The Wellingtonian editorial: Three strikes and you're out

OPINION: The local body elections are looming and the same old faces have their hands up for re-election.

Some of them have been on the city council for 10, 20 even 30 years.

Are they still filling a useful role, or are they merely there to pick up a fat pay cheque at the end of the week?

Name recognition is everything, especially with the current ward system in operation. That's why several of them habitually run for mayor, even though their chances of success are minimal.

At about this stage of the triennium, media outlets begin to be deluged by hopeful councillors, some hardly heard from the rest of the time.

Suddenly they want to make pronouncements on everything from rates to dogs, the harbour to the Green Belt – anything to earn them a bit of publicity and some more votes in the next election.

Some would-be councillors run for other offices, such as the area health board, which gives them more name recognition and also increases the amount they are permitted to spend advertising themselves in the run-up to an election.

The worry about councillors who hang around too long is that the pay is so good they can't give it up.

As our front page story this week reveals, councillors are in line for another pay rise, and will then be earning a minimum of $69,240. But only three out of the 14 councillors are on such a "low" figure.

Most have their income boosted substantially by committee chairmanship, portfolio leadership or associate portfolio leadership.

The average wage of a councillor – disregarding their free mobile phone, laptop and car park in the middle of the city – is $88,087. This at a time when the average annual wage in New Zealand is just under $28,000.

Are some of our councillors really worth more than three times the average income, plus change?

The problem with some councillors who hang around too long is that they become so familiar with council procedures that they act more like managers than governors.

Those people would be better advised to seek employment as council officers. There is one such person who has taken this route, Stephen Rainbow.

Other councillors become bored and cynical and run out of fresh ideas.

But after years with the security of an attractive council salary, what are their employment options?

Many would never be able to realise anything like that sort of income outside council.

What's to be done?

How about a three-strikes-and-you're-out policy?

With the exception of the mayor, the councillors would be limited to three terms – nine years.

If the President of the United States can be limited to eight years, then nine is surely enough for our councillors.

The three strikes policy would ensure a turnover of councillors, surely a helpful thing.

There would be a few casualties with such a policy, the odd well-performing councillor forced out after nine years. But those people would have the ability to make a go of it in the public sector.

Only the council deadwood would struggle, but they would be able to console themselves with the thought that they'd lived the good life at the expense of Wellington rate-payers for nine years.

- The Wellingtonian