Quote of the week prize has to go to Shane Jones: "In Otago, that council, which does have a vast hinterland, is dominated and has been overtaken by these demonic eggbeaters out of Dunedin.” Vision swirl through my head – is it the egg beaters themselves that are demonic, or the people holding the eggbeaters? And why are they holding eggbeaters?

When I asked the internet, font of all knowledge, for references to demonic eggbeaters, the best it could come up with is Demonic Egg Eaters. There’s an online game called EvoWorld in which you evolve from a fly through a variety of other animals, with number 32 evolution being a Demonic Egg Eater. Demonic Egg Eaters can be eaten by Ghostly Reapers, Pumpkin Ghosts, Grim Reapers, Small Demons and Zombies. However, Demonic Egg Eaters are very limited in their diets – they can only eat food from the Demonic Biome with the best choice being Demonic Eggs.

My hypothesis is Shane Jones knows someone who plays EvoWorld. Or perhaps he plays it himself. So, when he was interviewed on RNZ by Corin Dann, Demonic Egg Eaters were at the top of his mind because he wants to evolve into a Demonic Bat (noting eventually he wants to evolve into a Grim Reaper, the top of the EvoWorld evolutionary chain).



We could debate whether Shane Jones is already a Grim Reaper. Or whether that title should be given to David Seymour. But I completely digress from Demonic Egg Beaters and regional councils.

The coalition government has decided to simplify local government, because they consider the current system overly cumbersome and bureaucratic, and not fit for purpose. It’s hard to argue with the overly cumbersome criticism. We have three different types of local government set-up in the reforms associated with the Resource Management Act (1991):

- Regional Councils (11 of these): responsible for environmental management in general, including flood protection, air quality, pest control, also public transport, civil defence, bulk water supply and treatment.

- City/District Councils (territorial authorities, 67 of these): responsible for roads, three waters, rubbish, libraries, parks, land use and planning.

- Unitary Authorities (6 of these) where the regional and city council roles are combined.

For example, in Queenstown we have the Queenstown-Lakes District Council as our territorial authority and the Otago Regional Council (full of demonic eggbeaters) as our regional council.

In our current system, all areas except those with Unitary Authorities can have multiple sets of councillors, one for the regional council and one for each territorial authority. In the government’s new plan, regional councils and councillors will be disbanded and the local mayors will form ‘Combined Territories Boards’ (CTBs) which will take over the governing role of regional councils. The CTBs will be required to devise a way forward over the next two years, which might be continuing with the CTB or setting up regional agencies to take over planning for specific areas of activity, such as public transport. The CTBs will be tasked with ensuring their new structure is:

- Aligned with government national priorities.

- Affordable short and long term.

- Provides better, cheaper, local services.

- Has clear leadership.

- Includes a local voice in decision making.

- Takes account of Treaty commitments.

- Is realistic.

This is going to be more efficient and less bureaucratic than our current system? There’s a positive about each region figuring out its own plan that suits its constituency. But there’s also inefficiency in having multiple models to carry out the same roles across the country. Not to mention, which jobs are we saving to create efficiencies? It looks like the only given is a reduction in the savings from abolishing regional councillors. Council responsibilities such as three waters and rubbish management, roading, facilities, planning, consenting, are all going to need to continue just the same and will need a staff of bureaucrats who make these things happen. And what skills do the Mayors have in design of systems which deliver better and cheaper local services? That isn’t the basis on which we voted them in.

The main jobs we are going to reduce are the positions of elected representatives – the people who are critical to the nature of democracy. The hallmark of democracy is citizens' role in making laws and public policies by regularly choosing their leaders and voting in assemblies or referenda. By definition, removing the regional councillors will make our local government less democratic because there is less representation by the people, no matter the dictate to the mayors that they include a local voice in decision making. While I can think of a plethora of reasons the Otago Regional Council has failed our region and my local area, I am not convinced that taking part of the democratic process away is the best solution.

In addition, we are reducing focus on the environment. With the coalition government it’s a near certainty this is deliberate. Shane Jones believes in ‘economy over environment’ – he’s happy to kill Freddie the Frog in the interests of the mining industry…”Drill, baby drill." No matter that our very existence is reliant on the environment. Regional Councils and their councillors are tasked with putting environment front and centre, are elected on that basis and there’s no certainty any new structure will have the environment as a major consideration.

As well as having a vendetta against our environment, Shane Jones has his own hypothesis about why he called regional councillors demonic egg beaters. “Because I’m a politician,” he told Corin Dann. Shane is following the Trump playbook, in which you can call anyone anything if you are a powerful politician, including calling women “Piggy,” and “ugly.” So much edifying political debate to look forward to in the ensuing year of central government electioneering. I can’t wait.