What’s In This Chapter?

• Te Tiriti o Waitangi/ Treaty of Waitangi
• Community involvement in council decision making
• Voter turnout
• Representation on local decision
  making bodies

For full details, graphs etc, refer to the chapter in pdf format »

Key Results - Civil And Political Rights

• All the councils of the 12 cities report active work in strengthening their relationship and engagement with tangata whenua to incorporate Maori perspectives into policy, planning and operations.
• Slightly more than one third of residents (35.0%) in the 12 cities believe that they have an understanding of how their council makes decisions.
• About half of people nationally and in the 12 cities would like to have more of a say in what their council does.
• Just over half (55.0%) of residents in the 12 cities say the public has some, or a large, influence on the decisions their council makes.
• Voter turnout is higher for elections at the national than local level, with around 80.0% turnout in the 2005 general election, compared to an average of 42.5% for city councils (i.e. district councils excluded) in the 2004 local council elections.
• Preliminary results show that average voter turnout across city and district councils in the 2007 local council elections was 43.2%.
• There are gender and ethnicity disparities in representation on the local governance bodies of local councils and school boards.

Civil and Political Rights

This chapter looks at the participation of residents in representative governance
and decision making processes at local and national levels. Civil and political rights are a fundamental aspect of human rights, protecting the ability of people to participate in politics and decision making by expressing views, protesting, having input and voting.

Why This Is Important

Enabling democratic local decision making is one of the key purposes of local government and is also important in promoting the social, economic, environmental and cultural wellbeing of communities. Effective civil and political systems allow our communities to be governed in a way that promotes justice and fairness and supports people’s quality of life.

The population in our cities is becoming increasingly diverse, with more people from different ethnic
groups and cultural backgrounds. It is important that we understand how our institutions and processes
can continue to support people’s civil and political involvement. This understanding can also help us work to remove barriers that limit people’s ability to exercise their civic rights and to participate in decision making.

Te Tiriti o Waitangi / the Treaty of Waitangi establishes the rights of Maori in Aotearoa/New Zealand. Local councils have a role in facilitating the involvement of tangata whenua¹ in the governance of their area.

Key Points

About one third of residents (35.0%) in our cities believe that they have an understanding of how their council makes decisions. This does not appear to be based on lack of interest in council affairs, as about half of people would like to have more of a say in what their council does. Pacific Islands and Asian/Indian residents in particular seek more say in council decision making.

Just over half of residents in our cities (55.0%) believe that the public has some or a large influence on the decisions that their council makes.

Residents of the cities in the Auckland region generally have more concerns about their level of understanding and input to their local council’s decision making. They also have lower levels of confidence that their council makes decisions that are in the best interest of their city.

Voter turnout is higher for elections at the national than local level, with 80.9% turnout nationally in the 2005 general election compared with an average of 42.5% in the 2004 local city council elections. Across the 12 cities combined, voter turnout declined slightly between the 2001 and 2004 local elections. Some details around the 2007 local council elections were not available in time for inclusion in this report. Based on preliminary results, average voter turnout across city and district councils in the 2007 elections was 43.2% There are gender and ethnicity disparities in representation on the local governance bodies of local councils and school boards.

The councils of all our 12 cities report an active work programme in strengthening their relationship and
engagement with tangata whenua to incorporate Maori perspectives into policy, planning and operations.

Treaty of Waitangi

• All the councils of the 12 cities report active work in strengthening their relationship and engagement with tangata whenua to incorporate Maori perspectives into policy, planning and operations.

Community involvement in council decision making

• One third of city residents believe that they have an understanding of how their council makes decisions.
• About half of people would like to have more of a say in what their council does.
• Just over half of city residents believed that the public has influence on the decisions that their council makes.

Voter turnout

• Voter turnout for national elections is nearly double that of local level elections.

Representation on local decision making bodies

• Women are underrepresented on the local councils of the 12 cities.
• The ethnic composition of school boards does not reflect the ethnic diversity of city populations.