A DIFFERENCE of style, rather than direction appeared to be the theme between the mayoral candidates at a breakfast last week.
ŌTOROHANGA voters were presented with a question of style at the mayoral breakfast last week. The gathering in the college library was told by mayoral contender Kit Jeffries he was standing because a change of style in the mayoral leadership was needed. Both Kit and incumbent Max Baxter were given questions ahead of time by organisers the Ōtorohanga District Development Board. Kit read his replies from prepared notes, while Max spoke off the cuff. NO REAL DISAGREEMENTS Both extolled their locality, their rural roots and history with the district, and exercised a little Te Reo in their mihi. There were a couple of quips, but no fundamental disagreements about the council’s future and its role in legislative environment both agreed will be rapidly changing. Kit said he was challenging for Max’s seat because he had been getting the message for some time that after nine years the council leadership needed a change of style, with a greater focus on local leadership that included an available and approachable presence in the community. GETTING USED TO THE ROLE Max said his first three years as mayor were somewhat of a blur as he came to an understanding of what the role was actually about. He pointed to his last two terms of inclusive leadership as being responsible for the Ōtorohanga District having one of the more stable councils in New Zealand, compared to the disruption being seen in other councils right across the motu. He said it was incredibly important that knowledge from other mayors, local government and government sources was brought back into the community to strengthen the community. “I think the experience I have in this role is now more important than it ever has been in terms of the changes that are going on in local government. Continuity of leadership in the community in a district like Ōtorohanga is more important than it ever has been,” he said. In terms of availability, he said everybody among the 30-40 people in the room knew he was always available, that he was in town on a constant basis and lived only five minutes away. HOUSING He was standing again because he likes the role he is in and believes he is the right person in a role vital for the growth and development of the Ōtorohanga district. On a housing question, it was again Kit saying what should be done with statistics read from research – he said the council needed to be more proactive with iwi groups, agencies and liaise on papakainga developments. The statistic showed there was an acute shortfall of affordable housing that the demand had grown since 2018, while the supply had remained static. He said the figures meant more than a quarter of the population of Ōtorohanga about 2500 people, was living in living in damp and mouldy dwellings. The house price to income ratio was increasing to severely unaffordable and that the medium price income ration increasing classed as severely unaffordable. Max said what the council had done about housing and how it had invested in the Westridge sub-division to ensure its continuation. He said the biggest change was in access to finance for first home buyers. That 80% of applicants were being denied when they would have been approved a year ago. “It comes down to money which is outside our control,” he said. GREATER CONTROL Enabling greater control over infill housing and support for papa kainga developments was up to central government to give local government greater powers in that space. Their stance on Three Waters, was the same – but different. Both conceded the Government needed to act to ensure continued investment in drinking water, wastewater and stormwater, and both disagreed with the way the Government had gone about it. All 67 territorial local authorities supported reform as a consequence of under investment, Max said. ‘What we also agree with is the way the Government approached Three Waters reform is fundamentally flawed in so many respects. ‘The breakaway group Communities 4 Local Democracy held the same views as all councils across New Zealand, they were just expressing them differently. “The way I see us expressing our views by working alongside Government and the DIA (Department of Internal Affairs) to get a better result. ‘The reason why the Government has intervened the way they have, is 20 years of talking to local government about the need for further investment in infrastructure that hasn’t been followed through with. NO FORWARD MOVEMENT He said the example was a few years back when Waipa, Hamilton, and Waikato chose on political grounds to back away from amalgamating water services, while current Internal Affairs Minister Nanaia Mahuta was watching over their shoulders. “That is when she stepped forward and said we have to do this from a central government,” Max said. ‘Value for us in our wastewater The cost of putting in reticulated sewerage for Kāwhia was $12-15 million which was totally unaffordable for a community of that size,’ he said. ‘The only way it could happen was with outside investment which could happen through the Three Waters reform four entities.’ Max said his role on the Three Waters rural technical working groups was to provide a better model for the Government to ensure communities were better looked after. “So we have yet to see what that model looks like coming up,” he said. There were many thousands of submissions to be gone through and there was still a lot of work to do to create that model going forward. NOT A HAPPY PLACE “It hasn’t been a happy place for [councils]; in fact, it has probably split us apart more than anything else in the history of local government,” he said. And so it went, with Kit providing researched facts, figures and council should-be’s – and Max outlining the council state of play and achievement in each sphere, and the direction of each work in progress. On the question of the future of local government, Max said it was going to change completely in the coming years. Three Waters reform signalled that providing core infrastructure was no longer the focus of local government. “The future of local government is more about delivering on the well-beings across our communities,” he said. “The work that I’ve been doing with the Mayors Task Force for Jobs in terms of getting our rangitahi into employment is one of those avenues. Another part of the future of local government will be centred around housing, and that is a conversation I had with the Prime Minister two weeks ago in her office. Instead of ‘grey men,’ he expected to see a lot more diversity in terms of the people who represent our communities; age diversity, gender and cultural diversity: “So we can have a true representation of what our future of our district is about,” he said. As well as becoming more involved in the delivery of social housing and affordable housing, local government will have responsibility in the delivery of health care, especially mental health for young people and the rurally isolated. LOCAL GOVERNMENT TO CHANGE “The whole delivery of local government is going to change exponentially in the coming years and I think any council or mayors that aren’t on board with that change, or aren’t front-footing it are going to be left behind. “As a leader in our community, my job is to front-foot that, see where opportunity is. I’ve done it with employment; the conversations I’m having now are around mental health and housing. That is the future of local government.’ Kit said the Three Water reform represented the most fundamental change to the role of local government in a generation. It provided a strong argument for localism and greater involvement in social housing education and primary health services, making the council a ‘pivoter’ of people rather than an infrastructure focus. It offered the opportunity to fundamentally redefine the council’s relationship with our community, he said. He asked if this would mean amalgamations, was the current system of democratic representation going to be still fit for purpose, did Ōtorohanga really need 18 elected members representing 10,000 people, and should the current ward system remain? And if community boards were not to be given greater autonomy, should they be continued?
