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Ryan Bridge: Are local elections a flop? · Early Edition with Ryan Bridge

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: At what point do you say this local government election
• 0:03
  Speaker 1: is a failure, a flop, not worth the paper it's
• 0:05
  Speaker 1: written on. I think we can pretty much do that now.
• 0:08
  Speaker 1: Even in Auckland, our biggest city, the super city, with
• 0:10
  Speaker 1: all the responsibility after amalgamation, the turnout after two weeks
• 0:15
  Speaker 1: nine percent last time in total thirty five percent. That's
• 0:20
  Speaker 1: not a mandate. That's a vote of no confidence. And
• 0:23
  Speaker 1: if you think about it, it's not like Keweis aren't
• 0:25
  Speaker 1: engaged in democracy. More generally we vote in the national
• 0:28
  Speaker 1: elections that are very closer to eighty percent. So then
• 0:30
  Speaker 1: you ask yourself what's the problem with local government? Two things. One,
• 0:34
  Speaker 1: there's too many of them. You've got to get rid
• 0:36
  Speaker 1: of regional councils. You can have the number of local ones.
• 0:39
  Speaker 1: Surely turn the system from a council mayor to a
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  Speaker 1: mayor council system. More on that in a second. We've
• 0:46
  Speaker 1: got something like seventy eight local authorities for five million people.
• 0:50
  Speaker 1: It's just nuts. It's dune. Once they get to the
• 0:53
  Speaker 1: council table. Of course, the mayor becomes a cuck to
• 0:56
  Speaker 1: whoever looney nutbar Widow was elected to the counsel and
• 1:01
  Speaker 1: a few hundred votes would have got them there. Of course,
• 1:03
  Speaker 1: doesn't take much, and they've all got dreams of running
• 1:05
  Speaker 1: their bikes to work. So here's the problem why people
• 1:10
  Speaker 1: don't vote. They don't vote because the powers too evenly shared.
• 1:14
  Speaker 1: I think we vote in a guy who's just told
• 1:17
  Speaker 1: the rate paying group we're about to to f off.
• 1:20
  Speaker 1: Did you see that? Yesterday? Wayne Brown, in an email
• 1:24
  Speaker 1: to the Ratepayers Alliance said just f off. And the
• 1:28
  Speaker 1: problem with that is we voted this guy in and
• 1:30
  Speaker 1: even he struggles to shake things up. So we need
• 1:34
  Speaker 1: a better system. Most councils should be put in the bin,
• 1:38
  Speaker 1: and we need a strong mayor system. This is where
• 1:42
  Speaker 1: the mayor has veto power over legislation. They appoint the
• 1:46
  Speaker 1: department heads and they control the budget. One man or women,
• 1:51
  Speaker 1: one plan, get it done. Until then, there's no point
• 1:55
  Speaker 1: in voting for this hodgepodge bunch of do nothing naval
• 1:58
  Speaker 1: gazers sitting around thinking about what's on the menu for
• 2:00
  Speaker 1: the next ratee pair funded lunch. For more from Early
• 2:04
  Speaker 1: Edition with Ryan Bridge. Listen live to News Talks it
• 2:07
  Speaker 1: Be from five am weekdays, or follow the podcast on iHeartRadio.