Perspective with Heather du Plessis-Allan: Will cutting councils fix our abysmal voter turnout?

Listen, I am more and more convinced that we need to cut the number of councils we have across the country. I mean, that voter turnout that we've seen at the weekend was abysmal.

Last count I've seen is that nationally, only 38 percent of us voted. It's worse in Auckland, where only around 29 percent -  so not even 1 in 3 of us - voted.

Now, I think anyone who thinks that we can fix local Government by ditching the postal vote system and going hard with the orange guy and his dog is dreaming. Because that is not the problem.

The problem is not how you vote, the problem is who you vote for. I think we have a complete breakdown in the trust between the voter and the people that we are voting for and the authority in general.

I mean, you've opened your booklet, right?

Surely, you've had a look at who you had to vote for. It's overpopulated by people you wouldn't trust to mind your pet, never mind run the council.

You don't actually believe that these people are going to make smart decisions, do you? Or do what they say they're gonna do?

You wouldn't even know if they do what they say they're gonna do, because there's hardly any media coverage nowadays and holding people to account.

I think it fundamentally comes down to us simply having too many local body politicians in New Zealand, right? Because Auckland alone has 170 of these people. That is more than Parliament has for the entire country.

Now, run that 170 in Auckland across the entire country, but it's like 1000. We don't have enough media to cover everything, grill them when they break promises.

We don't have enough attention spans ourselves to absorb that much information on top of everything we're already absorbing with central Government.

And so what we do is we just tap out and we give up and only what, 40 percent of us vote?

I reckon what we need to do is we need to take our 67 territorial authorities and just cut it down. Some commentators reckon we need to go as low as 13. I don't mind, that's a good starting point.

It's certainly a better starting point than 67 which equals a, what, 38 percent turnout?

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Listen. I am more and more convinced that we need
to cut the number of councils we have across the country.
I mean that voter turnout that we've seen at the
weekend was abysmal. Last count I've seen is that nationally
only thirty eight percent of us voted, worse in Auckland
only around twenty nine percent, So not even one in
three of us. Now, I think anyone who thinks that

(00:20):
we can fix local government by ditching the postal voting
system and going hard with the orange guy and his
dog is dreaming. That is not the problem. The problem
is not how you vote. The problem is who you
vote for. I think we have a complete breakdown in
the trust between the voter and the people that we
are voting for and the authority in general. I mean,
you've opened your booklet, right, surely you had a look
at who you had to vote for. It's over populated

(00:41):
by people you wouldn't trust to mind your pet, never
mind run the council. You don't actually believe that these
people are going to make smart decisions, do you or
do what they say they're going to do. You wouldn't
even know if they do what they say they're going
to do because there's hardly any media coverage nowadays, and
holding and holding people to account. I think it fundament
comes down to us simply having too many local body

(01:02):
politicians in New Zealand right, Auckland alone has one hundred
and seventy of these people. That is more than Parliament
has for the entire country. Now run that one seventy
in Auckland across the entire country, it's like one thousand.
We don't have enough media to cover everything, grill them
when they break promises. We don't have enough attention spans
ourselves to absorb that much information on top of everything

(01:24):
we're already absorbing with central government. And so what we
do is we just tap out and we give up
and only what forty percent of us vote. I reckon
what we need to do is we need to take
our sixty seven territorial authorities and just cut it down.
Some commentators reckon we need to go as low as thirteen.
I don't mind. That's a good starting point, certainly a
better starting point than sixty seven, which equals a what

(01:46):
thirty eight percent turnout? For more from Heather Duplessy, Allen
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