Latest / Early Edition with Ryan Bridge / Matt Cowley: Tauranga Business Chamber chief executive says voting process is still struggling to engage people amid low turnout

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Matt Cowley: Tauranga Business Chamber chief executive says voting process is still struggling to engage people amid low turnout · Early Edition with Ryan Bridge

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: Totonger has elected a new mayor and councilors. According to
• 0:03
  Speaker 1: preliminary results, the former Olympic rower Mahe Drysdale will be
• 0:07
  Speaker 1: the first person to take the mayoral chains after the
• 0:09
  Speaker 1: last council was replaced by commissioners. You remember that back
• 0:12
  Speaker 1: in early twenty twenty one. Local government elections for the
• 0:15
  Speaker 1: rest of us will take place next year, making this
• 0:19
  Speaker 1: the first council that will serve a four year term.
• 0:22
  Speaker 1: They're telling Business Chamber Chief executive Matt Cowley is with
• 0:25
  Speaker 1: me this morning. Matt was, mahey, the best of the bunch,
• 0:28
  Speaker 1: do you reckon?
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  Speaker 2: Look? He was a moderate that obviously managed to appeal
• 0:35
  Speaker 2: to as many people and from a business perspective, gave
• 0:39
  Speaker 2: a bit of certainty in terms of not wanting to
• 0:43
  Speaker 2: be too radical in terms of going forward. And it
• 0:46
  Speaker 2: looks like the team around him might be in a
• 0:49
  Speaker 2: similar position. So nothing too crazy.
• 0:51
  Speaker 1: And there's only one guy on there who was from
• 0:53
  Speaker 1: the Sax Council, the guy called Steve Morris. What's he like?
• 0:56
  Speaker 2: Yeah, oh, look right, he's a really good champion atma
• 1:00
  Speaker 2: I think he was the obvious person full pat noma,
• 1:04
  Speaker 2: but really, look, it's more around how well they get
• 1:09
  Speaker 2: along in between meetings. I think it was an absolute
• 1:13
  Speaker 2: pressure cooker situation last time with COVID and a whole
• 1:16
  Speaker 2: bunch of other things. But that's beyond that's our history.
• 1:21
  Speaker 2: That's all portionship paper now and hopefully we can remove
• 1:25
  Speaker 2: those embarrassing days from us.
• 1:27
  Speaker 1: Yeah. I so what about the turnout? Speaking of embarrassing,
• 1:31
  Speaker 1: I mean, it's around thirty percent.
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  Speaker 2: Gad. Hopefully with specials we get somewhere close to twenty nineteen,
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  Speaker 2: so it's not going to be It's be our usual trend,
• 1:42
  Speaker 2: which is still low but not embarrassingly low. But it
• 1:46
  Speaker 2: sort of raises questions around is this really the full
• 1:50
  Speaker 2: democracy that the so called community had wanted?
• 1:54
  Speaker 1: Well? Do you think it is? I mean, do you
• 1:56
  Speaker 1: think there's something fundamentally broken here when they didn't have
• 1:59
  Speaker 1: the to vote at the last one, they haven't been
• 2:01
  Speaker 1: represented democratically for a couple of years because of these commissioners,
• 2:05
  Speaker 1: and then here's your chance and only thirty percent turn up.
• 2:10
  Speaker 2: Yeah. I think the whole sect is a little bit
• 2:12
  Speaker 2: broken in terms of engaging communities, being relevant, and a
• 2:16
  Speaker 2: little bit of sentences and fatigue out there as well,
• 2:20
  Speaker 2: and just apathy Mike Hoskin said some comments last Friday
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  Speaker 2: which I kind of agree with in terms of maybe
• 2:29
  Speaker 2: a bit of balance with some skills and some elected members.
• 2:32
  Speaker 1: Who knows, Yeah, have you got any concerns or does
• 2:36
  Speaker 1: it talk in the town about the fact that Marheede
• 2:39
  Speaker 1: lives one hundred k's away from the White Kato. Does
• 2:41
  Speaker 1: anyone care about that?
• 2:44
  Speaker 2: Well, some people do, But it sounds like he'll be
• 2:46
  Speaker 2: considering coming over when as kid finishes his year of school,
• 2:50
  Speaker 2: so he will be part of it very very soon.
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  Speaker 2: So that's not a major not a big deal.
• 2:56
  Speaker 1: It's probably yeah, what's the big what's the one big
• 2:59
  Speaker 1: thing that they need to start fixing?
• 3:02
  Speaker 2: For you, Matt, Well, before they can fix anything, they
• 3:06
  Speaker 2: need to know how local government works and know how
• 3:09
  Speaker 2: to work together as a team. But then there's a
• 3:12
  Speaker 2: risk that they might be a little bit too scared
• 3:15
  Speaker 2: of not wanting to disagree and wanting to get along
• 3:18
  Speaker 2: so well that they might get a bit of group
• 3:20
  Speaker 2: thinking and rubber stamp some recommendations that come through from staff.
• 3:26
  Speaker 2: So somewhere in between some constructive discussion and robust opportunities,
• 3:32
  Speaker 2: the commission is pushed back on staff. A couple of times,
• 3:35
  Speaker 2: which is good. It's healthy and governance and they shouldn't
• 3:38
  Speaker 2: be too scared to do that either.
• 3:40
  Speaker 1: Matt, thanks for your time this morning. Good luck with
• 3:41
  Speaker 1: a new council. It sounds like just a bare minimum
• 3:45
  Speaker 1: functioning council is what mattter is after. There for more
• 3:48
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• 3:52
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• 3:52
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• 3:55
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