QLDC councillor candidate statement: Jon Mitchell
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The following statement has been received from Jon Mitchell - a councillor candidate for the QLDC Queenstown-Whakatipu Ward.
“We need real change for the better!
I will bring more openness, teamwork, and professionalism to the council.
QLDC needs a full leadership reset to recover from the poor decisions of the past and to avoid more of the same.
A little about me:
I’m standing as a strong independent voice for Queenstown-Whakatipu communities, my home for most of my life. My wife and I now run an off-grid homestay 10 minutes south of Kingston, that we completed last year. Like a growing number of locals, I work remotely the Southern Lakes. My work is in risk, resilience, and emergency management. Traveling regularly to work with community groups, businesses, and government agencies throughout the country.
My wife loves her work in the local health sector, despite its increasing challenges. While our offspring have followed the family tradition to work in the local tourism industry.
My experience in local government, emergency management, economic development, governance, community-focused leadership, and tourism here in Queenstown Lakes and beyond, will help us solve the district’s crises and realise a more positive future together.
I have been on the board of Queenstown Lakes Shaping Our Future since 2021 and love the positive impact our small team is able to make in giving communities a voice in local decision-making and their own destinies.
Major issues as I see them:
The challenges that our communities faced prior to COVID and at the 2022 local election are now worse than before. Our wastewater infrastructure can’t cope with current demand, let alone projected growth. Congestion on our roads worsens by the day. Visitor numbers are now well above 2019 levels, despite almost everyone agreeing we had reached peak mass-tourism then. More and more houses have been built, but affordability continues to worsen as too many homes are used for short-term stays.
QLDC remains out of touch with local communities and sadly untrusted in much of what it does. We need to turn that around, for the good of everyone.
The Lakeview project is still a secretive black hole to tip ratepayer dollars into, with no apparent light at the bottom, or any way out. We need to shine a public light on that and put real control of the project back in the hands of the elected council.
There is a crying need for a one-stop council shop that the public can get to easily, instead of staff being inefficiently spread across 6 sites in the downtown area. While most of the current council wants to solve this, they find themselves at war with senior staff, the mayor and councillors close to him pushing for the most expensive option. The new council needs to take ownership of this and develop an affordable, resilient, accessible administration building, ideally with other agencies, most likely in Frankton. While the Stanley Street site should be developed for uses much more suited to and needed in downtown Queenstown, ideally funded mostly by charitable and commercial sources.
We have to put incentives in place to encourage sustainable activities and discourage those that are making life here harder and less affordable.
The way that community feedback on the handling of our water infrastructure and services to a council-controlled company was ignored recently is a further indication of a mayor and a handful of councillors who simply don’t care what our communities want or need. Now that decision has been made the next council will have to take a much more responsible approach to establishing a cost-effective water services entity that meets all of our needs, stops semi-treated effluent being poured into our waterways, and more sustainable, less risky solutions used in future.
The proposed “Central Lakes Regional Deal” needs far more local community input to balance the Wellington-focused, privatised health services, private tourism-focused transport, and development at any costs agenda the “deal” currently represents.
We heard Minister Chris Bishop tell us on Q+A recently (3 Aug 2025) that QLDC will be expected to sell assets to fund Regional Deal projects, using the example of Auckland recently selling its Auckland Airport shares to fund projects. As the government doesn’t intend to fund any of the initiatives proposed for Central Lakes. The next council is going to have to work hard to retain control of our community assets, and to ensure that ratepayers have a real say in their future.
I will support sustainably managed growth, working with local, regional, and central government stakeholders to help reduce traffic congestion, resolve our wastewater fiascos, improve health services, and make living here more affordable.
We have to move on from the view that projections of exponential resident population and visitor growth are inevitable and that the council must chase and enable uncontrolled growth. Instead, we need to focus on managing growth down to reasonable levels that our communities, economy, and environment can afford. We can’t keep chasing growth. We have to manage it.
Bottom line:
I will push for honest community-focused budgeting so we can live more within our means. New activities must help pay their share of reducing the pressure they put on roads, housing and critical services.
We have to provide real opportunities for community members to have their say on major decisions in the future. The old-fashioned, narrow consultation approach is clearly not working well.
I will make sure our council always puts our community’s interests first in all it does.
Jon Mitchell – Candidate for Queenstown Whakatipu Ward QLDC”
Phone: 0272 080 375
Email: [email protected]
Website:
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