Trotter on Parker, Marryatt and other Authoritarians

Chris Trotter nails the problems with the Christchurch City Council to the wall so we can all have a gander and it ain't pretty.

"Neither Mayor Bob Parker nor council chief executive Tony Marryatt appear to have grasped the urgency of transforming the council into the principal advocate of - and for - Christchurch's battered citizens.
On the contrary, both men seem to have scant regard for the three principles indispensable to the construction of unity: transparency; consultation; and accountability.
Local democracy is not about gathering together a bare majority of compliant cronies whose sole contribution to local government is to rubber-stamp the joint recommendations of the mayor and his chief executive.
And it is certainly not about the mayor's cronies, puffed-up with pride at their insider status, heaping scorn upon those councillors denied admission to the magic circle of power.
Indeed, nothing is more calculated to breed disunity, disaffection and defensiveness: the very feelings that cause politicians to resort to that time- honoured response to secrecy and exclusion - the leak."

Trotter's vision is clear here, and the problems he describes, not confined to just the CCC.

"Two manifestations of administrative authoritarianism deserve special attention. The so-far- unsuccessful attempts by local government officials to impose legal restraints on the degree to which elected representatives can participate in contentious debates.
And, the Local Government Commission's ongoing campaign to reduce the number of elected representatives on city councils and with them the ratio of councillors to citizens."

Read the full article here.