Papanui riding change rejected

Press, 3 July 1979, Page 6

Papanui riding change rejected

Ratepayers in Waimairi County’s Papanui riding will be represented by only one councillor for another three vears.

The county council last evening decided that the number of councillors should not be increased to 14 by "he addition of another councillor for Papanui. The question arose after the defeat of last month’s move to even out the number of ratepayers in the Papanui, Harewood, and Belfast ridings. This failed when the Papanui riding member (Cr W. T. Rice), used his veto to oppose the transfer of part of his riding to Harewood. Part of Harewood would have gone to Belfast as compensation. Officially, the business of last evening s meeting was toI review the basis of county[ elections under section 56 of! the Local Government Act, j 1974. The council’s decision I last evening applied to the! 1980 local body elections and; will hold for the next three! years. In effect, however, the; meeting was to confirm the! position as it was before the j defeat of last month's equal-I ising move. Cr Rice proposed instead that his riding could be fairly | represented by the addition! of another councillor, rather j than by its being cut up. The 12 councillors present split 6-6 on his motion, but] it was lost on the casting) vote of the chairman (Mr! D. B. Rich). Two objections to the resolution that the number of councillors remain static! were received. One was from the Red-1 wood co-ordinating commit- i tee; Cr Rice quoted from its! submissions. The committee said that! under the act in Question,[ population was the first and: most important factor which'

a local body should consider! when determining electoral | representation. It said that Papanui had al ratio of 8591 ratepayers to I its one councillor. By con-| trast, the other four ridings' represented by’ only one councillor had an average population of 4060. The four ridings represented by two councillors had a ratio of t 5646 to each councillor. i Mr Rich said that on per-1 centage the discrepancy was I even greater in Belfast.' which had only about 20001 ratepayers. He 'said that the council j should not consider any. “piecemeal solution” to ,the ■problem. "We don’t want to examine this thing in isolation.” j The easy solution had earllier been put to Cr Rice, and | he had rejected it. i The position had not! ichanged significantly since it I | was last considered three years before, Mr Rich said; I after the meeting. The council preferred to wait to see I how the county was growing jbefore it took action. i In putting his case, Cr Rice had noted that with the [possible exception of Christ- | church City, no other territor-

Hal local body’ in the South Island existed where one [member was called on to represent 8591 people. I Cr A A. Adcock supported [Cr Rice’s motion, that the number of councillors be inI creased to 14. “This position existed when we last reviewed it three years ago,” Cr Adcock said. “At that time, with other [councillors, I believed that it : was not the right time to act. ! “Since we declined to take [this action I have a strong [feeling that the people in l Papanui are being treated unIjustly and undemocratically. I “Population must be the imain basis of representation: that is the core of our electoral system. Papanui ratepayers can justifiably assert that they are being penalised.” Cr Adcock said. Cr H. M. Tait said that it i was ‘ population and populaItion alone which was reflected in the pressure on a councillor. The sheer number lof ratepayers binding a councillor was at issue. “Rateable value and area do not come into this at all,” Cr Tait said. “We are contemplating a councillor’s [ workload There’s a limit to the pressure a person can take.”