Kia ora my name is Jack Karetai-Barrett and I’m a year ten student at Whakatane High School. This months article is going to be about Youth Councils throughout Aotearoa and using your voice to be part of making change.
Last month, I was elected as the co-deputy chair of the Whakatane District Youth Council. The other co-deputy chair is Jasper House, and our chair is Charlotte Billings.
In Aotearoa, Youth Councils give young people a chance to share their ideas with local leaders and decision-makers. They help young people get involved in their communities, learn leadership skills, and make sure their voices count in decision-making for the future of the community. For most people who get involved in political roles, it is becuase there is something in their community that they want to see changed. But you also have to be interested in whats best for the whole community, not just the things that are important to you.
The things that matter the most to me in my role on the youth council, are waste management, mountain biking, and recreation spaces for kids. It’s the importance of those things in my life that made me want to get involved. But since getting involved, I’ve started to get really interested in all the different jobs our council does in our community.
According to LGNZ, (Local Government New Zealand) a Council's role is “to enable democratic decision-making by and for communities and to promote their social, economic, environmental and cultural wellbeing. In practice, this means everything from footpaths and lighting and the supply of freshwater/wai to resource management and environmental health and safety.”
According to the Whakatane District Council website, our council’s “vision is to be known as the place of choice for people to live, work and play.”
They also say:
“In achieving our vision:
Our community will be safe and surrounded by people who are friendly and caring
Businesses will be thriving
There will be respect for and pride in our history
We will be successful guardians of our natural environment
Our purpose is to lead the Whakatāne District to sustainable economic, social, environmental and cultural well-being.
As a District Council we will achieve this through:
Good governance, leadership and advocacy
Integrated, long-term planning
Effective and reliable community infrastructure
Outstanding service delivery”
The important thing to understand about a council’s role in the community and their aspirations, is that their vision has to be funded somehow, and no one is ever happy with how much they have to pay for things. Councils are funded by several different sources, the first and the one all adults seem to complain about the most is “rates”. Rates are paid by people who own land. The more land you own and the more the land is worth, the more you have to pay - that seems fair to me.
There are so many rates! General rates, targeted rates, differential rates, uniform annual general charges, and water rates. Mum says theres also another rate that we have to pay to the Regional Council. You can learn about how all the rates are caculated on the LGNZ website - it is very helpful. As well as all the rates, there are development contributions, subsidies and grants, and fees and charges.
A council has so many responsibilities, and quite a few different sources of income to pay for everything. But how do they choose what to pay for? Every three years, we have an election where we elect the people who represent what matters most to us at the table where all the decisions are made. They also set the future plans for the community, and figure out where they can get money from and how the money will be spent. When I read the letters to the editor of the Whakatane Beacon, it looks to me like people just vote so they have someone to complain about. But actually, I know some of our councillors very well, and I know how hard they work and how much they care about our community. I think we should complain less and have more conversations about whats important to us.
At the moment, the Councils long term plan is being renewed. At our Youth Council meeting we learned that the council has to renew it’s long term plan every three years to make sure it’s still heading in the direction the community wants it to go. As members of the public, no matter if we’re a school kid, or retired, or anywhere in between, we’re allowed to make a submission on the long term plan, to make sure that our councillors understand whats important to our community. The council will read and hear all the submissions, set it’s long term plans, and then find the money that it needs to achieve it’s plans for the community. Last time we had a long term plan, I went with my mum to talk about mountain biking, but nothing really came of that. I felt a bit cynical, but mum reminds me that COVID happened, lots of weather events happened, and Whakaari happened. Those all happened unexpectedly, so the Council's plans and priorities had to change since the community's needs had changed. I’m going to have another go this year to talk about mountain biking, and how important our recreation spaces are in the community for us kids. But the thing thats most important to me right now, is what I learned from attending the EQC public meeting at the War Memorial hall last month. They taught us that we need to prepare for an earthquake that could be as high as a 9 on the Richter scale, and cause a really big tsunami. I think our council needs to make preparing for that its number one priority. It’s hard to prepare for, but it’s really important that we do.
I hope that you take the time to have a look at the Council's long term plan, and make a submission. You can find the plan and the online submission page on the Council website. If you don’t like using a computer, then you can visit the Council and someone will help you. If we can’t be bothered to let the Council know whats important to us, then we probably shouldn’t complain afterwards when we’re not happy with the decisions they make.
I would like to give a shout out to Andrew Isles and Toi Iti (BOPRC) for being amazing role models for me. They have shown me how being involved in something like Council gives you the chance to have your say. Please have your say by Friday 12th of April 2024. You can make your submission online, send your submission in, or you can ask to speak at a meeting to the Councillors!
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