Former regional councillor questions how new body would cover current regional responsibilities
Former Taupō-Rotorua constituency representative on the Waikato Regional Council (WRC), Laurie Burdett has several concerns about the process of local body reorganisation and how any reconfigured bodies might deal with current regional council responsibilities.
Burdett spent 12 years on the council (2001-2013) which included the development of Plan Change 1 (PC1), now adopted following challenges in the Environment Court.*
Burdett says during its development, the WRC was urged to follow a collaborative process.
“Because we'd save time at the end, and I was one of the cynics. I was right, it didn't save any time whatsoever,” she says.
The council was accused of setting dairy farmers against sheep and beef farmers and there was an unwillingness for some sectors to agree with the reforms.
“They took us through the courts, so it has taken 15 years, and now it’s all ground to a great big halt.”
This vested interest action ties into her concerns about local body reorganisation.
Catchment based
A regional body needs to be catchment-based, she says, not just for the oversight on nutrient leaching and contaminants, but flood protection and the power that size can guarantee.
“You'll need an agency… if you do it into bits, you'll get warfare. I remember, many years ago, when we had a big flood in the lower Waikato, and Huntly was underwater, the dairy farms down there were all underwater, and they held the water back in the lake, and we got some damage round the edge of the lake… the Taupō community was howling and screaming about them down there to pay for our damage…
“And I thought, bastards Taupō. They were underwater. The school was underwater, and you did not want to hold water back in Taupō.”
Size also means any overarching authority has enough heft to prosecute non-compliance on resource consent conditions, and not just for individual landowners.
District councils aren't always good at keeping up with sewage management, she says, meaning a regional body needs to be able to step in. While Taupō generally kept a clean slate during her time, even it was taken to task.
“Rick Cooper was not impressed… But how do you manage that? And what takes priority. I bet your life the environment misses out. That would be my concern. If you've got a shortage of funds, you're not going to prosecute yourself.”
Ratepayer spread
While your current regional council rates bill might reveal that you are contributing to the Waikato Regional Theatre in Hamilton and in the past have helped fund the Cambridge Velodrome, says Burdett, in reality, the entity that paid the most for the Lake Taupō Protection Project was Hamilton City, through sheer ratepayer numbers.
“Coromandel yelled and screamed. But Hamilton City were gracious, because the water ran through there.”
She recently overheard someone quip: “Hamilton can't be the Megatron. I thought, ‘well, why not?’”
If forced, a sensible option would be a massive council based on Hamilton.
“Because you've got to have all the river councils. You can leave off Coromandel, you could probably leave Hauraki… And there was a proposal for that, the West Waikato proposal which was Taupō and all the river councils.”
Biodiversity
Another concern is who will oversee maintenance of biodiversity and efforts to control pest plants and animals – whether for private landowner or fellow local body.
“I remember when we first discovered Prunus serotina growing rampant at Kinloch and we put them into our pest management strategy. The Taupō District Council came to us and asked for a dispensation, because they had so many, and they couldn't afford to do it all. They were going to do a plan. I didn't think it ever happened…
“Pest management should actually be nationwide. Auckland doesn't care about woolly nightshade. We consider it total control. Two ends of the spectrum. We have total control of rooks. In Hawkes Bay, they're rampant. They've given up on them. We need to have a plan for the whole country.”
She assumes (or hopes) Lake Taupō is safe.
“But I would point out that Lake Ohakuri tends to get closed very quickly in the summer, for algal bloom, and Lake Okaro is almost permanently shut now… They put in a little wetland to try and help, but when you think of all the dairy farms around… It's a glaring example of what happens when you put too many cattle on the land. And it destroys the lake.”
Is change needed?
Ultimately, Burdett agrees there is not much wrong with the current regional council grouping – it has earning capacity, through a large ratepayer base, and it covers a rational catchment.
Take out a local body layer and she ponders whether to ensure independence, the body responsible for issuing and monitoring large resource consents might have to be a government department.
“But they still need an income.” If Taupō had to take on all those roles, it would cost a fortune, she says.
“We are subsidised by Hamilton, because of the big ratepayer base there. I think they forget it occasionally. They think, ‘oh, we can do it’, but I don't think they understand what regional council is doing. Big job. And it's efficient because it's so big.”
Mayoral forums
As for mayoral forums replacing elected constituent councillors, she fears they would just be a rubber stamp. “Our mayors nearly all work full time, and very hard.”
They would simply not have time to digest the extra reading required to understand the science behind regional council decision making, she says. “That’s not democracy. You may as well not have that. Just forget it all together.”
End note
*Controversially, PC1 has recently had certain aspects deferred by central government – Farm Environment Plan (FEPs) and the requirements for farmers to adopt best environmental practices to mitigate contaminant losses. These are on hold until the end of 2032. The plan applies to about 10,000 properties covering 1.1 million hectares within the Waikato and Waipā river catchments and seeks to reduce contaminants entering the catchments.
Above article written by Chris Marshall. Funding for this work was provided by BayTrust.