The real wonder is not that voter turnout is so low for local government elections, but that it remains so high

By Chris Trotter*

Voter turnout for New Zealand’s 2025 local government elections is unlikely to rise much above a third of registered voters. That fraction reduces to something less than a quarter if the turnout is measured against all eligible voters. Such fractions are unsustainable from the perspective of any viable democracy. What sort of mandate can a mayor or city councillor claim when – as is the case in New Zealand’s largest city – barely one in four of its citizens felt sufficiently motivated to cast a vote?

Not that the harder-headed defenders of democracy are likely to feel the least bit chastened by these dire statistics. Their stock response being: “Decisions are made by the people who turn up!” To which the more thoughtful among them might add a few remarks about there being an irreducible number of alienated and/or apathetic citizens who, by their refusal to participate in the political life of their communities forfeit any right to raise objections against policies adopted on behalf of those who do.

Challenged with the observation: “If your irreducible number has risen to 66 percent of registered voters, then the levels of alienation/apathy must surely be cause for serious concern”, the hard-heads will respond that the number of inert citizens is obviously nowhere near 66 percent. Arguing, instead, that the overwhelming majority of non-voting citizens, having no substantive quarrel with the policies being followed by their representatives, are content to have their abstention interpreted as a passive vote for the status quo.

Undoubtedly, there is a fair measure of truth in this argument. Most human-beings are more likely to respond to decisions they don’t like, than they are to decisions of which they approve. In the case of Auckland, the Mayor’s and the Council’s success in bringing in a bearable rate increase gave its citizens less cause to “throw the bums out” than the cities and districts where rate rises judged to be excessive persuaded their electors to do just that.

At 90,000, Mayor Wayne Brown’s winning margin (on election day) would certainly suggest that those Aucklanders sufficiently motivated to cast a vote, did so more in a spirit of approbation than retribution.

Andrew Little’s success in the Wellington mayoral race, however, was less a pat on the back, than it was a “Come in, come in, quickly! The councillors are still tearing themselves apart in the council chamber. Get in there and do something!” from Wellingtonians well past the end of their tether. Reassuring proof that in New Zealand’s lopsidedly left-wing capital, at least, the belief that change is possible still has a pulse.

But what sort of change? And how much? These are the two questions most likely to unlock the secret of New Zealand’s shocking voter turnout. Because, driving both of them is the growing suspicion among voters that the people they elect are not the people in charge. Nothing is more likely to produce electoral inertia than the belief that voting changes nothing, or, at least, nothing very much.

What lies behind this suspicion? What is it that has contributed to the perception that elected local government representatives are incapable of following a course plotted by themselves?

The answer, of course, is the sheer organisational power wielded by local government bureaucracies; a power enshrined in the local government legislation which restricts elected members to determining only the council’s broad policy parameters, while reserving the implementation of those policies to an impregnable combination of Council staff and the gloriously misnamed “council-controlled organisations”. In practice this means that the entire process of policy formation and implementation is de facto dominated by the bureaucrats upon whom the elected councillors are almost completely dependent for information, expertise, and advice.

Such dependency permits the bureaucracy to construct a decisive bloc of councillors it can rely on to drive through its own preferred policy options. The first target is the mayor, whose capture is rendered straightforward by his or her need to work closely and effectually with the council’s chief executive officer. The mayor’s powers of patronage (the appointment of committee chairs, for example) may then be used to assemble a loyal majority of councillors. This majority ensures that council staff are almost never asked to do anything they oppose.

For those outside the magic circle, this situation very quickly becomes intolerable. On the rare occasions when the bureaucracy’s preferred course of action elicits such a strong and negative public reaction that even the “insider” councillors feel obliged to demonstrate a measure of democratic accountability by opposing it, a boiling-over of animosity and resentment is almost inevitable. Tempers fray. Accusations and insults fly. The temptation, from the mayor on down, is to turn on their “evil advisors” for advancing policies neither they nor the public have ever supported.

What most local government politicians fail to grasp is that the same bureaucracy that keeps critical council information confidential can, at need, ensure that embarrassing information relating to the conduct of uncooperative councillors finds its way to the news media. Should these leaks provoke aggressive and/or threatening behaviour from the targeted councillor, then the council staff have at hand carefully drafted “codes-of-conduct” behind which they shelter from councillors behaving badly.

Sharp-eyed members of the public observe these events and draw the obvious and depressing conclusion. That the law, bureaucratic manipulation, and council codes-of-conduct, are more than equal to the task of neutering any elected representatives foolish enough to take their jobs seriously.

It is not unknown, for example, for council lawyers to advise elected members who have campaigned strongly on local issues to take no part in any debates, and to refrain from voting on any resolutions, relating to these issues should they come before the Council. The oath they have sworn, they are forcefully reminded, requires them to be impartial. By taking a strong public stand on sensitive issues prior to Council deliberations, they make this impossible.

In other words, it is most unwise for any council candidate to come out strongly on any issue before they are elected, or afterwards, if such candour raises the slightest question relating to their impartiality. Citizens who throw up their hands in frustration at the milquetoast “blurbs” accompanying their voting papers, need do so no more. These candidates are simply being cautious. Local government is no place for reformers. Reform is not impartial.

It is no accident that changes to the purpose, organisation, and conduct of local government were contemporaneous with all the other radical changes associated with “Rogernomics” – and pursued with the same purpose. The overarching goal of all the fourth Labour Government’s neoliberal reforms was to strip democracy of its power to act against the interests of capital. Is it just coincidence that all the big and divisive debates concerning council-owned assets revolve around selling them – not acquiring them?

It is just possible, therefore, that the steadily declining number of New Zealanders participating in local government elections reflects their realisation that local democracy has become a Potemkin Village: “a construction or facade designed to deceive and hide the reality of a situation, making it appear better than it is.”

That being the case, some might argue that the real wonder is not that voter turnout is so low, but that it remains so high.

*Chris Trotter has been writing and commenting professionally about New Zealand politics for more than 30 years. He writes a weekly column for interest.co.nz. His work may also be found at http://bowalleyroad.blogspot.com.