Cody Tucker: the pain, and occasional satisfaction, of being a QLDC councillor

In an unusually frank and open interview with Crux, 29-year-old first term Queenstown Lakes District Councillor Cody Tucker has spoken about the challenge of having “all responsibility and no control.”

Mr Tucker, in an interview with the new Crux podcast series, also worries that some issues are virtually impossible to solve by working within the local government system.

In addition, he is keen to see a move away from ratepayers supporting town centre projects such as the Queenstown arterial road or Project Manawa – the proposed new QLDC office building.

Instead, he says facilities can and should be moved out towards where people actually live in order to reduce road congestion and give more easy, fair and equitable access to those facilities.

The interview is a fascinating insight into how the QLDC councillors work together – successfully and unsuccessfully – to decide on final outcomes. But he says often those actual outcomes are, in reality, beyond the direct control of the elected members.

There’s also discussion round whether a new mayor from Wānaka in the next local election could solve some of the real or perceived differences in the allocation of funding and resources between Queenstown and Wānaka.

Mr Tucker reckons both Simon Telfer and Quentin Smith have the right stuff to be our next mayor – and he explains why.

Could Cody Tucker himself be a future mayor at some stage? That’s up to our audience to decide!

Listen to the full podcast interview here - and subscribe if you'd like to hear the full series over the coming weeks and months. Episodes are free until the end of June.