Heather du Plessis-Allan: Auckland Council booting Local Government NZ is a warning to Kieran McAnulty

Bad day in the Local Government New Zealand offices today, because Auckland Council just gave them the flick.

This is what happens when you don’t read the room and try to force an unpopular policy like Three Waters on people.

I'll explain to you what happened here; Local Government NZ is the body that is supposed to represent all the councils across the country and go in to bat for them. That's why these councils pay LGNZ huge amounts of money to belong to them 

But LGNZ made a big mistake; they struck a secret deal with Nanaia Mahuta to allow her to confiscate the water assets off councils. All the while she kept pretending she wouldn’t do that.

In simple terms, they sided with Nanaia against their own paying members. 

Then the Taxpayers’ Union started campaigning against Three Waters, and so Local Government New Zealand banned the Taxpayers’ Union from attending their conference.

A group of councils broke away and set up a rebel group called Councils for Local Democracy, it now represents more than a third of the country’s councils. 

And then this happened today, their biggest member pulled out and took a huge amount of money with them.

Depending on which numbers you look at, Auckland Council paid anywhere between $400,000 and 607,000 last year to LGNZ out of a total income of $5 million. 

That's anywhere between 9 percent and 12 percent. That's a big chunk to lose.

But this is a lesson to Kieran McAnulty, who is right now trying to decide what to do with Three Waters.

LGNZ was on the wrong side of public opinion, it tried to force Three Waters on its members and they didn’t want it, and now it’s lost the biggest one of them.

It is still an option to Kieran to force Three Waters on NZ, but the majority of us don’t want it, and judging by what just happened to LGNZ- do that, the outcome won’t be good.

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