21:14):
give me greater satisfaction than trying to form a merger
of the Nelson and Tasman councils. I think there's the
potential for us to have the best unit of local
government anywhere in New Zealand if we could find the
courage to make that change and to have a single
Nelson Tasman Council. So many issues that I'm dealing with
(21:35):
on a day to day basis where it's a really
big stuff, likes of transport infrastructure, whether it's government interactions
over the replacement and upgrade of our hospital, whether it's
the issues associated with little things like some cap by laws.
In those things, we could do a better job, we
could do it more efficiently if we had a single council.
(21:55):
And whether that's something I'm able to advance, it will
test by political skills. We'll see where we go.
Speaker 1 (22:01):
Oh well, we'll have to keep us posted on that one.
Speaker 2 (22:04):
Look.
Speaker 1 (22:04):
Thank you so much, Nack. I've really enjoyed our chair.
It's been a pleasure. Thank you, Georgina, thanks for listening
to this episode of On the Tiles Local edition. You
can follow On the Tiles on iHeartRadio or wherever you
get your podcasts, and for more local politics head to
(22:26):
enziherld dot co dot NZID or pick up your local paper.
Thanks to my producer Ethan Sills and our sound engineer
Richard Martin. I'm Georgina Campbell and On the Tiles. We'll
be back next week.
Kylder and welcome to On the Tiles, the Herald's politics podcast.
I'm your host, Georgina Campbell and this is a local
edition episode. Well, it's finally happened. After years of various
calls for the government to intervene at Wellington City Council,
(00:27):
local Government Minister Simeon Brown has appointed a Crown observer. This,
of course, is after the council stopped the controversial sale
of its stake in the airport, upending the long term
plan and triggering hundreds of millions of dollars in budget cuts.
Joining us to discuss this latest chapter in Wellington City
Council's Wowes is former local government minister and National MP
(00:51):
and current Mayor of Nelson, Nick Smith Kielder, Nick, and
thanks so much for joining us.
Speaker 2 (00:57):
You're lovely to be on your podcast, Georgina.
Speaker 1 (00:59):
So Simeon Brown has said that the decision to appoint
a Crown observer at the council is not one that
he took lightly. I know you weren't the local government
minister for that long, but just given that experience that
you have, can you take us through why this is
such a serious decision and why there is such a
(01:20):
high threshold for the government to intervene in local government.
Speaker 2 (01:24):
Well there's always been debate and nervousness in Wellington about
the degree to which you respect the local democracy and
local councils getting on with their business. On the other hand,
government can also be criticized for turning a blind eye
when things clearly become dysfunctional and start having a flow
on effect in terms of the national scene. Now, Wellington's
(01:48):
been a difficulty for some time. I actually feel a
little bit sorry for me. Tory found out in that
many of the issues that I see in Wellington actually
go back a long period, particularly around the significant underinvestment
in the infrastructure, of which water is the worst. But
(02:10):
when those sorts of issues are coming to the fore
quite embarrassing for New Zealand with the number of failures
of their water network, government not having the confidence that
the sort of council's got the capacity to deal with it.
And then the other part Georgiana was the Local Government
Act previously really own the areat what I'd almost call
(02:33):
the nuclear approach to intervention, effectively just to sack the
council and put commissioners in. We were involved in the
key government and putting amendments in that gave a number
of lesser options. I think that was a good reform
because what it does is allow the government to sort
of give a warning shot as well as assistance with
(02:56):
the appointment of a Crown observer to a council when
that's quite shaky. Maybe not at the point where you
would appoint commissioners, but at the point that if you don't,
there's a risk we end up with that more extensive
intervention in the affairs of a council.
Speaker 1 (03:16):
Yeah. I think it's almost like anything in life, or
how I would approach life, is that I think it's
always important to give the person or the entity the
chance to change, and I think having those lesser forms
of intervention like appointing a Crown observer provides the council
with that opportunity. Do you have any thoughts around why
(03:38):
the government might be particularly hesitant to intervene in a
council like Wellington, which is quite left leaning and obviously
has a Green endorsed mayor There's some optics there that
they also need to consider.
Speaker 2 (03:51):
A look, politics is a tricky exercise and the danger
for the government is that at the moment you start intervening,
then it becomes your fault. And so there's always you know,
deep levels of public concern about issues about what the
rate increases are and whether the council's making the right decisions.
