Please vote. I do not know how else to say this.
As Benjamin Franklin once said, only two things in life are certain: death, and nobody bothering to vote in New Zealand’s local body elections. Every three years like clockwork our small island nation churns out turnout statistics so putrid they’d make Kate Sheppard barf in despair. “It’s boring and/or not important,” say 60 to 70% of people aged 18 or over. If not that, it’s another excuse. “I don’t know any of these people,” “how do I use a post box?” or “what is a letter?”
First of all, do your research! A letter is a piece of paper inside another piece of paper. It goes in the red and white bin’s rectangle mouth. The mouth gobbles it up and turns it into democracy.
Second of all, wrong!!! Voting for council is important because city is made of council. Hello, are you in the hospital? OK you are using government. But did you do a poo in the hospital toilet? That’s pipes. Council. Did you get driven to the hospital on a road? Probably council unless it was a motorway straight to the hospital door. Are you in school? Fine that’s government. But did you use a pedestrian crossing to get to school? Council. Did you go on a bus? Again, council.
I don’t know how to tell you this. So many things done by council. Did the water come out of your tap? That’s council. Do you want an apartment? The council decides where apartments can go and a lot of the time they decide on “nowhere” and “fuck you”. Do you like having a huge housing crisis? Councils do those. Do you want to be able to bike without being run over by a truck? Council can make that happen, or more likely, not make that happen and kill you instead.
One hundred and eighty five billion dollars. That’s the estimated bill to repair our terrible water infrastructure and experts think that estimate is too low. Why is it going to cost so much? Mainly because angry people who didn’t want to pay rates were the only ones who voted in local elections. They elected other angry people who didn’t want to raise rates and those people kept costs down via the foolproof method of “letting the pipes rot in the ground”. Just a few years ago, 8,000 people in and around Havelock North got poisoned when sheep poo seeped into some poorly maintained water infrastructure. Four people died! Wellington’s streets are now equal parts sewage and concrete. For a while there people in Otago were drinking lead.
Just because all of the people in the voting booklet look like they were baked out of a bald 60-year-old man sourdough starter doesn’t mean they can’t ruin your life. They own the footpaths, libraries, community centres, sports fields, parks and roads. They can and will stop you living anywhere near a train station for decades on end. They own the cemeteries. They own the berms. They own the sewers and pools. Everything the pipe touches is their kingdom.
For years I have tried to report on the council and though it’s not easy to tell, it has driven me to the edge of insanity. Seriously there are people in there who literally just say no to everything for an entire term. Rates rises? No. Service cuts? No. Houses near bus stations? No. Houses on the edge of town? No. This often goes on for 20 straight years. People keep voting them in.
Enough! I don’t know any other way to say it. So many of your daily problems are caused by council. They get away with it because everyone thinks they’re boring and irrelevant. Sneaky! False! You need to put a stop to this. Put the letter in the red and white box’s mouth. It will gobble it up, and hopefully what comes out the other end will be a better city.
To see how voting turnout is tracking in the main centres, check out our live graphs.
