2024: The Year in Review
The good, the bad, and the ugly of what happened at Council
Every time I’ve campaigned for local government, a core reason I was running was that, even looking in from the outside, the status quo was no longer acceptable. Having seen the inside, the status quo makes me furious. 2024 was a year in between elections (no local or central election), but Hamilton City Council still managed two by-elections, was dominated by the Long Term Plan process, and where there were shenanigans after shenanigans from central government using us as scapegoats. What a time to be in local government!
Speaking out and speaking up
It took me most of January to write this piece about the abuse, harassment, and disinformation campaign I had experienced in the first year of being a city councillor. It was read nearly 5,000 times, informed mainstream newspaper articles, and created some very interesting conversations with fellow council staff, and senior people in other government and local organisations. Sometimes, describing out loud what everyone is observing permits other people to also say, “It’s not okay”.
I have no regrets writing the piece - publishing it felt like I was finally being honest about the darkest parts of being an elected representative. I’m deeply humbled and grateful to be a city councillor, but many of our democratic systems are profoundly broken and flawed. Until we can be honest about them, we can’t redesign or improve them.
Inside the eye of the storm
Content warning: discussion of harassment, abuse, attempted suicide, and murder, as well as examples of disinformation.
In February I started writing my summaries of Council meetings. I know they’re long (admittedly much shorter than the 11,000 pages of agendas I read last year…), I know they can be a bit boring, but boy, is it interesting to see how the discussion changes when people have an actual understanding of what we decide, some of the nuances of what’s actually on the table, and how often we make the choice to muck around the community. One of my 2024 goals was to make sure I was using my position and knowledge to break down big issues and support people to be better informed, and this was one way I wanted to tackle it. It’s also interesting how many people - people who didn’t comment or like the post - want to talk to me about things they read when I run into them irl.
I got to be in a few videos for Council - from encouraging people to submit on the Long Term Plan to Tiktok memes about water services. A couple of my videos were also shared pretty widely - from the video I took when visiting Rototuna High Schools, which did the rounds in some urbanist Facebook groups, to my debate on Maaori wards. I’ve never had anything shared, commented on, or watched as much as that debate - with 11,000 likes and nearly 70,000 views on Tiktok alone. It really highlighted to me that we hide our democracy away, and how valuable it would be if more of our debates in the chamber were more easily accessible.
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I also started some vlogs about what my days look like. Considering the security issues I wrote about in January, I normally publish them several days afterwards, but it’s been useful to daylight how many different ways you’re pulled as an elected member - from reading hundreds of pages of agendas a week, to early starts to accommodate as much as you can of community events and meetings, to how I end up seeing so much more of the city than I ever did in an office job. I even had a family from Auckland be inspired to catch Te Huia and holiday in Hamilton after vlogging about the trips I’ve done on it!
Small wins despite our new government
Speaking of Te Huia, after a massive public push to ensure it stayed, we celebrated it surviving the first year of this National-ACT-NZ First government. Losing Te Huia would have been such a massive blow to climate action, transport choices, and just the future of our city and region.
We also got to see some of the successes of the Climate Emergency Response Fund - like the beautiful Hayes Paddock community area - before the new government ripped it away, including projects we’d already consulted on. The CERF funding comes from the Emissions Trading Scheme - so basically, the taxes that climate polluters pay go into this fund that helps city and district councils enable more walking, cycling, and public transport. I wouldn’t say that all of the projects have been a success - but certainly, we’ve seen a massive increase in engagement and support from local schools, which is heartening, considering school traffic is a major cause of carbon emissions and congestion in Kirikiriroa. A good shorthand for wondering why a project was done is to look at how many schools are nearby, and you can usually find their feedback in our reports that have come to the Council. We also used some of that money to put in heaps of bus shelters - 62 bus stops were upgraded, which includes simple accessibility things like curb cuts, and 37 stops got new shelters - so heaps of little improvements within our remit that make our bus network more useable.
Representing Kirikiriroa
There were plenty of opportunities to represent our beautiful city - the most exciting was writing a feature for North & South magazine about what’s interesting and exciting about the fastest-growing city in Aotearoa.
I also got to do some pretty cool speaking gigs - from the NZ Institute of Planners conference, to the To The Front Kirikiriroa holiday programme (a gender-inclusive music development programme), the opening of the refreshed Transport Centre, the Matariki ki Waikato opening. The biggest honour was the Kirikiriroa leg of the national hikoi. I was one of the judges for Kirikiriroa Zinefest (a dream job as a former zine stall holder). I judged not one but two intermediate speech competitions at Berkley Middle School with Dr Jeremy Mayall. I also got invited to speak to 40 five to eight-year-olds about what the Council does, and that was maybe my favourite challenge of the year: trying to describe all the different parts of my job in a way they’d understand. I have never been so diplomatic as when I showed them the class photo of Council and they asked “wow, are those ALL your friends”. I also attended sector events for seniors and the disability community, events by InsideOut, Citizen’s Advice Bureau, Glenview Community Centre, Pukete Neighbourhood House, and Western Community Centre, Hamilton Airport shareholder’s day, Arbor Day at Waiwhakareke, Koroneihana and Kiingi Tūheitia’s tangihanga, the Meteor’s 10th birthday, bowel cancer awareness bike rides, and public events for the Long Term Plan. By my math, I attended nearly 200 hours of community events and meetings in 2024 alone.
