Latest / Early Edition with Ryan Bridge / Nick Clark: Senior fellow at The New Zealand Initiative comments on low voter turnout for local elections

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Nick Clark: Senior fellow at The New Zealand Initiative comments on low voter turnout for local elections · Early Edition with Ryan Bridge

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  Speaker 1: So most of us didn't vote. Seventy percent of us
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  Speaker 1: roughly didn't by the voting in the local elections, it
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  Speaker 1: could be the worst turnout in thirty six years. Worse
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  Speaker 1: in Auckland, initial figures showing just over twenty three percent voted.
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  Speaker 1: Nick Clark is senior fellow at the New Zealand Initiative
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  Speaker 1: with me this morning, Nick, Good morning.
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  Speaker 2: Good morning Ryan.
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  Speaker 1: Now you're going to tell me that we need to
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  Speaker 1: make voting easier and we need better candidates and that
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  Speaker 1: will get us out voting. Do you think that's enough?
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  Speaker 1: Do you think we need to do more like reform
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  Speaker 1: councils altogether.
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  Speaker 2: I think my view on that is that if you
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  Speaker 2: look at the turnout sets around the country, probably the
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  Speaker 2: places that have the higher voter turnout tend to be
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  Speaker 2: the smaller councils. Whereas in this of the received wisdom
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  Speaker 2: in New Zealander that we need bigger is better, and
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  Speaker 2: we need to consolidate and we need to do this,
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  Speaker 2: that and the other. But actually it might be in
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  Speaker 2: a bit of an outdier solution might be to make
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  Speaker 2: councils more local rather than less local. And in countries
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  Speaker 2: like Switzerland and the like they have foul of the
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  Speaker 2: units of local government seems to work a lot better
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  Speaker 2: than ours.
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  Speaker 1: Do they have the council laws in those countries? Do
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  Speaker 1: they have the same power as ours? The mayor no
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  Speaker 1: veto vote? You know we have a council mayor system
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  Speaker 1: rather than a mayor council system.
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  Speaker 2: Yep, Yes, well, a lot of those, a lot of
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  Speaker 2: international experiences that strong mayors with also with relatively stronger
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  Speaker 2: counselors as well, who could hold their council to scrutiny,
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  Speaker 2: to account better. I certainly seem to have better performance
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  Speaker 2: and are able to get things done a lot, a
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  Speaker 2: lot better. There's also more competitive system where councilors actually
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  Speaker 2: compete with themselves to attract businesses and jobs and things
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  Speaker 2: like that.
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  Speaker 1: When you say that we need to attract better candidates,
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  Speaker 1: does that mean paying them more?
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  Speaker 2: Not necessarily it means no. I wouldn't say so. I mean,
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  Speaker 2: certainly they don't get paid a lot at the moment.
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  Speaker 2: But I would say the better way to get better
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  Speaker 2: candidates would be to actually give counselors and mayor's in particular,
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  Speaker 2: the ability to actually make things happen and work to
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  Speaker 2: their mandates and to their promises they've made. They're not
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  Speaker 2: stifled or muzzled. They actually have the ability to get
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  Speaker 2: better information out of their councils, which can be incredibly
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  Speaker 2: difficult at times. They need to be able to, you know,
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  Speaker 2: just just basically tilt that playing field back and say
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  Speaker 2: with the elected representatives compared to the council bureaucracies which
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  Speaker 2: tend to lead them somewhat.
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  Speaker 1: And appreciate your times wanting Nick Clark with the New
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  Speaker 1: Zealand Initiative.
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  Speaker 2: For more from earlier edition with Ryan Bridge. Listen live
• 2:38
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