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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

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Speaker 2: to news talks that'd be from five am weekdays, or

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Speaker 2: follow the podcast on iHeartRadio