And one of the risks for government when you do
(04:12):
interven and I was involved in intervening an environment Canterbury
the last government in Taranna, is that it becomes the
government's fault. So they would have thought about it pretty
carefully about walking that fine line between are they being
political are they playing with a straight bat. One of
the reasons that I wrote to the Local Government Minister
(04:32):
and recommended Lindsey McKenzie as their Crown Observer was that
he comes with a very strong local government background. He
doesn't have a political bone in his body, and that
in my view one I think he will do a
good job for Wellington and help that council, but also
a view that it would be difficult for anybody to
(04:55):
put a political flavor on an appointment like Lindsay mcken
to assisting the Welton City Council.
Speaker 1 (05:02):
Yes, so how do you know Lindsey, what's your relationship
with him?
Speaker 2 (05:07):
Well, Lindsay McKenzie's historic background was he's been in local
government in Southland, which is where he originates from. He
was so knew him as an environment minister back in
the nineteen nineties. He then went on only knew him
as a professional advisor then not that well. He then
(05:31):
ended up as the Chief Executive of the Gisban Council
and did a good job there. The main way I
know him was that he was the chief executive of
the Tasman District Council that incorporated a significant portion of
my Nelson electorate when I was the Member of Parliament,
(05:53):
and just found him a very sensible, non political, safe
set of hands in the local government sector. And then
the last part was that when I became the Mayor
of Nelson, the Nelson Council had significant governance issues. There
was a runoff Code of Conduct complaints, there was huge
(06:14):
tensions around the council table. People openly talked about it
being dysfunctional. The previous chief executive had announced his retirement.
I had a proper process and a gap in terms
of recruiting a new chief executive and so with council support,
(06:34):
employed him as an interim CEO in Nelson. During my
first four months as mayor, and I just found his
advice in terms of both the staffing as well as
the elected council really helpful in getting the Nelson City
Council onto a more constructive footing. I also knew of
(06:54):
his work and in Vericago, where the very public issues
with Mayor Tim Shedbow, and where the reports I'd heard
was he had done a really good job of helping
get them out of a hole. He had also played
a similar role in christ Church and so on that basis,
both in terms of wanting Wellington City Council to get
(07:15):
out of their hole and also wanting the government to
find the right person for the job. I wrote to
Sibney and said you should consider Lindsay.
Speaker 1 (07:24):
I met Lindsay this week for the first time. Wellington
City Council had its big budget meeting and it lasted
for seven hours, and I said it must have been
like capital punishment for him sitting through the winter essentially
long Wellington City Council meeting. And I went over to
him and introduced myself. I had asked for an interview
(07:45):
and he said, look, I'm going to have to respectfully
decline in terms of my first impressions of Wellington City Council.
I really have to save those impressions for my reports
to the Minister. He has to report to the Minister
monthly and so as a result, I suppose Wellingtonians don't
really know very much about this Crown observer, and you
(08:06):
certainly painted a more detailed background of his experience than
I've read. How would you describe his personality?
Speaker 2 (08:15):
Though very low key, this is not a person who,
even in those roles as Chief Executive of the Gisbon
Council or tasmould have had a high public profile. This
is a behind the scenes, competent operator who's able to
work across the political spectrum and try and get people
(08:35):
to constructively work together. And it does not surprise me
that he declined your request for an interview. Success, in
my view for Lindsey will be in the conduct and
the professionalism of that Weldon City Council as it deals
(08:56):
with its pretty difficult challenges that it gets through, and
so I think his approach will be want of not
speaking with a megaphone through the media, but talking privately
with the counselors and the council staff and coaching them
about how they can get themselves out of.
Speaker 1 (09:12):
Their whole and so just given how difficult some of
the issues are at Wellington City Council, and as you say,
this hasn't just been happening under Tory Farno's watch. We're
talking about decades of under investment and infrastructure and they've
been calls for government intervention under Andy Foster's term for
(09:32):
example as well. What confidence do you have that they
can actually get on top of its problems only a
Crown Observer in place, and that the government doesn't have
to resort to, you know, other interventions like commissioners for example.
Speaker 2 (09:48):
I've gotten not a shadow of doubt that with the
Crown Observer and Lindsay McKenzie it will make a positive difference.
Will it be enough, Hey, that's a bigger open question,
and in the end that will come down to the
decisions of the counselors and the mayor and how they
try and navigate themselves through a pretty difficult situation. Those
(10:11):
financial pressures are nationwide that are more acute. I do
think there are some structural issues that go bigger than
the personalities around what's gone on in Wellington. I was
very involved in the work of setting up Auckland's water
Care Services. And the key difference between Wellington Water and
(10:34):
Auckland Water Care Services is that the Auckland Water Care
Services is an asset owning gets the set it's charges.
