Local Government New Zealand (LGNZ) is an association of local councils, first formed in 1988, the membership of which costs Whakatāne District Council about $50,000 annually.

The purpose of LGNZ is to champion, connect and support local government.

I recently attended its annual general meeting and conference in Wellington. Although I couldn’t make it to hear the Prime Minister’s 10-minute opening speech, it is available on YouTube, the transcript is on Parliament’s website and it was widely covered in national media.

What was clear from discussions in the room afterwards was that the speech was direct and blunt, and went down like a lead balloon with many of the delegates.

To tell you the truth, I don’t find these conferences that satisfying. Too much holding of hands and singing kumbaya for my liking. I have yet to hear any solutions to any of our many major problems.

One definite benefit of attending the annual conference though is to meet other elected members and learn what goes on in other parts of the country.

We’re increasingly called on to support each other in times of adversity (think natural disaster), so building those relationships in ‘peace time’ is important.

Although I consider myself to sit left-centre on the political spectrum, I found myself agreeing with much of what the Prime Minister had to say.

Readers of this column will be aware that from the beginning of my term, and in the lead up to the long-term plan, I emphasised affordability to ratepayers, financial sustainability, reduced wastage, increased efficiency and the need to focus on critical infrastructure, which can be defined as ‘essential physical and virtual systems and assets that are vital for the functioning of society, economy, and security. e.g. water, transport (roads & bridges), waste management and the like’.

In my Mayor’s Expectations for LTP 2024-2034 document (which you can find on the council’s website), I laid it all out quite plainly. It is as if this Government was reading my notes. It is fairly obvious that when times are tough, you tighten your belt.

Later in the conference, there were appearances and speeches from other big hitters from across the House, such as Chris Hipkins, Chris Bishop, Shane Jones and Kieren McAnulty, and I found myself agreeing with many of the things that each of them said.

I agree with Shane Jones about the need for a focus on energy and have been advocating in the renewable energy space since I first entered local government in 2019.

More specifically, I have been advocating for the build-out of solar energy in our district including for schemes led by the council that benefit communities and improve energy security and resilience.

Now, not for the first time, we are in something of a crisis with electricity generation approaching limits as water shortages in our hydro lakes drop and we experience gas shortages.

This pushes wholesale electricity prices up and makes it challenging for energy-hungry industries such as our own WML (Whakatāne Mill Limited).

Spikes in wholesale electricity prices occurred a couple of years ago and we didn’t get the message.

Energy price increases will eventually hit the retail market and us consumers. It is way past time we took energy seriously and understood how lucky we are, but at the same time vulnerable, we are when more than 60 percent of the electricity generated in this country comes from hydro.

I didn’t agree with the stance taken by Mr Bishop that the knee-capping of Kāinga Ora was all right. Government in the happy days of the 1950s and 1960s played a major role in housing in our country and especially our district.

As far as I am aware, there was no housing crisis back then. In our town we have 500 Kāinga Ora properties on which I think we could easily accommodate lots of 120-square-metre apartments on three levels, including a courtyard and parking. More than enough to put roofs over the heads of many in our community.

Maybe even small retirement villages, which everyone knows we desperately need, could be built on these lots.

Instead, thanks to this Government, many of the 150 or so developments that Kāinga Ora is planning in our patch are now in doubt. Instead, we are putting our faith in the market, which has never been able to deliver. As a result of market failures, we have amongst the most unaffordable housing in the world.

The appalling housing availability and affordability crisis that we find ourselves in as a country can only be laid at the feet of Governments of all colours who have embraced the market and effectively aided and abetted a housing Ponzi scheme involving, among other things, the rapacious lending practices of private banks, the promotion of growth and out of control migration levers.

The contribution of local government to this debacle is not totally out of the scope of local government, but we are short on the tools to make a serious impact.

We do need to have, however, a realistic spatial plan that informs us where housing can go. That is under development as I write, and the completion date is expected to be mid-2025. Fingers crossed.

The Prime Minister said there was no such thing as a “Magic Money Tree” and to me, such a refrain is a joke because, in my view, that is exactly what our modern monetary system is.

Money is created from thin air by governments, their central banks and commercial banks, which in New Zealand are virtually all in foreign ownership.

It is obvious, just look at the note you may have in your wallet and read what it says ‘RESERVE BANK of NEW ZEALAND – Te Pūtea Matua’. i.e. it is a note issued by your central bank.

Every time a central bank undertakes “quantitative easing” or “large scale asset purchases”, it has created money from thin air.

Every time a commercial bank makes a loan, it has created money from thin air. If folk don’t believe me, I refer them to some of the kōrero you can find on You Tube from the famous rebel economist Professor Steve Keen (This Is How The Government Prints Money) and many other economists of his ilk who have had enough of the BS promulgated by the mainstream economics community that has been instrumental in putting us in the soup as a society.

Ultimately all money is conjured out of thin air. The important thing is what is done with it. Building critical infrastructure, looking after the housing, education and health of citizens of this country is an investment.

Another speaker, Craig Stobo, is the independent chair of the board of the Local Government Funding Agency (LGFA), from which the council borrows its money. The LGFA is a Council Controlled Organisation (CCO) and I couldn’t help but ask him from where LGFA got its money. The answer is that they issue a piece of paper known as a bond, which national and international investors purchase. In other words, they borrow mostly in New Zealand dollars from others to lend to local government.

Needless to say, those pieces of paper called bonds are backed by us, the people, because we provide the assets and income that guarantees them. We should have central government standing behind us as the lender of last resort, although publicly Government denies it.

There were, of course, a few speakers addressing the issue of climate resilience, although not a hell of a lot about mitigation, which is all about emissions reductions

Ultimately, the entire two days of the conference were about money. How do we in local government get the financial resources we need to deliver on the needs of communities? Since ultimately, money is created from thin air for the people it is incumbent upon us to prioritise and not be wasteful and inefficient. I have to agree with the Prime Minister on this one.