Invercargill losing long-serving councillors
Kett made up his mind three years ago that this would be his last and said that would not change.
'I'd always go out in person and talk to the people that called me, so I'll miss all that.
'I'll miss most of the councillors,' he added with a laugh.
It had been a difficult 2024 for the councillor, who faced both the death of his wife and numerous health difficulties.
Multiple knee operations late last year and two heart attacks under anaesthetic forced him to step aside from council duties while he recovered.
Despite the setbacks, he was now feeling 'bloody good' and was sad to be leaving.
'With all my health issues since October, it's a wise decision."
Soper's nine years at council ends a long political career.
She spent time on the district health board and had two stints in Parliament as a Labour MP - first in 2005 and again from 2007 to 2008.
Soper said she made the decision to finish up at council 'some time ago' and wanted to leave with dignity.
'Very early in my career I discovered you can help individuals - but if you want to make really lasting changes for large groups of the population, then get involved where the power actually is."
Her highlights on council included fighting to keep the children's library in its current location, the council's credit rating, and supporting the appointment of mana whenua representatives.
Mayor Nobby Clark's recent use of his casting vote to not update council's procurement policy in support of Palestine was a lowlight for the councillor.
'It was a definite low point. It was a very straightforward, principled decision for council to make.'
Soper said she would likely do more travel with husband David once she had finished up. Who is standing again?
Invercargill will be in for a new mayor with Nobby Clark repeatedly ruling out the possibility of a second term.
The mayoral race includes four current councillors: Tom Campbell, Alex Crackett, Ria Bond and Ian Pottinger.
Deputy mayor Campbell is all-in with his bid having ruled out running for council, while Crackett is also leaning in that direction while keeping her options open. She recently quit her job to focus on her campaign.
Town crier Lynley McKerrow and TikTok enthusiast Tom Morton are also throwing their hats in the ring for mayoralty.
Other councillors standing again include Grant Dermody, Trish Boyle, Steve Broad, Barry Stewart and Darren Ludlow.
Allan Arnold could not be reached for comment.
Nominations officially opened on Friday and candidates have until August 1 to put their name forward.
Voting documents will be sent out in September ahead of election day on October 11.
• LDR is local body journalism co-funded by RNZ and NZ On Air
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Comment: As many commentators have noted, the Regulatory Standards Bill is based on a libertarian ideology. According to the Oxford Dictionary, an ideology is a framework for understanding the world. In this case, it's all about individuals – their rights and freedoms. The Regulatory Standards Bill sets out its fundamental precepts in the form of 'principles of responsible regulation'. These prescribe that good legislation should not unduly diminish individual liberty, security, freedom of choice or property rights, except where this is necessary to protect the liberty, freedom or rights of another. In this view of the world, there are persons with rights and property, whose liberty must be protected unless it impinges on those of another person. Here, human life is about individuals pursuing their rights and freedoms, without undue interference from others. There are three key problems with this framing. 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With the emergence of language, human beings coordinated their activities in increasingly complex ways, building settlements for shelter and security, sharing experience and knowledge in fishing, hunting, gardening, trading and developing new technologies. The ability to co-operate is a key adaptive advantage of the human species. Pleasure came from other social activities – singing, art to share with others, games, sports and so on. Knowledge was passed on down the generations. As the size of human settlements grew, ways of regulating social life became more elaborate – laws, courts, the police and Parliament itself, for instance. The whole process of making laws – including the Regulatory Standards Bill – is a social activity. Nor is it just about relations with other people. The relational networks between human beings and other life forms and the wider environment are also far-reaching and vital to human survival. Whakapapa, for instance, along with western relational philosophies, is grounded on these realities. It is not just Te Tiriti that's at risk in this bill, but te ao māori itself, with its whakapapa framings that include all forms of life, and its kin-based hapū and marae. None of this is recognised in the Regulatory Standards Bill, bar a hollowed out account of 'the rule of law'. Though individuals matter in human life, relational frameworks are vital to survival, at different scales and with other life forms, landscapes and seascapes, as well as with other people. Any framing of the world that does not recognise these basic facts is partial, and mistaken. To address the second point, a framework that ignores the foundational importance of collective institutions, property and values in human life is non-adaptive. If people are taught to prize their individual freedom and property above all – for instance, the cost-benefit calculating individual of neoliberal economics – the bonds that bind families, communities and societies begin to fray. If the collective rights and values that underpin the social contract, including justice, truth, fairness and respect for others, are undermined, injustice, misinformation and disrespect are likely to follow – as we have seen in the tactics used to promote this bill. If economic models based on the pursuit of self-interest are privileged in law making, ideas of public service begin to fade. Families and voluntary organisations falter; and institutions created to care for others – early childhood centres, schools, hospitals, retirement villages and the like – become dedicated to the pursuit of profit. At the same time, knowledge about relationships with other people and the wider world is set aside. It is no accident that the coalition Government that agreed to pass the Regulatory Standards Bill has withdrawn funding for basic research in the humanities and the social sciences. Policy-making becomes based on ministerial 'reckons' rather than evidence. The disciplines of law, public policy, political studies, public health and nursing, philosophy, the arts and literature, history, urban design, environmental studies, architecture, human geography, sociology and anthropology are defunded, as if understanding human life does not matter. And if relationships with other life forms and the environment are ignored, these also become dysfunctional, with the mass extinctions of other life forms, polluted lakes and rivers, ravaged landscapes, melting glaciers, heating oceans and climate change. None of this contributes to social cohesion or prosperity. A bill that fails to recognise the key challenges facing the human species, and frustrates the strategic deployment of different forms of social co-operation in the public interest is dangerous and non-adaptive. Since the neoliberal revolution of the 1980s, New Zealand has already gone a long way down this track. If we want a peaceful and productive society, a bill that tips the balance even further towards the privatisation of social life and the living world around us is unlikely to prove constructive. On the third, and final, point, the bill fails to meet its own standards. Although the Regulatory Standards Bill requires that individual freedom and choice are given priority in law-making, there are many aspects of compulsion and top-down control in the provisions of this bill. These include the roles of the minister of regulation and his hand-picked board, and the requirement to review all laws and regulations, past and present, against a particular ideological framing. Ultimately, as Peter Thiel has written, a libertarian version of 'freedom' and democracy are incompatible. Taken to the extreme, the unfettered pursuit of freedom by individuals undermines democracy and the rule of law, and the rights of others. Some may want to take New Zealand in this direction. Judging from public reactions to the Regulatory Standards Bill, however, many New Zealanders have grasped where this bill would take law-making in this country, and do not want a bar of it. Of the citizens who voted in the last election, only 8.6 percent of New Zealanders voted for Act, with its Regulatory Standards Bill. Of 23,000 submitters on the bill at the consultation phase, only .33 percent supported it. Of a reported 150,000 submissions to the select committee, a large majority oppose it. This bill lacks even a fig-leaf of popular consent. If it is forced on the country, that flies in the face of the first principle in this bill – that no government should pass legislation that unduly restricts the freedom of choice of individuals. This bill speaks of freedom, but practices ideological imposition. It is self-contradictory, unbalanced and non-adaptive. This subcommittee should do their Parliamentary duty, listen to the people, and discard it.
