Andrew Dickens: The government has given the councils a telling off for Christmas

The government is going to hold councils accountable for the basics like pipes and rubbish, but screw any mention of well being.  I don’t know about you, but the care of maintenance of pipes and sewage and trash is fundamental to my well being.  Minister Simeon Brown wants a report issued each year on the financial health of each council, their spending and their results. They also want to look at the changes in rates for each dwelling.  In other words they’re going to read the publicly listed council reports and produce their own because apparently many ratepayers don’t or can't be bothered. That's also the job the media used to do until they got so skint they don't have the staff to do it. I couldn’t help thinking the whole thing was a dramatic production and part of a culture war to paint local bodies as a villain for committing exactly the same crimes central government are guilty of. There’s criticism of council red tape in building consents and yet the irony is that it’s central government who writes the rules that the councils are enforcing.  There’s criticism of a lack of long term plans when central government tends to change it’s plans every 3 years in line with elections. Central government has palmed off some of the biggest and hardest part of civil maintenance to the councils. The water, the poo, the rubbish and then crippled councils by allowing them to only make revenue through property taxes and then when things go wrong treat local government like a whipping boy. The point of the government’s attack on councils is to make them more accountable to ratepayers, but possibly to distract voters from looking at them. Well thanks for that. Councils are accountable to ratepayers, it’s called the vote and ratepayers are notorious for not bothering to use it.  Anyway, bring it on, councils should not be afraid of being held to account because they must believe they’re making their towns better and also on the whole they’re doing a pretty good job on the smell of an oily rag.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.