Nick Clark: Senior fellow at The New Zealand Initiative comments on low voter turnout for local elections

Roughly 70% of Kiwis did not vote in the recent local elections. 

It's shaping up to be the worst voter turnout in 36 years, with only 23% of Aucklanders voting in the local elections. 

Senior fellow at the New Zealand Initiative Nick Clark told Ryan Bridge that making local elections in larger cities even more local would encourage more people to vote. 

"It might be a bit of an out there solution to make councils more local rather than less local."

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
So most of us didn't vote. Seventy percent of us
roughly didn't by the voting in the local elections, it
could be the worst turnout in thirty six years. Worse
in Auckland, initial figures showing just over twenty three percent voted.
Nick Clark is senior fellow at the New Zealand Initiative
with me this morning, Nick, Good morning.

Speaker 2 (00:16):
Good morning Ryan.

Speaker 1 (00:16):
Now you're going to tell me that we need to
make voting easier and we need better candidates and that
will get us out voting. Do you think that's enough?
Do you think we need to do more like reform
councils altogether.

Speaker 2 (00:29):
I think my view on that is that if you
look at the turnout sets around the country, probably the
places that have the higher voter turnout tend to be
the smaller councils. Whereas in this of the received wisdom
in New Zealander that we need bigger is better, and
we need to consolidate and we need to do this,
that and the other. But actually it might be in

(00:51):
a bit of an outdier solution might be to make
councils more local rather than less local. And in countries
like Switzerland and the like they have foul of the
units of local government seems to work a lot better
than ours.

Speaker 1 (01:03):
Do they have the council laws in those countries? Do
they have the same power as ours? The mayor no
veto vote? You know we have a council mayor system
rather than a mayor council system.

Speaker 2 (01:16):
Yep, Yes, well, a lot of those, a lot of
international experiences that strong mayors with also with relatively stronger
counselors as well, who could hold their council to scrutiny,
to account better. I certainly seem to have better performance
and are able to get things done a lot, a
lot better. There's also more competitive system where councilors actually

(01:38):
compete with themselves to attract businesses and jobs and things
like that.

Speaker 1 (01:43):
When you say that we need to attract better candidates,
does that mean paying them more?

Speaker 2 (01:48):
Not necessarily it means no. I wouldn't say so. I mean,
certainly they don't get paid a lot at the moment.
But I would say the better way to get better
candidates would be to actually give counselors and mayor's in particular,
the ability to actually make things happen and work to
their mandates and to their promises they've made. They're not

(02:11):
stifled or muzzled. They actually have the ability to get
better information out of their councils, which can be incredibly
difficult at times. They need to be able to, you know,
just just basically tilt that playing field back and say
with the elected representatives compared to the council bureaucracies which
tend to lead them somewhat.

Speaker 1 (02:31):
And appreciate your times wanting Nick Clark with the New
Zealand Initiative.

Speaker 2 (02:35):
For more from earlier edition with Ryan Bridge. Listen live
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