Barry Soper: ZB Senior Political Editor on the Government appointing a Crown Observer to Wellington City Council

The Government's announced it's appointing a Crown Observer to Wellington City Council. 

It comes after the council's been forced to re-write its Long Term plan, after reversing its decision to sell its shares in Wellington Airport. 

ZB Senior Political Editor Barry Soper told Matt Heath and Tyler Adams that the Observer will report back to the Simeon Brown, and if the Government needs to take further action, it will based on the Observer’s reports.  

He said that the problem seems to be that Mayor Tory Whanau and her lot don’t seem to understand financing, and so they’ve got to be shown how to do it.  

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:09):
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Speaker 2 (00:16):
Local government Minister Simeon Brown has decided to place a
Crown observer on Wellington City Council following its decision to
reopen its long term Plan and studio is our senior
political correspondent Barry Soaper get Ape Perry.

Speaker 3 (00:29):
Hello, lads, how are we today?

Speaker 4 (00:31):
Very good? Thank you better since you have wanted into
the room. What powers does an observer have?

Speaker 3 (00:37):
Not a lot of powers actually as an observer status,
so the person appointed will sit in on the meetings.
And clearly the city Council in Wearnington hasn't been going
according to plan in the long term plan being the
operative plan that they should have been after and Tory
Farnal has been an absolute disaster as mayor. And she

(01:00):
was up at Parliament last week talking to Sammy and
Brown came away as she normally does, chirpy and saying,
oh no, he never mentioned me think about government intervention. Well,
it just goes to show how closely she reads the situation.

Speaker 4 (01:15):
Is that a case where the observer makes report and
takes it to the government or is the observer reporting
back constantly? Is this a mol type situation?

Speaker 3 (01:22):
Yeah, no, constantly that sime and Brown as the local
government minister, he will get reports, updated reports from the
observer and if they have to take any further intervention
then they will do based on what the observer is
taking in that the issue really hears that it seems

(01:44):
that Tory Farna and her lot don't understand financing because
there is under three waters away to finance that the
government enabled through legislation since becoming government a year ago.
Clearly they don't know how to do it. So they're
going to be shown how to do it. And if
they didn't do it then rates would be front loaded

(02:07):
onto rate paths to the tune of seven hundred million
dollars over the next ten years. And I'll tell you what,
I'm pleased. I'm not a rate payer in Wellington. Yeah.

Speaker 2 (02:17):
Yeah, I mean this is a big serve, isn't it
to the council saying bark up or we're going to
seek you effectively.

Speaker 3 (02:23):
Oh? Absolutely. You saw it happening in Tarrong. And of
course they've just concluded with Marty Drysdale. I think the
mayor and tarrong Are now that they had an election,
that he could have come down harder on the council
and called for an early election, but that probably would
have reinforced what is a impossible situation there at the moment.

(02:46):
So he decided the observer is the best way to go,
and I happened to agree with him.

Speaker 4 (02:52):
But it was inevitable, so humiliating for some of the
Wellington City Council. But some of them were keen on this,
weren't they.

Speaker 3 (02:58):
Well, if you look at Nikola Young, for example, she's
been on z B constantly telling us that an observer
has to be appointed because they getting nowhere with Torri Vanu.
And you only have to look at recent interviews with
this mayor to understand that she doesn't understand very much
about what she's talking about most of the time, and

(03:20):
even during the course of an interview we'll have to
correct herself about what she said earlier, and she had
a rush of blood to the head.

Speaker 1 (03:28):
Yeah.

Speaker 4 (03:28):
So if the preserver keeps reporting back that things are
dysfunctional and aren't going to improve, do they then bring
in a commissioner?

Speaker 3 (03:35):
Yep, they can do that and that'll override the council
and make decisions on behalf of what is a democratically
elected council. You're going to get these screamers on the
sidelines now saying this is overturning the democratic process. Well, sorry,
sometimes a democratic process doesn't work the way it should do.

(03:55):
In Wellington, there is no doubt that cycle ways seem
to be more important than waterways, and we've got plenty
of those flowing down the streets in the Capitol at
the moment.

Speaker 2 (04:05):
So what happens today? Does the observer go and today
kick open the doors and say open up your books
because I'm here to make change it.

Speaker 3 (04:13):
No, it's not quite that dramatic, but the minister has
to appoint. No doubt they've got an observer in mind,
so they have to appoint one, and there is due
process to be followed because it is a significant step
and it's not the first time it's been done, and
it probably won't be the last.

Speaker 1 (04:34):
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