Duncan Garner: The Far North Council Needs Sunlight

This is what happens when local government forgets who it works for.

The Far North District Council is not some private club. It is not a constitutional convention. It is not a treaty negotiation body. It is a council. Roads, rates, pipes, potholes, footpaths, rubbish, consents. That is the job. Yet in the Far North, the council seems increasingly comfortable drifting into territory far bigger than most ratepayers ever agreed to.

And when people ask questions, they are treated like the problem.

Last time I tried to talk to Mayor Moko Tepania about what was going on up there, he told me to F off. Charming. But also revealing. Because that is exactly the attitude too many New Zealanders now sense from public bodies when they raise basic questions about power, accountability and race-based governance.

Shut up. Move on. Nothing to see here.

Except there is plenty to see.

Councillor Davina Smolders has been doing the job others should have been doing. Reading the papers. Asking the awkward questions. Challenging the process. She has become a nuisance to the comfortable consensus up there, which is usually a sign someone is getting close to the truth.

She says the council’s arrangements are now built around a stacked pathway. First, decisions are shaped through the Māori Tohono department. Then they go through a committee loaded heavily one way. Then they go to council, where the votes are already there. Her description was blunt: “It’s just a smooth runway that they have currently.”

That should worry every ratepayer in the district.

Remember, this began with unelected iwi representatives being given voting rights on a council committee. Not elected by ratepayers. Not removable by ratepayers. Yet sitting there with voting power and now, according to Smolders, asking ratepayers to fund their own administrative support and even a GIS mapping expert.

Smolders put it simply. “They’re outright asking the Far North District ratepayers to pay for their processes.”

Sorry, but no. Ratepayers are not an ATM for governance experiments they were never properly asked about.

Now we get to the Mana Whakahono a Rohe agreements. These are not minor housekeeping documents. Smolders says the Ngāpuhi agreement includes clauses that amount to the council recognising sovereignty. Her concern is not symbolic. It is practical. She says it gives different groups a direct pathway into decision-making that ordinary locals do not get.

“If you were Joe Bloggs, you would get three to five minutes as a deputation,” she said. Ngāpuhi, under the agreement, gets “structured engagement” and “a direct pathway to influence all decisions.”

That is not equal treatment. That is two lanes into the same council chamber.

And here is the part that should make Wellington wake up. Smolders says there was no public consultation. She says the council is preparing to sign five more of these agreements with iwi and one more with a hapū, again without going to the community.

How can that possibly be acceptable?

If these agreements are so harmless, put them in front of the public. Explain them. Defend them. Let people challenge them. Let ratepayers see the legal advice. Let them understand whether these arrangements survive future RMA changes or whether they are being rushed through to get ahead of them.

Because Smolders says that is exactly the concern. She wants the minister to “stand up, step in, get here, have a look.”

She is right.

Local Government Minister Simon Watts cannot keep hiding behind process while local democracy is bent out of shape. He does not need to agree with every critic. He does not need to take over the council tomorrow. But he does need to send in serious scrutiny before these agreements are locked in and ratepayers are told after the fact that it is all too late.

This is not anti-Māori. It is pro-democracy. There is a difference, and grown-ups know it.

Partnership does not mean bypassing the public. Consultation does not mean hiding the real implications in council papers. Representation does not mean giving unelected people power ordinary voters cannot remove.

The mayor can tell people to F off if he likes. But ratepayers pay the bills, and they are entitled to answers.

The Far North does not need more secrecy. It needs sunlight.

Listen to the full pod below