'It won't fly', 'preposterous': Unitary authority talks to progress

Dunedin’s Mayor today twice used his casting vote to pursue “doomed” talks around a new unitary authority for all Otago.

Dunedin City Council discussed what to do next regards discussion a report around a potential unitary authority.

The report was compiled after a previous council meeting asked for it.

However, many councillors were opposed to any talks. With Councillor Christine Garey putting forward a motion that no further action be taken. That was defeated by Mayor Jules Radich’s casting vote, following a 7-all vote.

The subsequent motion, to progress talks with elected members or their representatives for all Otago councils also drew a 7-all vote, with the mayor once again casting a deciding vote.

A decision Councillor Steve walker called “preposterous”.

Councillor Garey said the move risked worsening relations with neighbouring councils, which were already disappointing.

“I do not expect the response from neighbouring councils to be positive. I see it as actually being to the detriment of our relationship. 

Long-standing councillor Lee Vandervis summed up the feeling of several councillors around the thought of a unitary authority.

“If we are to make any progress on unitary authority, we need to recognise that it's the Dunedin Territorial area that needs to become a unitary authority and that includes the port and all the leasehold land that's down the front of the harbour site.

“This idea that we can have an initial meeting of elected members of the councils in Otago, and there's rather a lot of them, is not only an incredibly unwieldy suggestion, but it's one that's absolutely doomed to failure in terms of actually assessing whether there are pros and cons for Dunedin. Queenstown councillors have no interest in whether there are pros and cons for a unitary authority for Dunedin, nor Balclutha.

“The whole idea that this motion would ever go anywhere other than kill the idea of a unitary council dead was one that I anticipated at the beginning and I can simply not vote for now.

“Why would you waste your time? It's sort of. I mean, there's all kinds of analogies, but the turkeys for Christmas one really is the fairly obvious one. 

“It's not going to fly. Why do it?”

Councillor Carmen Houlahan said she was concerned that the motion had just popped up without discussion with other councils in the region, adding DCC had indicated a preference for doing Three Water refers in-house rather than in conjunction with other councils.

“So, you know, to then turn around and say we're not that keen on looking at working with you for three waters. But, hey, look, we want to move into ta unitary council is, in my opinion, quite frankly, doesn't seem to make any sense at all.”

Councillor David Benson-Pope said any unitary authority would have to be the result of a Government mandate, as was the original creation.

“I'm not sure there's much point in relitigating the failures of the 1989 reorganisation, in particular in relation to the assets of Port Otago, which were not appropriately distributed.

“Think about the questions of transport, of communications, of where headquarters might be, of emissions. It's an absolute nightmare once you start to think through the mechanics of what a suggestion like this might lead to."

Supporting progressing the motion, Councillor Kevin Gilbert said the issue of a unitary authority had been “skirted around” for too long.

“The intention behind the original motion was asking for a high level report identifying pathways to start a discussion about whether the governance system that we have in place is the best that we can hope for, which is what we received.”

Today’s council meeting made not discussion of the more complicated aspects of how a unitary authority would work.

“We're just talking about having a talk,” Councillor Gilbert said.

Mayor Radich said he agreed with a lot of points made during the discussion.

“There's never a right time, but for so many things, the right time might have been 20 years ago, but the next best time is right now and I think this motion is a good trigger for us to have a discussion with our neighbours and canvass all their views about the situation so we get to hear what everyone else in the region has to say about it and find out where they sit on it.

“It may be that everyone else is horrified and nobody wants to know. However, it may be that the possibility exists and I believe in exploring the possibilities before cutting them off.”

It remains too be seen where the motion will go next.

Queenstown Lakes District Council responded to Crux today with a seemingly-uninterested statement.

“DCC hasn’t approached QLDC for an opinion on the matter, and we haven’t yet seen any case for change to discuss with elected members.”

Main image (screenshot): Dunedin Mayor Jules Radich.