Campbell Barry: Vice President of Local Government New Zealand says more people should be involved in local elections

Disappointment, at the lack of people putting their name forward for October's council elections.

Several people have been elected unopposed around the country.

They include three of Christchurch's 16 councillors, two of Auckland's 20 councillors, and five of Lower Hutt's 13 councillors.

Lower Hutt's outgoing mayor and the Vice President of Local Government New Zealand Campbell Barry says it's a less-than-ideal situation.

He says the environment may be putting many people off standing, but a high-profile mayoral race can help drive interest.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Stand by for another lackluster local body election in some
parts of the country, deadline having come and gone Friday,
some races no competition to all the incumbent wins by
a fault. In Lower Hunt, five councilors elected uncontested. Good
news in Hamilton, though, twenty six candidates for just the
one seat Hamilton Eastward. How hot's that Campbell Barry's the
VP at local Government New Zealander. Is whether there's Campbell morning?

Speaker 2 (00:22):
Good morning?

Speaker 1 (00:22):
So there's the last minute flurry on Friday. My understanding
couple of hours ago people put their names and does
it make you feel any better? Are you getting anywhere
good in this or no?

Speaker 2 (00:31):
It varies across the board. As you mentioned, in our area,
we've got five uncontested seats. I don't think that's good
for democracy. We do want to have races, but it
does depend on the local context and the reasons and
the ward sets up set ups as well. We do
want to be seeing more people stand. Unfortunately, with the
environment we've got, I think that does put some people off.

(00:52):
But I think the important thing now is we're going
to do everything we can to try and get that
vote a participation up because the voting numbers, I think
is the most important thing.

Speaker 1 (01:00):
Do you have any indication if the nominations aren't there,
the racers aren't there, then why would suddenly people start voting?

Speaker 2 (01:09):
I think the mayoral race is quite a big one,
so for us we've got four strong meural contenders. I
think you do see an uptick when that's more high profile,
so it'll be interesting to see what that means. I
think there are some more systemic issues to vote to participation.
Postal voting, you know, that is just completely not fit
for purpose at the moment, and how people actually vote,

(01:31):
information on candidates as pretty lackluster as well. We've been
doing some work through Local Government New Zealand, through our
Electoral Reform Working Group to suggest some recommendations to change that.
So actually how we vote and the process I think
could be a lot better. And also, obviously there are
some bigger challenges of getting good people to stand, so
that's something we need to address.

Speaker 1 (01:51):
Sixteen here's my fun fact of sixteen mayors who aren't
standing again. Six were first termers, four had completed only
two terms. What's that tell you about it? It sounds
to me like bugger this, who needs this?

Speaker 2 (02:06):
That's an interesting one. I think that's probably the first
time I've seen such a large number of one to
meyors decided to step aside. Some of them are actually
still standing for council, which is interesting. Again, I think,
you know, in due course we should dig a bit
deeper into that because it is something that's a little
bit unusual. So I don't have an answer of why,
but I think it's a good observation.

Speaker 1 (02:26):
Good stuff Campbell appreciate at Campbell Berry, who's the VP
of Local Government, Bishop was out over the weekend. Chris.
Five councilors elected unopposed already in the Lower Hut. As
we've just mentioned. Now here's the part of the problem.
As far as I can tell, all of the Eastbourne
Community Board has been elected unopposed. Five slots, five people.
Now this goes back to what I argued all along.

(02:47):
There are far too many jobs, There are far too
many people, far too many boards, far too many councils.
So by the time if you feeled if you can
tested every single slot up for grabs, you would be
needing literally thousands of people to put their names forward.
It's never going to happen, especially at community board. Level.
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