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Speaker 1: At what point do you say this local government election

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Speaker 1: is a failure, a flop, not worth the paper it's

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Speaker 1: written on. I think we can pretty much do that now.

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Speaker 1: Even in Auckland, our biggest city, the super city, with

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Speaker 1: all the responsibility after amalgamation, the turnout after two weeks

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Speaker 1: nine percent last time in total thirty five percent. That's

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Speaker 1: not a mandate. That's a vote of no confidence. And

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Speaker 1: if you think about it, it's not like Keweis aren't

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Speaker 1: engaged in democracy. More generally we vote in the national

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Speaker 1: elections that are very closer to eighty percent. So then

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Speaker 1: you ask yourself what's the problem with local government? Two things. One,

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Speaker 1: there's too many of them. You've got to get rid

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Speaker 1: of regional councils. You can have the number of local ones.

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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

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Speaker 1: got something like seventy eight local authorities for five million people.

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Speaker 1: It's just nuts. It's dune. Once they get to the

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Speaker 1: council table. Of course, the mayor becomes a cuck to

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Speaker 1: whoever looney nutbar Widow was elected to the counsel and

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Speaker 1: a few hundred votes would have got them there. Of course,

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Speaker 1: doesn't take much, and they've all got dreams of running

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Speaker 1: their bikes to work. So here's the problem why people

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Speaker 1: don't vote. They don't vote because the powers too evenly shared.

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Speaker 1: I think we vote in a guy who's just told

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Speaker 1: the rate paying group we're about to to f off.

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Speaker 1: Did you see that? Yesterday? Wayne Brown, in an email

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Speaker 1: to the Ratepayers Alliance said just f off. And the

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Speaker 1: problem with that is we voted this guy in and

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Speaker 1: even he struggles to shake things up. So we need

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Speaker 1: a better system. Most councils should be put in the bin,

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Speaker 1: and we need a strong mayor system. This is where

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Speaker 1: the mayor has veto power over legislation. They appoint the

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Speaker 1: department heads and they control the budget. One man or women,

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Speaker 1: one plan, get it done. Until then, there's no point

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Speaker 1: in voting for this hodgepodge bunch of do nothing naval

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Speaker 1: gazers sitting around thinking about what's on the menu for

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Speaker 1: the next ratee pair funded lunch. For more from Early

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Speaker 1: Edition with Ryan Bridge. Listen live to News Talks it

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Speaker 1: Be from five am weekdays, or follow the podcast on iHeartRadio.