A Word from the Mayor

Last week I attended the LGNZ annual conference at Te Pae in Christchurch along with other Mayors, Chief Executives and elected members.

This provides a great opportunity to mix and mingle with Mayors from across the country and listen and learn from their experiences and offer some of your own insights. One of the true values of attending is the opportunity during the breaks to meet up with colleagues I find that over a cuppa you learn as much as what you do from some of the keynote speakers as typically some inspire, some challenge and some frustrate, but that’s simply how it goes.

Naturally, Local Government and Central Government both have key roles to play in leading and designing the future of our country.

While those in central government are responsible for national priorities and decisions, people in local government are responsible for community priorities and decisions, and they are accountable to their communities. It was rather refreshing however to hear Minister Chris Bishop state “we have been a bad partner with you for a long time now, with all of you relying on coordination across half a dozen central government Ministries to assist you in serving your communities”. “You don’t have to convince me about the difficulties you face in this coordination believe me we have not made it easy for you”. Not wanting to take this statement out of context but I do want to acknowledge the dilemma that both central and local government are facing as we cope with the increasingly complex pressures some within our control but some maybe not!!

Another highlight of the conference was to attend the Women in Local Government working breakfast to speak to and share with other women focussed on issues of mutual interest last but by no means least the Mayor's Taskforce for Jobs 25 year celebration – to hear the former Mayor of Christchurch City Garry Moore speak about the early endeavours of this movement to link businesses to young people to help with the connection into sustainable employment.