By Gwynn Compton
Controversial opinion: Local government politicians are generally underpaid for the role they perform. Every three years, our local government elections bring out a wide range of campaign promises, with one of those recurring themes being the idea that – if elected – a candidate proposes to cut the pay of their fellow councillors. The problem? It’s not something that councillors can decide, and for good reason.
The pay for elected members in local government isn’t set by councils themselves, rather it’s determined independently by the Remuneration Authority. The idea is that this body sets fair and consistent pay rates for elected officials across the country. It takes into account factors such as the size of the council, the population it services, and the complexity of the role to determine how many hours are likely to be needed and what is reasonable compensation for that time.
This independent process is all designed to stop elected member pay becoming a political football or being weaponised by those who are independently well off to undermine those seeking office who might not be.
This, however, doesn’t stop candidates from trying. One local candidate here in Kāpiti proposed doing just this by saying they’d bring to council a resolution for councillors to take a 20 percent pay cut over the next three years. Even after it was pointed out that councillors have no legal power to cut each other’s pay, they continued to deny this reality. Beyond the legal impasse, there’s significant ethical issues too. There’s a huge conflict of interest at play, which is why the Remuneration Authority was created in the first place to ensure that pay is set separately from the sector and done so consistently and transparently across councils, without political bias or personal agendas creeping in.
There’s an equity issue too. If councillors could slash each other’s pay, it could deter people from less wealthy backgrounds from seeking public office. Local government demands long hours, heavy workloads, and the sacrifices from having a public profile. I know from personal experience that a role I expected to be between 20-30 hours a week depending on what was happening quickly ballooned out to 40-50.
This means that for many who are elected they’re not able to hold other employment during their time in office while only being paid effectively a part-time salary. While nobody is getting elected to local government for the money, we all still have bills to pay, home loans to service/rent to pay, and our whānau to clothe and feed. It’s easy for those who are independently wealthy or are self-employed in industries not impacted by the role to forget this when campaigning to cut elected members’ pay. Sometimes I suspect that driving others of lesser economic means out of public life might even be the point of these promises.
Finally, there’s also the question of democratic integrity. Councillors are elected to make decisions on behalf of their communities about things like infrastructure, planning, the environment, and services. Using their position to interfere with each other’s pay crosses into self-serving or punitive behaviour, which would only serve to undermine public trust in the institution.
Of course, there’s nothing stopping a candidate saying they’ll donate a portion or all of their pay to charity. Once they’ve been paid what they do with that money is their own business. But trying to cut the pay of fellow councillors isn’t just contrary to law, it undermines fairness, equity, and the very integrity of local democracy.
Gwynn Compton is a political commentator and has more articles here: https://localaotearoa.substack.com/