Member's Bill Would Reduce The Number Of Auckland Local Boards
The bill would amend section the Local Government Act to set a statutory cap on Auckland local board numbers at 15. However, this does not necessarily mean fewer local board members currently at 149.
A new Member's bill that would reduce the number of local boards in Auckland from 21 to 15 would make local Government in Auckland more efficient, says National MP for Upper Harbour, Cameron Brewer.
'Last year, Auckland Council established a Joint Governance Working Group to explore options to reorganise local boards to improve efficiencies and better align governance structures.
'The working party's 'Local Board Reorganisation Plan – Next Steps' report estimated that the potential efficiencies to be $6.9m per annum. Identified one-off costs associated with the reorganisation were estimated at $1.9m.
'In the end, despite significant potential savings for Auckland ratepayers, the proposal did not proceed to public consultation last year. Most councillors chose not to advance it, nor seek the support or views from Aucklanders.
'My Member's bill would effectively align the number of local boards with the number of council wards. This would mean 13 local boards aligned with the 13 existing council wards. However, as the working party also proposed, the provision for two additional boards – one for Waiheke Island and one for Great Barrier Island, given their distinct characteristics and needs.
'The bill would amend section the Local Government Act to set a statutory cap on Auckland local board numbers at 15. However, this does not necessarily mean fewer local board members – currently at 149.
'This bill aligns with National's aim to achieve greater efficiencies for taxpayers and ratepayers, reduce unnecessary bureaucracy, while maintaining strong and effective local representation. It now just needs to get drawn from the ballot, so Aucklanders can have their say,' says Mr Brewer.
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Otago Daily Times
3 hours ago
- Otago Daily Times
Seymour's 'dropkick' voters comment unhelpful: minister
By Giles Dexter and Tuwhenuaroa Natanahira of RNZ Justice Minister Paul Goldsmith says comments made by the Deputy Prime Minister - calling voters who enrol late "dropkicks" - are "unhelpful", as changes to voter enrolment are rolled out. Justice officials say closing enrolments ahead of advance voting could result in lower turnout and reduce confidence in the electoral system. And electoral law experts are also questioning why the changes need to stretch for the whole advanced voting period. As part of a suite of Electoral Act changes, same-day election enrolments are set to be scrapped. It reverses a change brought in for the 2020 general election, which allowed for enrolments and updating details up to and including on election day. It then goes even further, ensuring voters have to enrol or update their details before advance voting begins. The government is also legislating to require 12 days of advance voting. The changes are primarily being made to improve the timeliness of the official vote count, and so give voters certainty of a result. The growth in the number of special votes has been putting a strain on processing a result, with the timeframe for a final vote count stretching into three weeks at the last election. Goldsmith said the uncertainty could be avoided if more people enrolled in a timely manner. "We never know what the circumstances are going to be after an election. We don't know what pressure the country will be under. An extra week, extra two weeks, if we do nothing could be longer, then that just creates extra uncertainty that we can easily avoid by people enrolling in a timely fashion." On Thursday, Deputy Prime Minister David Seymour backed the changes, insulting the hundreds of thousands of people who enrolled or updated their address, and voted, during the advance voting period and on election day itself. "Frankly, I'm a bit sick of dropkicks that can't get themselves organised to follow the law," he said. "It's actually made so easy to do, they even have a little orange cartoon running around telling people to do it. And if you're too disorganised to do that over a thousand days between two elections, then maybe you don't care that much." Speaking to RNZ's Morning Report programme today, Goldsmith was asked if the government did not care about those would-be voters because they were perhaps unlikely to vote for National or ACT. "That's not the case, and that, yeah, that was an unhelpful comment, frankly, from David Seymour," Goldsmith said. Officials warn of a barrier to participation In its Regulatory Impact Statement (RIS), the Ministry of Justice did not recommend the option of closing enrolment earlier. "Its impact on reducing special votes is uncertain, while its impact on democratic participation could be significant," officials said. Special votes take much longer to process than a standard vote as they need to go through a lot more scrutiny. Officials noted a positive aspect of closing enrolments earlier was it would mean enrolment processing was done by the close of polling, allowing special vote counting to begin promptly. The ministry acknowledged there was value in a timely and smooth transfer of power following an election, but it was uncertain whether any package of changes could reduce the count timeframes. The RIS acknowledged the growth of special votes in both volume and as a proportion of the total number of votes, with the largest proportion being those who were not enrolled or needed to update their details. About 300,000 to 350,000 people cast a special vote because they were not enrolled, or not enrolled at the correct address by writ day, or on the dormant roll. Māori, Asian, and Pasifika communities, as well as younger people, are more likely to cast special votes. "This option will create a barrier to participation and may be seen as a step backwards for accessibility, in light of changes to enable greater participation over recent elections. Closing enrolment earlier could harm confidence and