The future of local government

Here is what Labour’s hand picked panel of the future of local government has recommended in its final report:

• Taxpayers to hand over $1 billion a year to fund local councils, on top of rates
• Lower voting age to 16
• Make STV compulsory for all Councils
• Allow Councils to charge congestion charges, bed taxes, visitor levies and value-added taxes
• Rejects equality of suffrage as a western-style ideal (in fact it is a universal human right)
• Allow every Council to have direct Iwi/Hapu appointed members with equal voting rights to elected Crs
• Go from three to four year term

It is depressing to see government body after government body dismiss equality of suffrage as a western concept.

In 1948 the Universal Declaration of Human Rights proclaimed:

The will of the people shall be the basis of the authority of government; this will shall be expressed in periodic and genuine elections which shall be by universal and equal suffrage and shall be held by secret vote or by equivalent free voting procedures.

The UDRP was adopted with not a single dissenting vote in the UN General Assembly.

In 1966 we had the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights which says:

To vote and to be elected at genuine periodic elections which shall be by universal and equal suffrage and shall be held by secret ballot, guaranteeing the free expression of the will of the electors;

The ICCPR has 173 countries that are party to it.

If the Government wants to adopt this report, they should withdraw New Zealand from the UDRP and the ICCPR.