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Speaker 1: Stand by for another lackluster local body election in some

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Speaker 1: parts of the country, deadline having come and gone Friday,

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Speaker 1: some races no competition to all the incumbent wins by

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Speaker 1: a fault. In Lower Hunt, five councilors elected uncontested. Good

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Speaker 1: news in Hamilton, though, twenty six candidates for just the

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Speaker 1: one seat Hamilton Eastward. How hot's that Campbell Barry's the

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Speaker 1: VP at local Government New Zealander. Is whether there's Campbell morning?

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Speaker 2: Good morning?

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Speaker 1: So there's the last minute flurry on Friday. My understanding

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Speaker 1: couple of hours ago people put their names and does

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Speaker 1: it make you feel any better? Are you getting anywhere

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Speaker 1: good in this or no?

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Speaker 2: It varies across the board. As you mentioned, in our area,

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Speaker 2: we've got five uncontested seats. I don't think that's good

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Speaker 2: for democracy. We do want to have races, but it

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Speaker 2: does depend on the local context and the reasons and

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Speaker 2: the ward sets up set ups as well. We do

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Speaker 2: want to be seeing more people stand. Unfortunately, with the

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Speaker 2: environment we've got, I think that does put some people off.

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Speaker 2: But I think the important thing now is we're going

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Speaker 2: to do everything we can to try and get that

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Speaker 2: vote a participation up because the voting numbers, I think

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Speaker 2: is the most important thing.

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Speaker 1: Do you have any indication if the nominations aren't there,

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Speaker 1: the racers aren't there, then why would suddenly people start voting?

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Speaker 2: I think the mayoral race is quite a big one,

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Speaker 2: so for us we've got four strong meural contenders. I

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Speaker 2: think you do see an uptick when that's more high profile,

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Speaker 2: so it'll be interesting to see what that means. I

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Speaker 2: think there are some more systemic issues to vote to participation.

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Speaker 2: Postal voting, you know, that is just completely not fit

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Speaker 2: for purpose at the moment, and how people actually vote,

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Speaker 2: information on candidates as pretty lackluster as well. We've been

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Speaker 2: doing some work through Local Government New Zealand, through our

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Speaker 2: Electoral Reform Working Group to suggest some recommendations to change that.

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Speaker 2: So actually how we vote and the process I think

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Speaker 2: could be a lot better. And also, obviously there are

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Speaker 2: some bigger challenges of getting good people to stand, so

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Speaker 2: that's something we need to address.

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Speaker 1: Sixteen here's my fun fact of sixteen mayors who aren't

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Speaker 1: standing again. Six were first termers, four had completed only

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Speaker 1: two terms. What's that tell you about it? It sounds

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Speaker 1: to me like bugger this, who needs this?

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Speaker 2: That's an interesting one. I think that's probably the first

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Speaker 2: time I've seen such a large number of one to

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Speaker 2: meyors decided to step aside. Some of them are actually

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Speaker 2: still standing for council, which is interesting. Again, I think,

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Speaker 2: you know, in due course we should dig a bit

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Speaker 2: deeper into that because it is something that's a little

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Speaker 2: bit unusual. So I don't have an answer of why,

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Speaker 2: but I think it's a good observation.

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Speaker 1: Good stuff Campbell appreciate at Campbell Berry, who's the VP

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Speaker 1: of Local Government, Bishop was out over the weekend. Chris.

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Speaker 1: Five councilors elected unopposed already in the Lower Hut. As

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Speaker 1: we've just mentioned. Now here's the part of the problem.

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Speaker 1: As far as I can tell, all of the Eastbourne

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Speaker 1: Community Board has been elected unopposed. Five slots, five people.

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Speaker 1: Now this goes back to what I argued all along.

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Speaker 1: There are far too many jobs, There are far too

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Speaker 1: many people, far too many boards, far too many councils.

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Speaker 1: So by the time if you feeled if you can

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Speaker 1: tested every single slot up for grabs, you would be

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Speaker 1: needing literally thousands of people to put their names forward.

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Speaker 1: It's never going to happen, especially at community board. Level.

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