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Ryan Bridge: The silence was deafening in our local elections · Early Edition with Ryan Bridge

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: If the Coalition was looking for an endorsement of its
• 0:02
  Speaker 1: rates cap idea, then they got it. At the weekend
• 0:04
  Speaker 1: of the eighteen councils that whacked ratepayers will double digit
• 0:08
  Speaker 1: hikes this year, thirteen elected new mayors thirteen of the
• 0:14
  Speaker 1: eighteen high taxing council mayors. Gone newsroom has great coverage
• 0:19
  Speaker 1: of the results over the weekend. I don't know if
• 0:21
  Speaker 1: you saw that, but Mackindo won Hamilton. If the name
• 0:23
  Speaker 1: sounds familiar to you, he's a former national MP. Rates
• 0:27
  Speaker 1: rowse there forty one percent in three years, so go figure.
• 0:32
  Speaker 1: Voters aren't stupid and they should never be taken for granted.
• 0:35
  Speaker 1: Rates hikes are driving domestic inflation. We know this. Not
• 0:39
  Speaker 1: only do you pay more to your council, you also
• 0:43
  Speaker 1: pay more in interest rates because it helps keep them higher.
• 0:46
  Speaker 1: It's a double burn in the back pocket and voters
• 0:48
  Speaker 1: know this. Ratepayers know this, and next to your taxpayers
• 0:51
  Speaker 1: will remember it. Our most important city councils in Auckland,
• 0:55
  Speaker 1: christ Church and Hamilton Sorry Wellington, are now led by
• 0:58
  Speaker 1: right of center me The results speak for themselves, but
• 1:03
  Speaker 1: their problem, of course, is that these results are a
• 1:05
  Speaker 1: very small sample size. Seventy percent of us roughly didn't
• 1:09
  Speaker 1: bother voting, and you can ask ten pundits why and
• 1:14
  Speaker 1: you will get ten different answers. But I think the
• 1:16
  Speaker 1: problem is pretty simple. The size and scope of local
• 1:19
  Speaker 1: government is completely out of control. In a small Pacific
• 1:23
  Speaker 1: island nation at the bottom of the world. We just
• 1:25
  Speaker 1: elected fifteen hundred people to sit around on seventy eight
• 1:31
  Speaker 1: different councils. Mayors are one vote at the table, so
• 1:38
  Speaker 1: they aren't really that special. Low turnout is not a
• 1:40
  Speaker 1: rejection of the candidates. I don't think it's a rejection
• 1:43
  Speaker 1: of the whole system. It's too big, there's too much compromise.
• 1:47
  Speaker 1: It's all who know, Dewey. If the coalition listens to
• 1:50
  Speaker 1: the thirty percent who did vote and caps rates, which
• 1:53
  Speaker 1: they are gonna do, they ought to listen to the
• 1:56
  Speaker 1: overwhelming silent majority who didn't means throwing entire councils I
• 2:02
  Speaker 1: think in the bin, chuck them in the rubbish. Have
• 2:06
  Speaker 1: the number of counselors that remain and give the mayor
• 2:09
  Speaker 1: a veto power vote so there's actually accountability and there's
• 2:13
  Speaker 1: a vision and something worth voting for. The lowest voter
• 2:18
  Speaker 1: turnout in thirty six years is a mandate for change,
• 2:21
  Speaker 1: and change looks like a giant local government bonfire. For
• 2:25
  Speaker 1: more from Early Edition with Ryan Bridge, Listen live to
• 2:28
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• 2:31
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