I think there was a major failure at a policy
level in setting up Wellington Water when they set up
this organization that's got the day to day management role
(10:56):
of those water assets, but has got no power to
be able to set the level. And so what you've
seen in my view in Welton is multiple It's not
just the Wellington Council. You know, there are five councils
that are involved in Welton Water. All when there was
a problem with water infrastructure, say not our problem, that's
(11:16):
Wellington Water. At the same time, when it comes to
those hardest decisions of local government of how much money
to give them and how much to put the rates up,
put them on very austere rations that has seen the
quality of that infrastructure declined for more than a decade.
The model was flawed and that's all come to a
head and that is compounding itself now with massive multi
(11:41):
billion dollar investment required at a time when the economy
is tight and those councils are struggling. So I think
the intervention of the Crown Observer is a good thing.
But actually there are some fundamental, deep seated, structural flaws
in the way that Wellington water is structured that will
(12:01):
need to be fixed if Welton is going to get
on top of its water problems. The water problems are
just part of some of Welton's bigger problems. And with
any sort of failure or where an organization gets in trouble,
it's often not just a single thing, it's multiple things
that have contributed to getting where the Welton Council has gone.
Speaker 1 (12:24):
And so the fix that's on the table, of course
is the current government's local water Done Well policy. Just
while we're talking about that and how to make structural changes,
what do you think of that policy?
Speaker 2 (12:40):
Well, I think you need to go back and look
at some of the political motivation behind the previous government's
three Waters and look, I make no bones Georgia about
being pretty vocal on this. Nelson City Council's water is
a very good shape in the three waters analysis that
was done by the previous government and current built a
big dam, introduced water meters way back in then nineteen nineties,
(13:01):
got good water treatment spent tens of millions of dollars
on new water treatment plants, and the expectation in Wellington,
and it's actually the whole debate around three waters to
some degrees mads Wellington's problems worse in that the Welton
Body politic is very keen to find some other people
to meet their bills for the billions they need to
(13:22):
spend upgrading it. And it won't surprise you, Georgiana that
I'm saying, well, how on a moment, why should the
people of Nelson, who've done a pretty good job at
managing their water barl out a community like Wellington City
that's one of the most wealthy per head of capita
incomes in the country. And so all that debate about
three waters or local water done well has been a
(13:45):
bit of a distraction and actually made the problem worse
because Wellington has the impression that there is going to
be a sort of someone else that's prepared to pay
their bills, and whether that be the tax power or
and I think the problem in Wellington is going to
be if you were one of the surrounding councils, say
up in Capitdi or the Lower North Island or for
(14:06):
that matter, Nelson molbretasman. Why do we want to be
join a water entity with Wellington when there are, like
I say, billions of dollars that need to be spent
for catchup And so I think the Wellington water problem
has been made worse by all those reforms because it
created an expectation that there was going to be a
(14:26):
knight and shining armor that would come along and solve
Wellington's problems for them. And I do think whether it
be local water done well or they go with the
Crown intervention, is that Wellington needs to bite the bottot,
stop pretending that either the taxpayer or some other unit
of local government is going to pay their bills and
actually find a sustainable plan to fix Wellton water.
Speaker 1 (14:50):
We're going to take a short break where we'll be
back soon. Welcome back to on the tiles. We are
talking to Nelson Mayor, Nick Smith and former local government
(15:11):
minister and national MP about Wellington City Council and the
recent decision of the government to intervene with a Crown observer. Nick,
one of the things I really wanted to talk to
you about was your experience with e CAN, which you
mentioned earlier. In our chat, I just wondered, could you
(15:32):
take us back to that time and what was happening
at that regional council and maybe how that compares with
the situation at Wellington City Council.
Speaker 2 (15:41):
I think the circumstances are quite different in that it
is a regional council rather than a city councilor the
responsibilities are different. But the view I take of what
occurred environment Canterbury is thus firstly, move away from the
issue of your reticulated water supplies and your wastewater. The
issues in Canterbury are all about managing that massive natural
(16:05):
freshwater resource, absolutely vital for the country from an energy perspective,
with the major hydroelectric schemes in the Waitechi that are
not just important for the amount of electricity they generate,
but also vitally important from the point of view of
the amount of storage that is provided in that water system.
The second thing is that if you take the issue
(16:27):
of agricultural use of water, and it is an order
of magnitude larger than the amounts of water that we
use for drinking, and seventy percent of the irrigation in
New Zealander is in Canterbury. And then on top of that,
whether it's the issue of the heightened levels of nitrogen,
(16:49):
whether it's managing the massive intensification of a dairying that
has occurred over the last thirty years in Canterbury, massively
challenging issue around how do you manage that freshwater resource
in that region that were nationally significant, a really big deal.
