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Good
morning Friend,
Another week, another bad set of polls for the
Government – this time, on economic management – our 2025 Council CEO
Rich List was hit in the media over the weekend, and in between, we’ve
had waste exposed from Auckland to Waimakariri. Let's get into
it.
NEW POLL: Nicola Willis gets voters'
thumbs down on five of five economic management tests
👎
A majority of voters say the Government is
performing poorly on economic management across all five key issues
measured as part of last week's Taxpayers' Union-Curia
Poll.
In addition to the usual poll questions, our
pollsters ask voters to say whether they thought the Government was
doing a “good job" or “bad job" in each area, resulting in a net score
(i.e. the "good" number minus the "bad").
In no area did the Government receive a
net positive result. Ouch.
You can read the
full results over on our website.
Your humble Taxpayers' Union suggest the
message loud and clear: the Government's failure to be bold on
economic reform or cutting excessive government spending is hurting
them.
Nicola Willis's 'softly-softly' approach is not
cutting the mustard. There are more bureaucrats now than when Labour left
office, she is spending more than Grant Robertson was at the time of
the 2023 election, and the Government is even borrowing at a faster
rate! That’s caused inflation to track back up, and the ‘going for
growth’ has been too much talk, not enough action.
Nicola’s in London - talking about
Taxpayers' Union policies! 😍
Nicola Willis has been in London meeting with the
UK Chancellor of the Exchequer, Rachel Reeves. Reeves is battling grim
approval ratings and a bond market that is fast losing confidence in
her fiscal management. Sound familiar?
Willis visited our friends at the Adam
Smith Institute, where she was briefed on (and I’m quoting
directly here) “how innovative free market policies (such as Full
Expensing…) could help the Kiwi economy to grow.”
I wonder why she flew 13,000 miles to hear about
full
capital expensing when she could’ve just walked 100 yards down
Lambton Quay to come and see us? 😉
EXPOSED: Council CEO Rich
List 💸
On Friday, we dropped the 2025 Council CEO Rich List, and honestly, it’s
a jaw-dropper. These bosses have been raking it in over 2023–24, while
councils cry poor.
Most Kiwis are pinching pennies as rates
have exploded, but Council bosses are pocketing five and a half
times the average salary. On top of that, the average pay rise was
$16,000 last year – while rates are up 35% in just three
years.
At the top: Christchurch City Council ratepayers
forked out $1,027,696 in 12 months to cover their former CEO Dawn
Baxendale, and her replacement, Mary Richardson. Gore District’s
leadership shuffle cost ratepayers $771,558, while the Super City CEO
is on a super pay-packet of $735,935. Rotorua Lakes District Council’s
trio were paid $695,961, and Tauranga City Council’s Marty Grenfell
was on $623,658.
Now, in fairness to Mary Richardson in
Christchurch, her base salary is actually trimmed back from when she
first stepped in as interim CEO, but ratepayers still forked out over
a million dollars for the one role in a single year. Let’s hope we
can heap praise on Mary in next year’s tables.
The numbers are
eye watering, and will lead any ratepayers to ask: when did “town
clerk” turn into CEO-level pay? These aren’t startup moguls; they’re
bureaucrats. With very hefty pay packets.
Bottom line: public service is supposed to mean
service, not six-figure salaries while households struggle. Rates keep
climbing, but somehow there’s always room for another pay bump at the
top.
See how your council's Town Clerk's pay packet
compares at www.RichList.nz
OIA loophole: MPs keep their secrets safe
🔒
Here’s one for the “rules for thee, not for me”
file. Parliament’s just pushed ahead with an update to the Parliament
Bill — but guess whose spending still won't be covered by the
Official Information Act... Members of Parliament!
Spending by Ministers, Departments, and councils
are subject to OIA or its local government equivalent requests… but
your local MP? Off limits. No obligation to release the documents,
correspondence, or advice they rely on. Transparency for everyone
else, but secrecy for the very people making the laws.
Our Investigations Coordinator, Rhys (who, by
the way, I reckon must be the most prolific OIA user in the whole
country) went
on The Platform this week to call it out.
If MPs want to rebuild trust, the first
step is simple: apply the same sunlight rules to themselves that
almost every other public agency lives under.
Otherwise, the message is pretty clear:
transparency is great, just not when it’s about them...
Rangiora’s $28m Gold-Plated Gym
🏋️
Rangiora’s MainPower Stadium has been unveiled
with all the bells and whistles — and we mean all of them. Six
thousand square metres of courts, event space, a modern gym, fancy
lighting, passive cooling, and even rainwater harvesting.
Sounds flash, right? Well, it should. The final
bill came to $28 million. With just 7,100 households, that's
nearly $4,000 per household!
That’s a lot of ratepayer money for
essentially a gold-plated gym.
Sure, it’s picked up an industry award, but
trophies don’t pay the rent. And when households are tightening belts,
you’ve got to ask: do we really need top-shelf features in a community
gym? Or would a solid, no-frills stadium have done the job without the
champagne price tag?
TAXPAYER TALK: Mayor Andrew Tripe on the
Lowest Average Rates Increase in the Country
🎙️🎧
Rates across the country have soared, many into
the double-digits. But while most councils point fingers and find
excuses, Mayor for Whanganui Andrew Tripe has kept his average rates
increase as little as 2.2 percent – the lowest in the country this
year.
This
week, Mayor Tripe joins Peter Williams for a discussion on how
this was achieved, and the work behind getting his Council focused on
the basics, while keeping up with important infrastructure and
services, and paying down debt.
Speaking of podcasts... 🎧
Not to compete with our own
podcast, but our Executive Director, Jordan, was on The
Good Oil Podcast with Cam Slater. Jordan and Cam discuss
bureaucratic bloat, freedom of speech and why democracy needs
defending now more than ever. Watch
here, or find it in all your usual streaming
services.
As always,
thank you for your support Friend.
 Have a great
week.
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Tory
Relf
New Zealand Taxpayers’ Union
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