There were many things to celebrate - from our new library Te Kete Aronui winning the NZ Institute of Architects 2024 Waikato/Bay of Plenty Public Architecture award, the new entryway to the Hamilton Gardens, the finishing of Te Ara Pekapeka (the bridge to Peacocke), the new Borman Road connection, the new Exscite exhibition and Museum upgrades, the Nature in the City work in Donny Park, as well as community projects like Te Rūnanga o Kirikiriroa kaumātua housing, Salvation Army social housing, rangatahi and whaanau support base Te Whare Pukerangiora, plus the many art exhibitions and awards nights I attended.
One of the biggest wins for me personally was introducing rainbow sector meetings - a regular calendar invite for elected members to meet with representatives from the LGBTQIA+ sector. This had previously never happened and I hope is one of the first steps to our rainbow community feeling better represented at Council - especially in the face of rising violence and hate. On that note, I was beyond pleased that the crowd-funding project I ran with Nancy Caiger was successful, and an extremely cool piece of queer art now sits inside the upgraded transport centre.
The bad and the ugly
Some of the less good things included the behaviour of Cr Andrew Bydder, which as the holder of the disability portfolio on Council, I fielded over 40 complaints from members of the public (outside the additional code of conduct complaints received by Council). The amendment to reject the report and impose no penalties thankfully failed 7-4 (with Crs Wilson, Taylor, Macindoe, and Pike supporting no penalties). However, some of the public discourse was also disappointing - with the media (rightfully) censoring some of his comments, and instead, members of the public started online discussions to joke about which slur was which. Of course, that included a member of the public insinuating it was a specific disability that I have, and including a photo of the disability just to be really clear. That was a special kind of shit.
The behaviour displayed during the Long Term Plan was also frustrating, with other councillors making comments about my experience and knowledge, dismissing motions I put up personally (discuss the motion, not the person), and even at one point being meowed at from across the room by another councillor. Yes, meowed at, like a cat. Something I have noticed over this term is how deeply offended some people are by others even existing in the same space, let alone using the same rights and privileges afforded to them (like say, choosing to bring a motion to chamber during the LTP).
This is, of course, ironic considering how this year had some of the poorest attendance to briefings and workshops that I’ve seen this term - at some points, as few as 5 out of 15 councillors were present at some briefings. I’ve probably heard one of our councillors lament that he’s the only man who turns up to events and meetings umpteen times, to the point where I’m pretty tired of hearing the comment. Before I was elected, I was a senior advisor at the DHB. I used to write reports that went to senior leadership meetings, I know what it’s like to work to hard deadlines, to have to make sure you’ve got your information correct, and I know how pissed off I would be if my reports weren’t read, if people didn’t show up, and then made decisions ignorant of the information provided specifically for them. So I’m as frustrated on behalf of our staff as much as I am frustrated that the bar has been allowed to get so low.
I would describe 2024 as a year I was furious more often than I wasn’t - furious at the poor behaviour of my colleagues, furious at how broken democracy has become, and furious at our new government and lazy attacks on local decision making. During the Long Term Plan, we fought back against outright austerity but still had to compromise to get votes across the line, compromises which still keep me up at night: Nature in the City was deferred (stopped) for three years - but not four like it was originally proposed, we stopped our transport projects from being cut by another 50% (after already being cut 40% though), and having to hear that we “couldn’t afford” a climate risk assessment (a motion which I lost 3-11).
We’re seeing increased natural disasters worldwide, and it worries me that we still have people sitting around our council table who don’t understand that we can’t afford not to act. We’ve already been briefed on the insurance implications of climate change for local government, but of course, not everyone showed up (surprise surprise). We’re going into a local government election year - but not just that, a binding referendum for Maaori wards at Hamilton City Council. It’s a year that is critical for people to be engaged, understand what’s at stake, and understand how their actions (or inaction) could change our city.
To 2025, and beyond
There were so many wonderful, delightful, heartwarming things that happened in 2024 - and I wanted to write this to remind myself that. I am proud of our city, and I’m proud to represent this city. I often think about how to frame the things that make me furious, because the behaviour I see, the broken systems I engage with - it’s not hard for them to disenfranchise, but disenfranchisement only helps the status quo. I hope the nationwide momentum we’ve seen is the catalyst for more local change - and 2025 would be the year to do it.
If you’re reading this and thinking, I too would like to live the highs and lows of being a city councillor - please flick me an email. We need more people who will turn up, do the readings, and be a positive representative for our city. That’s the only way we can truly change the status quo.
A group of group sat around the other night bemoaning the state of our fragile democracy in Aotearoa and the fact we found ourselves submitting on so many things over the holidays. And what we came up with was that this current Govt is not practising good governance for all the people and our future generations. We wondered about citizen's assemblies such as the one run in Ireland on abortion rights. Having run for local body elections myself I can attest to some on the ground nastiness. Mostly it was ok, standing outside our local supermarket campaigning but at least one or two times a day, I met someone people with incredibly racist views and who seemed keen on my demise. And felt they had to tell me so. Very unpleasant. But we need the good humans to run for local body elections (coming up soon). So huge thanks for what you do. It's tough and relentless. But oh, so important.
Proving once again you're a gifted writer and communicator. From the bottom of my heart, thank you for continuing to paint in vivid prose the confronting yet hopeful picture of life within local government here in Aotearoa New Zealand. What a year, and what a legacy you're creating in serving the people of Kerikeriroa Hamilton and inspiring new voices and generations to serve. Kia kaha.