Reward by the size

Press, 23 February 1978, Page 6

Reward by the size

By

PHILIP WORTHINGTON

Voters often have their own ideas on the effectiveness and worth of their local-body members; members of the Town Hall board of management found yesterday that the law has its own ideas, too.

For under the Christchurch Town Hall Board of Management Act, 1976, which came into effect on January 31 this year, some of the members of the board are worth $9 a meeting in allowances and others as much as $l7.

' At present the point is I academic. Traditionally the I members of the board have 1 forsaken their right to allowances, preferring to offer their services to the Town Hall administration without charge. Fifteen local-body representatives sit round the board table. Under their new legislation 10 of them — those representing Christchurch City and Waimairi County — are entitled to $l7 a meeting; two more, representing Paparua County, are deemed to be worth $l4 a meeting; and the representatives of Heathcote County and Riccarton and Lyttelton Boroughs qualify for $l9. The problem has arisen because the board’s empowering act was drafted in ' 1975. The act says that each member of the board may be

paid an allowance for each meeting equal to the allow-1 ance he would receive if he was attending a meeting of his own council. In 1975 it was quite

simple. Payments to localbody members were not dependent on the size of the local body. Everyone got $5 a meeting, whether his council was big or small, and it was intended that the board’s act would make no distinction either.

Since then, however, a’ distinction based on size has been made in allowances paid to members of territorial local bodies. The Town Hall board agreed

that it would be a shame to start seeking amendments immediately to the brand new act it waited so long to get. But as soon as another .amendment is needed the question of allowances will ■be tidied up, too.