Nelson's youngest city councillor says an extra year in the council term would encourage higher voter turnout.
Nelson city councillor Rohan O'Neill-Stevens says a four-year term for local government would help voters make better decisions. Photo: Rohan O'Neill-Stevens / Facebook
The city council has today agreed to back a remit to Local Government New Zealand that the electoral cycle for councils be extended from three to four years.
Councillors said at a meeting today that a four-year term would lead to better stability.
Rohan O'Neill-Stevens said it would also help voters make better decisions.
"If you've got four years with someone particularly useless you'll just be more motivated to vote at the end of that (term).
"It encourages people to take a much harder look if you're going to be dealing with them for a slightly longer period of time."
A number of local authorities have already supported the remit proposed by several North Island councils, and which was to be tabled with Local Government New Zealand.
The Northland Regional Council's remit said a four-year term would promote longer-term thinking among councils, and encourage councillors to "lengthen investment horizons" when making decisions on large investments.
It would also help new councillors to learn the role by allowing more time, and reduce administration costs.
The council's remit said possible drawbacks included that a four-year term might be a deterrent to potential candidates unwilling to commit to office that long.
O'Neill-Stevens said a four-year term would strike a balance over allowing room for creative thought and long-term thinking, without being so long the public could "end up with people stuck too long".
Councillor Matt Lawrey said he saw arguments for and against, but preferred the status quo.
He said a four-year term presented "quality control" challenges.
"I do think if you've got people who aren't doing a really great job then the public should have the right to move them on... if you think about three terms on council which isn't an uncommon period of service, then three terms goes from nine years to 12."
Councillor Tim Skinner challenged senior council staff to make a call on whether they would like to see councillors around the table for a longer period.
"I don't know if it's like betting on horses when the election comes up or you go 'oh gosh, here we go'," Skinner asked of the chief executive.
Pat Dougherty raised a laugh from the chamber when he responded: "It depends".
He added that a longer term was something he supported.
"This was a question I was asked somewhere through my application process: What would be the one change I would make to local government, and my answer was 'a four-year term'.
"There are three distinct stages to the triennium and if we have four years I think we'd get a whole lot more done than we do at the moment."
The remit will be among others tabled at the LGNZ annual meeting in Wellington on Friday, August 21.
