Graeme Edgler: Palmerston North City Council seeking advice

After voting unanimously to keep their Maori Wards, Palmerston North City Council is seeking advice.

Act's local government spokesperson Cameron Luxton is accusing elected members of playing with fire. 

Constitutional law expert Graeme Edgler joins Mike Hosking to discuss. 

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Now Murray Ward's debate isn't over. Partners and law. City
Council voted to keep them, which means they will have
to put it to a referendum under the new law
next year. But in the meantime they're calling them the lawyers.
They want to know what would happen if the city
doesn't hold the required vote. Constitutional law expert Graham Michel
is with us on this Graham Morning to you.

Speaker 2 (00:18):
Good morning.

Speaker 1 (00:18):
Law's the law, isn't it?

Speaker 2 (00:20):
Yes?

Speaker 1 (00:21):
So that solves that one, doesn't it. They are whatever
they do in the ensuing period of time, they can
ask whoever they want. They am not going to get
around it.

Speaker 2 (00:28):
Yeah, I mean they're not lawyer. Sometimes it's an interesting question,
like what happens if we don't do this? You know,
what happens if we don't upgrade this? Yeah in ath
great crime building or something, you know, do we have
to leave? The answer is, you know what in this
particular case, like if they really like they tell someone,
don't do this. You know, we're supposed to have it.
The law says we have to have it, and they
just don't, then someone's going to make them. It's going

(00:50):
to be a High Court judge with an injunction, or
it's going to be a minister of the Crown saying Okay,
I'm going to point a limited statutory manager to make
the decision for you because you're not making it. Okay,
those the two.

Speaker 1 (01:03):
Would they understand that in making the statement they've made
or are they just trying this on?

Speaker 2 (01:09):
Well they might, but you know they're not lawyers. You know,
it's a relatively new yorw what happens? Like that's a
reasonable question to ask, Like they made that the law
said you have to make a decision before this date.
They've done that because their lawyers told them you have
to do that, and that, oh what happens if this
doesn't happen? And yeah, what happens? You know, it's not

(01:29):
an unreasonable question to ask, you know, you know, I
could have saved them a bit of money. They could
have called me out and I told them what I'm
telling you now, and the law says they have to
So they're going to one way or the other.

Speaker 1 (01:42):
Fantastic, So they couldn't go down I'm just going hypothetical. Now,
could they go down? An individual case saying our district
is so unique, so different, so special, I'm thinking, particularly
like Northland, that this, you know, we can argue a
case in front of a you know, sympathetic judge, we
might be able to get out of it or forget it.

Speaker 2 (02:01):
But unless the law changes, you know, someone is going
to make them do this.

Speaker 1 (02:06):
Yeah, simple as that. You can't argue with that, Graham,
Well done, Graham, Angela. You see how they see the
value of this program, Like I mean, all the counsels
listening to this, you know, save yourself the money, save
yourself the time, forget it.

Speaker 2 (02:18):
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