Akaroa businesses welcome bill

Press, 24 June 1986, Page 9

Akaroa businesses welcome bill

New legislation on local body elections that will prevent bach owners from voting in areas they do not live in can only be good for the people living in Akaroa and Banks Peninsula, says the chairman of the Akaroa and Districts Business Association, Mr Les Day. Mr Day said the Local Authorities (Elections, Polls and Voting Rights) Bill being introduced in

Parliament could be good for the community because it meant residents “would at least be in control of their own destiny.”

The bill would standardise local body and Parliamentary electoral rolls. It would remove the ratepayer franchise except for land drainage boards, river boards, and pest destruction boards. Property owners would be

able to vote only for territorial local bodies responsible for the areas in which they lived.

This meant bach owners would be allowed to vote in Akaroa only if they elected the town as their place of residence, said the County Clerk, Mr Lyn Graham.

Wainui and Duvauchelle would probably be affected most by the bill because they were the

predominantly bach-own-ing areas, said Mr Day.

Akaroa businesses were owned mostly by people living in the area, and so there had never been a problem with companies “storming in and turning everything upside down.”

If the bill became law it would prevent “townies” from voting into power councillors sympathetic to them, said Mr Day. An example of how bach owners could possibly stop development they did not want was the Duvauchelle sewerage scheme, he said. “Those who originally voted against the scheme were the bach owners who did not want it because it would cost them $5000.” In the main, however, bach owners and residents in Akaroa and the surrounding districts were “all quite compatible” and the situation had “never really got out of control,” said Mr Day.

The Akaroa County Council had previously been concerned that permanent residents of Akaroa could lose control of their council if the bill became law because it was to have established an absentee residential Electors’ List. This would have allowed holidayhome owners to have two votes.

The effect would have been to substantially increase the voting power of holiday-home owners.

The council had made submissions to the bill asking that people who owned property in Akaroa be allowed to keep a special vote but not two, said Mr Graham.

As a result of submissions made by Akaroa County Council and several other counties the bill had come back from its select committee readings without the original provision allowing absentee ratepayers not on the main roll a special vote,

said Mr Graham.

The bill had, however, gone “a bit further than we had suggested.” At present 66 per cent of Akaroa County voters lived outside the county, and only 37 per cent of homes in Akaroa belonged to permanent residents, said Mr Graham. The county had a permanent population of about 2000, of whom about 700 lived in the township. During the summer the population increased up to 6000 in the town, and up to 8000 in the county.

The effect of the bill in its present form was to take a lot of people off the electoral roll, he said. “People who have substantial investments in Akaroa will, in fact, not be able to exercise a vote at the polls.”

Mr Graham said it was unfortunate that legislation could not be enacted to provide special provision for specific areas.