Libertarians don’t like local government much, generally. While some aspire for maximum devolution, similar to Switzerland, so that most government power (outside defence, foreign affairs and border control) is at the more local level, that would require a transformational constitutional change. Switzerland works because its best and brightest get concentrated at the canton level, and also because the crazy only happens on a relatively small scale, so is easily purged from public policy. The culture of referenda means more engagement on issues by the public, but it also delivers a wide range of results. Conservative, liberal, free-market, socialist views all get some airing, but by and large Swiss politics is one of gradual evolution. None of this describes local politics in the Anglosphere, and especially not NZ.
Local government to many libertarians is an anathema, because a fair proportion of the people drawn to it tend to have one of two sets of philosophical positions:
• Socialism (government should spend more, do more, regulate more)
• Cronyism (local government should preserve, to protect the business, property and interests of the councillor).
Many in local government are well intentioned, but it does attract people who aspire to central government, but most of all a lot of busybodies (albeit Wellington is much better off with far-left wingnut Tamatha Paul being a backbench MP in Opposition, than a Wellington City Councillor).
Some of them brand themselves as such. Of course the Greens and Labour campaign, always thinking that local government should address poverty, “save the planet” and grow, spending more and taxing more (notwithstanding claims of prudence, none of them want to cut the role of local government). The ones who want local government to get involved in foreign affairs are the worst. Whether it be sister city junkets or "recognising "Palestine"" or declaring a city "nuclear free", it's absurd wasteful stuff.
However, the busybodies aren’t always branded. Tory Whanau pretended not to be a Green, and in Wellington this election, Alex Baker is the Green Mayoral candidate not branding himself as such.
It’s less common to find candidates and even less common to find councillors who want local government to do less.
Since the Clark Government granted local government the “power of general competence” (which the Key Government did not repeal, nor will the Luxon Government), councils have felt free to do more and more with ratepayers money. We can see the results in the areas that councils have had responsibility for. Nothing exemplifies this better than water.
The state of water infrastructure is, in much of the country, a debacle, and that has until recently been left entirely in the hands of local government. It’s local democracy in full effect, implementing what both the left, and conservative devolutionists want, and they have failed due to incompetence and ineptness.
We saw this a few decades ago when they owned monopoly local bus companies, which were characterised by ever declining services, ever increasing pay for drivers, and a starving of capital for new buses. We can be forever grateful that this was taken off them, along with responsibility for local electricity distribution and retail (which was facing the same dearth of investment as water), and indeed even milk supply. Many are too young to remember what an absolute joke of an airport Wellington had when it was run as a joint local-central government entity. Once corporatised and part-privatised, decades of arguments about who and how a new airport terminal was going to be funded and built evaporated.
In the planning and regulatory space we see it in housing. Left to their own devices, Councillors choose District Plans and apply the RMA to drastically constrain the supply of new housing. While some of it is NIMBYism, most of it is because the culture of local government institutionally and politically is to be a block to development. It's a culture of no, not of yes, and a culture of "not there" rather than "why not there?".
Had the RMA existed a century plus ago, the railway lines through our cities wouldn’t have been built, and neither would any motorways (although I’m not saying the Robert Moses approach was the right one either), and many airports wouldn’t have been built, but most importantly most of the current housing stock wouldn’t have been built either. The RMA handed local government a powerful tool on development and it chose to strangle it.
So what do we face in 2025? Some candidates campaign for sticking to core spending and keeping rates under control, but plenty also push a series of cause celebres. Some want to “save the planet” by making driving less attractive because of “climate change”, even though it will make no measurable difference. Some want to ease poverty by… taxing property owners more and restricting house building. Some of course are “opposed to privatisation” because they are brain-addled socialist morons who think you’re all better off being forced to share in the ownership of some “asset” that, by and large, can’t be managed well by council at all (or is in a structure that doesn’t allow such management, like an airport or port).
Most candidates are “passionate about the community”, so much they want to pass bylaws on it, control development and decide how much to take from the community by force through rates, to spend on what it thinks is important. More than a few think my money should be spent on promoting arts and culture I don’t consume or want.
It’s worse at the regional council level. Candidate Tom James (Labour of course) says “For me, tackling climate change needs to be at the heart of our council’s work”. Really? How will we measure your success in doing that? Should you be punished if global temperatures keep rising? Candidate Tom Kay also say he wants to be “reducing emissions to slow climate change”. How deluded are these people?
Current regional council chair Daran Ponter says “I am committed to active community engagement, a vibrant Wellington , and supporting a thriving economy”. Really? Have you done that? How much are you making it thrive now? Like him, Green candidate Yadana Saw talks about having “helped fund” 18 new trains, which are in fact 90% funded by taxpayers through central government. She didn’t fund anything, she made ratepayers fund a sliver of it.
Even the highest profile candidate of the lot in Wellington, failed former Labour leader Andrew Little, campaigns on controlling public transport fares as Mayor – a function that is completely outside the purview of Wellington City Council.
So much is just pure charlatanism. Finger-wagging showboating by people you wouldn't trust to run you a bath, let alone run infrastructure competently (and of course they don't).
So what’s left? Well my first preference for Mayor will be going for a young man with ideas. Josh Harford. On a day like today, his policy of erecting large sails at the ends of Wellington to redirect wind to Upper Hutt “where it belongs” makes more sense than a busybody popinjay like Little. His mandate for optimism is well founded, but more generally the “Aotearoa New Zealand Silly Hat Party” has at its core the intellectual and cultural foundations of a good democracy. Not taking itself too seriously.
Josh wont be raising rates, he wont be telling people what to do, and best of all he doesn’t use the anti-concepts of 21st century post-modernist corporate, public relations double-speak that bastardises the relationship between reality and the public. He doesn’t talk about a city that is:
- Vibrant (it’s on a Faultline!)
- Inclusive (except for people who disagree with them)
- Innovative (like Council ever is!)
- Accountable (nobody is really held accountable for wasting money)
- Affordable (nobody is cutting rates)
- Collaborative (stop conspiring to spend more of my money)
So until New Zealand elects a central government to put the shackles on local government property (more than the removal of the four “well-beings” which frankly does little to achieve this), vote for whoever talks least about trying to do more, spend more and especially save the planet.
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