‘Drop-out’ promotes reform

Press, 20 June 1989, Page 1

‘Drop-out’ promotes reform

PA , Wellington Gary McCormick, the man now urging New Zealanders to play a responsible role in local government reform, was once a. councillor who went walkabout from the Porirua City Council, the “Evening Post” reports. ’ The council was forced to hold a by-. election to replace him in 1971, after a. ratepayers’ poll which cost S3HO. The poet and television personality resigned eight days before being. automatically debarred from office. ' “Evening Post” records show he failed to attend three council meetings. Had he not . shown up at the next one, he would have been compelled to resign. The then Town Clerk, Mr R. G. Walsh, saM Mr McCormick would have missed his fourth consecutive meeting on September 22, I*7s, had he not resigned first,

“He was, however, a regular attender until he went walkabout last November,” Mr Walsh said al: the time. ? Asked yesterday how he now could talk about council accountability when he had once failed In his duties as a councillor himself, Mr McCormick said he joined Porirua Council “charged with youthful ideology” but found he could not. shift entrenched attitudes. (In a letter or resignation at the time, he said he was wit waste time ' and energy fighting the tide of reaction, as he had been unable to bring about a single concession towards ah alternative or more appropriate way for the future.) Yesterday Mr McCormick said local government had changed for the better, with those Involved more receptive to ideas. If it had not, and ;if the reforms -were'not going to improve things even

more, “I would not be involved.” •, “There is now a willingness for change on a large scale,” he said. Not quite so comfortable, however, was a public relations executive whose company suggested to internal affairs that Mr McCormick was the ideal person to front the campaign. / There was a pause, when a Consulfus ■ executive, Mr John Bishop, was told ofcMr McCormick’s involvement with Porirua r City Council. - ; . “We. did not choose:him for his past =. association with local government,” Mr ••= . Bishop said. “That is not a relevant consideration. “We were looking for somebody who was known and 'who could, in our judgment, speak sensibly: to a large number of people.” '