trust if people are not able to vote because they missed the deadline or if more votes are disallowed," officials said. Goldsmith told Morning Report there would be campaigns to ensure every voter knew about the changes. "But they'll be told something different this time, which is to say there'll be clear campaigns all over next year saying, you know, you need to be enrolled before, early voting starts, and that means we can get the whole system much more efficient and take some pressure off the system that's under real pressure." At the 2020 election, the rules were changed to allow people to enrol to vote on election day, as they have been able during the advanced voting period since the 1990s. It was a response to what the then-government said was 19,000 voters feeling "disenfranchised" by being turned away in 2017. Goldsmith did not believe the new bill would mark a return to that disenfranchisement. "We've got to balance the fact that we want to have an outcome of an election in a timely manner. It does actually matter if we have an uncertain outcome. People don't start coalition negotiations until they know the final outcome, and if that's drifting into four weeks than that creates more uncertainty." Electoral law expert Graeme Edgeler doubted the changes would prevent people from knowing the outcome of an election, as the Election Night result usually gave a good indication of the make-up of the next government. "Two weeks or three weeks, does it really matter? There's nothing stopping the politicians who look like they've been elected from negotiation before the final special votes are out," he said. "The results, we know they tended to change one or two seats or something like that. The time delay just doesn't seem like a particularly good reason for this." Edgeler did not think removing the ability to enrol on election day would not make too much of a difference, as it had only been in place for two elections. But he was concerned at closing the enrolment period before advanced voting started. "Requiring people to have a think about the election two weeks before the actual vote happens is probably more of a big change than the same-day enrolments." Goldsmith told Morning Report it did not seem to be a problem in the past. "I've got every confidence that New Zealanders will be able to figure that out and do it… It always was the way up until five years ago before Labour made the change that you weren't able to vote [sic] on election day and our democracy didn't collapse at that point, and it won't collapse... "All I'd say [is] we're asking for something that's perfectly reasonable. In the UK it's 12 days and Australia it's 26 days before the election. It's not an unreasonable thing." Opposition concerned people will be locked out On Election Day 2023, 110,000 people enrolled or updated their details. Labour's justice spokesperson Duncan Webb questioned whether the trade-off to get votes counted faster was worth it. "Counting the vote took an extra week last election. I think 110,000 votes are worth it. I think every single New Zealander is entitled to have a voice in who represents them in this place. If it takes another week, that's OK by me because democracy is worth waiting for," he said. Celia Wade-Brown, the Green Party's spokesperson for democracy and electoral reform, said it would lead to fewer people participating in democracy. "This government is reducing the number of people, particularly those who are mobile, who move around, who change addresses, and preventing them from voting. This should be a government for all New Zealanders." Parties not consulted on the Electoral Act changes University of Otago law professor Andrew Geddis said some parts of electoral law, such as changing the voting age or the term of Parliament, were protected by entrenchment provisions, requiring a 75% majority of MPs or a referendum. Everything else was left to a simple majority of votes in Parliament like any other piece of legislation. "Because the government has a majority in Parliament, if it wants to do this, it can. It's just a question of whether it's the right thing to do," he told RNZ's Checkpoint programme yesterday. "Democracy is more than just what a current government wants it to be. It has to be, what is the best rules for our polity, us as a group, to choose our leaders." Geddis said the growth in special votes had been causing strain, but questioned why the government had taken this option. "The government's response has essentially been to bring down a guillotine and say, 'well tough.' All of those people who haven't enrolled or changed their details before voting starts, 'tough. Your votes just won't count. We're just not going to listen to you.'" Automatic enrolment updates get a tick While officials did not recommend closing the enrolment period, they were in favour of introducing automatic enrolment updates. This option has formed part of Goldsmith's package of reforms and would allow the Electoral Commission to update people's enrolment details using data from other government agencies. The option would make it easier for electors to keep enrolments up to date, and reduce the number of special votes over time. It was something Edgeler was in favour of. "Allowing the government to do the work for you in that area, you've told one government department you've moved and got a new address, allowing that to be used for election purposes as well will hopefully mean that fewer people need to update their enrolment details during the election period itself." He said there would need to be a significant publicity campaign from the Electoral Commission reminding people of the deadlines. While that would be up to the commission in how that was communicated, Goldsmith said they had received more funding at the Budget. "Their core role up to now is to encourage people to enrol. But they've also been saying 'but by the way, you don't really need to, you can just rock up and enrol on election day.' "And so we've now got a clear message: get yourself organised, get enrolled, make sure you're enrolled before election day starts."
