The Auckland Council Youth Panel

An interesting press release from Joseph Bergin:

A member of the youth panel set up by Auckland Council is speaking out about wasteful spending and the concerning direction the panel is heading in.

This comes as a report is due out from the Auckland Council today which recommends local boards adopt a “youth board model” that could cost the Auckland ratepayer upwards of $330,000, this on top of a further $90,000 revealed to have been wasted by the current panel earlier this week.

I am a fan of youth involvement in politics, and I think it is a good idea that the Auckland Council has a youth panel.

However recommending that each local board also has a youth panel at a cost of $330,000 is tokenism gone wrong. The issues for young people will not differ that greatly from board area to board area.

The panel came under fire this week on social media following the release of an Official Information request by the New Zealand Young Nationals revealing that almost $90,000.00 was being spent by the current Foundation Youth Advisory Panel, on taxi rides, phone top ups, petrol reimbursements, flights and food for panel members.

I think the youth board would be best advised to provide some useful outputs for its funding, rather than just trying to clone itself 20 times over.