Get your vote on: We really need to care about our local elections

Saturday, 10 August 2019

OPINION: Well it's coming around again.

That time every three years, when large wooden signs dot the main roads of our suburbs bearing the faces of strangers.

Earnest, well-meaning faces that send out subliminal laser beams from their eyes aimed straight at your visceral regions. Beams that say 'look at the way I softly gaze at you from this hoarding. Vote me into a job for the next three years, and you can trust me to look after your concerns like rubbish collection and free local festivals you can go to in summer'.

But most of us would just think 'oh, is that who runs for council these days?' and then drive on by, getting on with our busy days.

* What are your issues in the local body elections?

It's time to cast your vote again. I said... IT'S TIME TO CAST YOUR VOTE AGAIN.

* Local elections are a hit and miss affair**

I'm talking of course, about the local body elections, a phrase that's so thrill-inducing, I've waited until this paragraph to use it.

Of the 400 or so weekly columns I've written in the past eight years, a previous one about local body elections would be among the least read.

But, here I am, giving it another go, because while it's the central government elections and politicians that get all the attention, our daily lives are for more impacted by the decisions that go down around the council table.

Oscar Kightley wonders whether we should make voting easier - but in the meantime he still reckons you need to get involved.

It's not just the all-important rubbish collection, there's everything from the playgrounds we rely on as safe and useful spaces for kids, the libraries, the public transport system, the water that comes out of our taps, the rates bills and the public transport we rely on to connect us to the important facets of our lives.

And yet these are still the elections we seem to care about the least. Not only that but we've been caring about them less and less as the years go by. The national turnout in the 1989 local body elections was 57 per cent and has generally only declined since then.

While voter turnout at the last general election in 2017 was 79 per cent, nationwide turnout at the 2016 local body elections was just 43 per cent.

In Auckland in 2016, it was even lower, with just 38.5 per cent. Of that number, 70 per cent of eligible European voters voted, while the participation rates for other ethnicities were significantly lower (57 per cent of Chinese, 50 per cent of Maori and 46 per cent of Samoans).

When you consider that Maori, Pasifika and Asian make up 50 per cent of Auckland's population, that's a fair chunk of the city that may not be getting optimum representation at local body level for the things that are important to them.

We can't really blame the councils for this. They're desperate for people to vote.

Do we need to make it easier? I was discussing this with a friend who's never voted in a local body election but reckons she would if there was an app she could do it on.

I'm sure it's not a matter of people caring less. There are so many people on social media caring about things, you'd think there wouldn't be an issue when it comes to engagement with the actual power-making process.

But there is a problem. And more of us should care about it. Not because it's the right on thing to do, but because that level of engagement is way more effective than just liking something on social media.