Otago Daily Times
3 hours ago
- Otago Daily Times
'Dropkick' voters comment not helpful, says minister
By Giles Dexter and Tuwhenuaroa Natanahira of RNZ Justice Minister Paul Goldsmith says comments made by the Deputy Prime Minister - calling voters who enrol late "dropkicks" - are "unhelpful", as changes to voter enrolment are rolled out. Justice officials say closing enrolments ahead of advance voting could result in lower turnout and reduce confidence in the electoral system. And electoral law experts are also questioning why the changes need to stretch for the whole advanced voting period. As part of a suite of Electoral Act changes, same-day election enrolments are set to be scrapped. It reverses a change brought in for the 2020 general election, which allowed for enrolments and updating details up to and including on election day. It then goes even further, ensuring voters have to enrol or update their details before advance voting begins. The government is also legislating to require 12 days of advance voting. The changes are primarily being made to improve the timeliness of the official vote count, and so give voters certainty of a result. The growth in the number of special votes has been putting a strain on processing a result, with the timeframe for a final vote count stretching into three weeks at the last election. Goldsmith said the uncertainty could be avoided if more people enrolled in a timely manner. "We never know what the circumstances are going to be after an election. We don't know what pressure the country will be under. An extra week, extra two weeks, if we do nothing could be longer, then that just creates extra uncertainty that we can easily avoid by people enrolling in a timely fashion." On Thursday, Deputy Prime Minister David Seymour backed the changes, insulting the hundreds of thousands of people who enrolled or updated their address, and voted, during the advance voting period and on election day itself. "Frankly, I'm a bit sick of dropkicks that can't get themselves organised to follow the law," he said. "It's actually made so easy to do, they even have a little orange cartoon running around telling people to do it. And if you're too disorganised to do that over a thousand days between two elections, then maybe you don't care that much." Speaking to RNZ's Morning Report programme today, Goldsmith was asked if the government did not care about those would-be voters because they were perhaps unlikely to vote for National or ACT. "That's not the case, and that, yeah, that was an unhelpful comment, frankly, from David Seymour," Goldsmith said. Officials warn of a barrier to participation In its Regulatory Impact Statement (RIS), the Ministry of Justice did not recommend the option of closing enrolment earlier. "Its impact on reducing special votes is uncertain, while its impact on democratic participation could be significant," officials said. Special votes take much longer to process than a standard vote as they need to go through a lot more scrutiny. Officials noted a positive aspect of closing enrolments earlier was it would mean enrolment processing was done by the close of polling, allowing special vote counting to begin promptly. The ministry acknowledged there was value in a timely and smooth transfer of power following an election, but it was uncertain whether any package of changes could reduce the count timeframes. The RIS acknowledged the growth of special votes in both volume and as a proportion of the total number of votes, with the largest proportion being those who were not enrolled or needed to update their details. About 300,000 to 350,000 people cast a special vote because they were not enrolled, or not enrolled at the correct address by writ day, or on the dormant roll. Māori, Asian, and Pasifika communities, as well as younger people, are more likely to cast special votes. "This option will create a barrier to participation and may be seen as a step backwards for accessibility, in light of changes to enable greater participation over recent elections. Closing enrolment earlier could harm confidence and trust if people are not able to vote because they missed the deadline or if more votes are disallowed," officials said. Goldsmith told Morning Report there would be campaigns to ensure every voter knew about the changes. "But they'll be told something different this time, which is to say there'll be clear campaigns all over next year saying, you know, you need to be enrolled before, early voting starts, and that means we can get the whole system much more efficient and take some pressure off the system that's under real pressure." At the 2020 election, the rules were changed to allow people to enrol to vote on election day, as they have been able during the advanced voting period since the 1990s. It was a response to what the then-government said was 19,000 voters feeling "disenfranchised" by being turned away in 2017. Goldsmith did not believe the new bill would mark a return to that disenfranchisement. "We've got to balance the fact that we want to have an outcome of an election in a timely