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Council
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Council Watch New Zealand This website has been set up to help get the Council Watch movement off the ground in New Zealand, following the excellent start made in the UK. Although many councils here in New Zealand already live-stream and archive their meetings, just looking at the viewing numbers on youtube, shows the lack of numbers viewing proceedings that they should be interested in.The Council also publish a lot of information on their websites and on their youtube channels, but each is laid out differently, and navigating to go to the information you are interested in, can involve a bit of time and fiddling. This site will assist in getting to the required information, and to help highlight resources that you may not have known were there. Lets start with an update to Wellington City Council's CEO BLOCKING information available to Councillors ........  Michael Laws & Councillor Tony Randle A SOLUTION to the current round of massive rates rises, that we are about to have foisted on us, could be by the NZ Government regulating the maximum rates can go up by. This would enforce the jettisoning of nice to haves (like new Hockey Turfs and new Swimming Pools), and focusing on the essentials. Have a look at how the Victorian Government regulated the Melbourne City Council, when things were getting out of hand .. THE LATEST ON TRANSPORT IN NZ  Chris Lynch & Transport Minister Simeon Brown * Transport Planners are NOT elected |
Central Government As Government regulates ALL councils, as it see fits, and co-funds many projects, what Wellington decides ultimately influences Local Body activities, even when it comes to creating bylaws. To get the whole picture then, it is necessary to be aware of both NATIONAL Politics AND your LOCAL-BODY politics.So what happens when Councils are told that unelected external groups and/or committees ultimately have the say, over anything that voters might want. This is why Local Body democracy simply doesn't work, and is why the TWO biggest councils in the country, have already opted out of the completely bizarre "Local Government New Zealand" organization. At last though, we have a Minister, who is prepared to call out nonsense, and who is prepared to ditch 'nonsense', as he should be. 
See Also: Undemocratic Influence over Local Government A chat with Gore's mayor, about these issues. |