Policy Victory! Council voting to be restricted to elected councillors
We did it!
After years of campaigning, exposing, and protesting, Simon Watts has finally acted.
Today, the Government announced that only elected councillors will be able to vote on council committees.
That means the days of Mayors appointing teenagers (yes, seriously) or race-based "representatives" onto council committees to screw the scrum and vote numbers are over.
Minister Watts announced this afternoon an amendment to Local Government (Systems Improvements) Bill restricting voting rights to elected members only.
This is a win for the Taxpayers' Union and for ratepayers across the country.
It means if someone wants a vote on rates, spending, borrowing, and council policy, they'll need to earn it from voters first.
Frankly, that should never have been controversial.
Appointed reps were always counter to the constitutional foundation: "No taxation without representation."
That's why we fought so hard to protect democratic accountability, calling it out when councils across the country handed over voting rights to unelected appointments.
Friend, some people have tried to turn this debate into one about race, for us, it was always about democratic accountability.
Remember our "bouncy council" protest in Hastings?
Two years ago, when the Hastings District Council decided to give voting rights to their unelected "youth councillors", it prompted the Taxpayers' Union to get the bubble machine out and host a youth councillor-friendly committee meeting outside the council.
The decision was made to give unelected youth councillors the same voting rights as democratically elected councillors on committees by the deciding vote from the then-Mayor, Sandra Hazelhurst. The story resonated with supporters, and we had dozens of supporters come down to our council meeting.
The Hastings District Council's decision was also lampooned at last year's Jonesie Awards.
Eventually, thanks to the pressure from ratepayers who demanded democratic accountability, Hastings backed down, and youth councillors were drafted for a limited scope of "youth-related" matters.
But it didn't stop with Hastings, we also called out Tauranga for their unelected iwi appointees.
Or the 55,000 emails that went to Tauranga councillors?
In December 2024, Tauranga City Council proposed to make unelected permanent appointments of Iwi reps on every one of the Council’s standing committees.
We mounted an urgent campaign, with 6185 supporters using our email tool within 12 hours to push back against the unelected appointees on every standing committee.
Every person who used the tool emailed all the Tauranga councillors, with more than 55,000 emails being sent.
Sadly, the Mayor won the vote, and Tauranga ratepayers gained unelected appointees on all their council committees with full voting rights.
Back then, after the vote was lost, we shared our remaining campaign plan, a two-step campaign to keep holding councils to account and convince the government to change the law.
And today we won 🙌
We started investigating councils across New Zealand, exposing where unelected appointees were being handed influence over rates and spending decisions, and building the case for reform.
At the time, we promised supporters that although we'd lost the battle in Tauranga, we hadn't lost the war on democratic accountability, and we wouldn't give up.
So, working alongside allies such as ACT MP Cameron Luxton, we took up the issue at Parliament and called out what he rightly described as an attack on democratic accountability.
As a ratepayer in Tauranga, I know that for Cameron it was personal. He (and ACT) deserve much credit for forcing this onto the coalition's agenda.
So after years of pressure, the Government has now accepted the principle we've been arguing all along: if you want a vote on how ratepayers' money is spent, you should first win the support of ratepayers at the ballot box.
Thank you Friend. For supporting the effort, taking action, and for making this policy victory possible.
This win for democratic accountability is on you!
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