manner. It does actually matter if we have an uncertain outcome. People don't start coalition negotiations until they know the final outcome, and if that's drifting into four weeks than that creates more uncertainty." Electoral law expert Graeme Edgeler doubted the changes would prevent people from knowing the outcome of an election, as the Election Night result usually gave a good indication of the make-up of the next government. "Two weeks or three weeks, does it really matter? There's nothing stopping the politicians who look like they've been elected from negotiation before the final special votes are out," he said. "The results, we know they tended to change one or two seats or something like that. The time delay just doesn't seem like a particularly good reason for this." Edgeler did not think removing the ability to enrol on election day would not make too much of a difference, as it had only been in place for two elections. But he was concerned at closing the enrolment period before advanced voting started. "Requiring people to have a think about the election two weeks before the actual vote happens is probably more of a big change than the same-day enrolments." Goldsmith told Morning Report it did not seem to be a problem in the past. "I've got every confidence that New Zealanders will be able to figure that out and do it… It always was the way up until five years ago before Labour made the change that you weren't able to vote [sic] on election day and our democracy didn't collapse at that point, and it won't collapse... "All I'd say [is] we're asking for something that's perfectly reasonable. In the UK it's 12 days and Australia it's 26 days before the election. It's not an unreasonable thing." Opposition concerned people will be locked out On Election Day 2023, 110,000 people enrolled or updated their details. Labour's justice spokesperson Duncan Webb questioned whether the trade-off to get votes counted faster was worth it. "Counting the vote took an extra week last election. I think 110,000 votes are worth it. I think every single New Zealander is entitled to have a voice in who represents them in this place. If it takes another week, that's OK by me because democracy is worth waiting for," he said. Celia Wade-Brown, the Green Party's spokesperson for democracy and electoral reform, said it would lead to fewer people participating in democracy. "This government is reducing the number of people, particularly those who are mobile, who move around, who change addresses, and preventing them from voting. This should be a government for all New Zealanders." Parties not consulted on the Electoral Act changes University of Otago law professor Andrew Geddis said some parts of electoral law, such as changing the voting age or the term of Parliament, were protected by entrenchment provisions, requiring a 75% majority of MPs or a referendum. Everything else was left to a simple majority of votes in Parliament like any other piece of legislation. "Because the government has a majority in Parliament, if it wants to do this, it can. It's just a question of whether it's the right thing to do," he told RNZ's Checkpoint programme yesterday. "Democracy is more than just what a current government wants it to be. It has to be, what is the best rules for our polity, us as a group, to choose our leaders." Geddis said the growth in special votes had been causing strain, but questioned why the government had taken this option. "The government's response has essentially been to bring down a guillotine and say, 'well tough.' All of those people who haven't enrolled or changed their details before voting starts, 'tough. Your votes just won't count. We're just not going to listen to you.'" Automatic enrolment updates get a tick While officials did not recommend closing the enrolment period, they were in favour of introducing automatic enrolment updates. This option has formed part of Goldsmith's package of reforms and would allow the Electoral Commission to update people's enrolment details using data from other government agencies. The option would make it easier for electors to keep enrolments up to date, and reduce the number of special votes over time. It was something Edgeler was in favour of. "Allowing the government to do the work for you in that area, you've told one government department you've moved and got a new address, allowing that to be used for election purposes as well will hopefully mean that fewer people need to update their enrolment details during the election period itself." He said there would need to be a significant publicity campaign from the Electoral Commission reminding people of the deadlines. While that would be up to the commission in how that was communicated, Goldsmith said they had received more funding at the Budget. "Their core role up to now is to encourage people to enrol. But they've also been saying 'but by the way, you don't really need to, you can just rock up and enrol on election day.' "And so we've now got a clear message: get yourself organised, get enrolled, make sure you're enrolled before election day starts."