And the frustration and the fundamental reason for the intervention
(17:11):
that occurred in Environment Canterbury that twenty years after the
passage of the RMA, Canterbury had not been able to
work out a plan as to how they would deal
with that water and the whole system was literally falling apart,
both from an economic and environmental point of view. Now
you had all ten local councils in Canterbury saying, e
(17:36):
cans a copcase, you need to intervene. We actually got
an independent reporter before we made the decision to intervene
and made that pretty tough decision to effectively sack the
entire Environment Canterbury Council and to put commissioners in. Now
won't surprise you, Georgina that in making that intervention highly
(17:59):
risky for government and you need to satisfy people that
this is not being politically driven but trying to do
the right thing. And that's why I put one of
New Zealand's most respected public servants, Dame Margaret Baisley, in
his chair and then the deputy chair was David Cagle,
who was a very high profile labor politician, and that
(18:20):
was quite deliberate to provide me with cover and to
try and satisfy people. Look, this is not actually about
trying to screw the scrum, either in favor of the
tensions that exist in water management in Canterbury towards the
farmer or the environment, but actually just trying to get
good systems in place. And in my view, the intervention
was successful in that we actually got a proper resource
(18:45):
management plan for the management of fresh water and Canterbury
and that was a key outcome that we sought. It's
transitioned back to an elected council, it's still got some
tensions around the council table, and hoping that it can survive.
My underlying view when I reflect on it historically, was
(19:08):
that the scale of the issues, whether it be in
terms of the energy sector, the massive irrigation, the intensification
of dairying, that just got too big for a local
authority to be able to get on top of, and
it needed the serious grunt of people like Dane, Margaret Basley,
David Cagle and the other commissioners to actually get on
(19:30):
top of that big issue. And the issue was bigger
than Canterbury. It was really up to the point where
it was a national issue Georgiana.
Speaker 1 (19:37):
And look, just finally, Nick, while we're at it, since
you are the mayor of Nelson and we are very
interested in local government in this podcast, what are the
big issues for you there at the moment and how
are you going?
Speaker 2 (19:51):
Well? Yeah, look, I'm loving the privilege and the role
that I've got as mayor of this community, actually enjoying
it a lot more than I've thought in making the
transition from central to local government. The part that I
really enjoyed, Ordina, is that, in a way that you
don't get as an MP or a government minister, people
do give you the benefit of the data that you're
(20:12):
trying to do the right thing for the city. So
I'm noticing a lot lesser level of personal animosity than
what I experienced in my previous roles. The really big
challenge for Nelson is that we had a wicked storm
in August twenty two about sort of ninety million dollars
worth of damage to council infrastructure. So my first two
(20:33):
years as mayor has been not dissimilar to the Hastings
and the Aucklands and the others that have had these
massive storm recovery issues. The part that I'm quite excited
about is that I think we've largely got that problem
under control and so we're able to move on to
some of the issues around the revitalization of our city.
(20:53):
We face similar problems to many provincial cities with it
and the difficult economy. We've got, still got issues with infrastructure,
and where I do have somewhat controversial but view is
that in terms of organization of local government, nothing would
(21:14):
give me greater satisfaction than trying to form a merger
of the Nelson and Tasman councils. I think there's the
potential for us to have the best unit of local
government anywhere in New Zealand if we could find the
courage to make that change and to have a single
Nelson Tasman Council. So many issues that I'm dealing with
(21:35):
on a day to day basis where it's a really
big stuff, likes of transport infrastructure, whether it's government interactions
over the replacement and upgrade of our hospital, whether it's
the issues associated with little things like some cap by laws.
In those things, we could do a better job, we
could do it more efficiently if we had a single council.
(21:55):
And whether that's something I'm able to advance, it will
test by political skills. We'll see where we go.
Speaker 1 (22:01):
Oh well, we'll have to keep us posted on that one.
Speaker 2 (22:04):
Look.
Speaker 1 (22:04):
Thank you so much, Nack. I've really enjoyed our chair.
It's been a pleasure. Thank you, Georgina, thanks for listening
to this episode of On the Tiles Local edition. You
can follow On the Tiles on iHeartRadio or wherever you
get your podcasts, and for more local politics head to
(22:26):
enziherld dot co dot NZID or pick up your local paper.
Thanks to my producer Ethan Sills and our sound engineer
Richard Martin. I'm Georgina Campbell and On the Tiles. We'll
be back next week.
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