This is a story about Local Government NZ and how this private business represents New Plymouth Ratepayers.

This is a story about Local Government NZ and how this organisation represents New Plymouth Ratepayers.

We posted recently that the Western Bay of Plenty Council has pulled out of LGNZ as have 6 other Councils in NZ in recent months.

We had been looking at this topic ourselves and whether it’s a good thing for New Plymouth to be a member of LGNZ.

People could be forgiven for thinking Local Government NZ is a government department, you would think it was. But it is not a government department, it is a private business funded mostly with ratepayers’ money. (The rest of the income is from Taxpayer money). The Company is called:

NEW ZEALAND LOCAL
GOVERNMENT ASSOCIATION
INC
(TRADING AS Local
Government New Zealand or
LGNZ)

In the case of New Plymouth we, the ratepayers, pay $101,936 p.a (incl GST) for membership fees.

With roughly 70 NZ Councils as members that’s somewhere around $7 million income p.a paid by NZ ratepayers to LGNZ for membership fees.

So who is LGNZ ? This is their own description on their website.
https://www.lgnz.co.nz/about-lgnz/who-we-are/

You may notice it says a lot about the benefits for LGNZ and benefits for Councils to be a member.

Attached here is the LGNZ constitution.
https://d1pepq1a2249p5.cloudfront.net/media/documents/LGNZ-rules-changes-adopted-at-2021-AGM_h1x9ruT.pdf

Lots and lots of clauses and words and many, many pages – scroll down about 10 pages and you get a very good indication of the rest of the document – the word ratepayer does not appear to be mentioned.

We asked the NPDC what were the benefits of belonging to LGNZ – they gave us this link:
https://www.lgnz.co.nz/about-lgnz/membership/benefits-of-membership/

These benefits seem to be for the people who work at the council ? Or for LGNZ ? There is no mention of the word ratepayer on this page.

They do mention the words democracy and community but whether that truly relates to the ratepayer who pays for LGNZ’s ideas is questionable.

LGNZ talk about advocacy work and putting in submissions on behalf of NZ Councils. Again looking closer at this there does appear to be limited mention of the word ratepayer.

Attached (to the right) is a page of advocacy work LGNZ has suggested to the Government (their recommended funding and financing tool). This is a page of bullet points with around 25 different ways to charge the ratepayer, or taxpayer, more money.

As ratepayers we are paying membership to an organisation, who are asking our government to introduce legislation, so we can pay even more taxes and rates. Why on earth would we as ratepayers want to pay for membership to that ?

The LGNZ Website introduces their funding and financing “tool” in this way:

“November 2024
We set out 25 funding and financing tools that could make a difference to Councils and alleviate pressure on ratepayers.”

How on earth would 25 new taxes, levies and fees “alleviate pressure” for ratepayers.

What the ratepayer badly, badly needs, is for Councils to stop creating ways to spend money, and to stop increasing debt, and to get back to doing their core function only.

We do not need to pay an organisation where the word “ratepayer” is not recognised, or thought is not given to the effect they may have on a ratepayer, yet they are paid by our rates to write documents presenting ways to charge us more fees, fines, charges, taxes, levies etc, etc, etc.

We also learn from this website that Mayor Neil Holdom is the Provincial Sector Chair and Representative on the National Council of LGNZ. The National Council acts as the governing body of LGNZ. Neil Holdom is a strong supporter of LGNZ, naturally, as he has a senior role within the organisation. When it comes to voting about whether to belong to LGNZ, there is a very strong conflict of interest because of the position he holds at LGNZ. We believe in any votes about remaining with LGNZ, Neil Holdom should not vote, because of this conflict of interest.

The NPDC pays $101k + p.a to LGNZ, so we asked what specific financial savings the NPDC gains by belonging to LGNZ. The answer:

“Council is unable to assign a dollar amount to the benefits we receive”.

$101,936 p.a and no idea what financial benefit that has for the ratepayer, or even their own operation.

Would possible savings be:
If advocacy is done on their behalf by LGNZ does that mean they don’t need to employ those staff at the NPDC ? Or do they still employ them anyway ? If staff training is all done online does that have a saving by not developing their own training ? Or do they still employ a training team and do that anyway ?

Surely if an invoice for $101,936 is paid annually you would have some idea how that would be worth at least close to that value in savings to your organisation.

We had been led to believe that the NPDC got an enormous discount on their power bill by signing up for power through LGNZ. This wasn’t mentioned as a benefit or cost saving, so we went back to check if they did get a discount on power through LGNZ.

We did not hear back from the NPDC, so we took that to mean they do not receive actual financial benefits for the ratepayer. And no financial benefits to ratepayers are mentioned on the LGNZ website.

We know a couple of sitting Councillors have said leaving LGNZ would be beneficial to the ratepayer, but again this has not been supported by the majority of New Plymouth Councillors, or the Mayor.

if there is no actual benefit to belonging to an organisation which rarely mentions a ratepayer, but the ratepayer foots the bill, then we at the Alliance think it is well and truly past time for New Plymouth to leave LGNZ.

In October we will be looking to vote for Councillors who agree that the NPDC should also exit LGNZ.