1News
3 hours ago
- 1News
'People will be disgruntled' — leak of National MP talking up Labour policy
National MP Sam Uffindell told a meeting of retirees if the Government didn't take action on reforming retirement villages legislation people would be disgruntled. He was concerned that retirement village residents would believe National hadn't yet delivered and that Labour was doing something about the issue. Audio of the meeting was leaked to 1News, featuring Uffindell praising a private member's bill from Labour MP Ingrid Leary. If drawn out of the tin in Parliament and passed, the bill would require retirement villages to pay, within five days, 10% of what was owed to residents or their families if they moved to higher care levels or died — and the rest within two months. When asked about reforming the current legislation, Uffindell told the meeting in Mosgiel: "Ingrid Leary... has quite cunningly put forward a member's bill which would address some of this. And she's savvy enough to have garnered up a lot of attention around retirement villages. ADVERTISEMENT "And so that's in the pipeline as well. We need to arrest or take the key parts out of that [which] are workable and make sure we build that into something." The Tauranga MP went on to say that he knew voters were concerned. "But importantly, it needs to go through the House before the end of this term, because if it hasn't, we're going to have a whole bunch of disgruntled people and retirement villages who all vote and all talk to each other about it. Who will go, 'oh, National hasn't actually delivered and Labour was going to do this'." Uffindell also told the meeting that he raised the issue with the Prime Minister. "Maybe every three months or so… the Prime Minister will invite eight to 10 backbenchers up to his office. We sit around and have pizza and Pepsi Max. PM standard diet drinks – a lot of that stuff. Anyway. Went up there. Sat around and he asked us a bunch of questions about a number of different things... One of them he brought up was the Retirement Villages Act. And what we thought about that and [National MP] Tom Rutherford and myself, obviously Bay of Plenty heavy in retirement villages, we said, 'look, we need to do it this term. You know, this is a big issue for a lot of our folks'." He described Casey Costello, the Minister for Seniors and Tama Potaka, the Associate Minister of Housing as "very accessible", saying they agreed with him that they wanted to bring the reforms forward. When asked about his comments today, Uffindell said: "[The] Retirement Villages Act review is a really big concern. I go around to a lot of the retirement villages in Tauranga, and I know Tom does in the Bay of Plenty, and you hear a lot of the concern from those residents there. ADVERTISEMENT 'Ministers Potaka and Costello are looking at how we can improve the current arrangements. We're open to all good ideas out there, and New Zealanders would expect nothing less. National's determined to make sure that we get the legislation right for the retirement villages residents." Lose votes to Labour? Asked if he believed that National would lose votes to Labour if they didn't reform the Retirement Villages Act, Uffindell said: "Look, this is a big constituency out there, and they want this issue addressed, and they want us to get on, and that's why our ministers are getting out there and looking at ways that we can improve the Retirement Villages Act so it delivers. And I'm committed to doing my part to delivering for the residents in retirement villages here in Tauranga." Prime Minister Christopher Luxon said: "There was work underway under the previous government around retirement villages. What we said before the election is we'll continue that work and we are. Tama Potaka and also Casey Costello, as the relevant ministers, are leading that work and we'll have more to say about that in the coming months as well." He didn't directly answer the question about whether National would lose votes to Labour if they didn't reform the act. "We've been committed since before the election to continue the work around retirement villages and I'm proud of the work the ministers are doing,' he said. "They're very engaged on the issue. They've been talking a lot with people affected on all sides of the proposals and we'll have more to say about that shortly." Leary: 'Do it because it's the right thing to do' ADVERTISEMENT Responding to the leaked audio, Labour MP Ingrid Leary said: "It's great to hear that National Party MPs are supporting my bill, that's the right thing to do. But they should be supporting it because it's the right thing to do, not just because it's politically expedient. 'I think Christopher Luxon needs to show some leadership. We need a law that mandates fair repayments, nothing about incentivising because the only thing that will work in this case is actually requiring the operators to give the money back." She said the Prime Minister should listen to his backbenchers, acknowledging that Uffindell raised the matter in his office on level 9 of the Beehive. Leary said she believed there was a lot of public support for her bill. "I've spoken to numerous seniors and their families who are just really concerned and anxious about having access to their own money. They live with the uncertainty of not knowing when they'll get repaid, if they'll get repaid or if their families will be able to get the benefit of what is their own money,' she said. 'So I really want to see things move quickly. People have been waiting for decades for a change and currently there are people living in retirement villages who really want to see a change and are worried that they may not be around when the law change finally happens. We need to honour and respect them and make sure that we do the right thing by them."
