Wellington Councils Need a Breathalyser Test

In the heart of Wellington sits a gravel lot. It was meant to be a $5.5 million park a decade ago, a little civic green to soften the concrete. Instead, it’s burned through $1.6 million in reports to propose a $42 million boondoggle. It’s not just a would-be park. It’s a metaphor for Wellington City Council.

Welcome to the capital, where local politics is stuck in student union mode. The slogans are slick, the vibes are good, but the pipes are bursting with turds not even a large PR team and an army of outsourced strategic communications consultants can polish. Basic delivery of public services has been replaced by permanent consultation theatre.

Now, Tory Whanau cops a fair amount of stick for WCC’s underperformance, but she didn’t break Wellington. Years of Green policy theatre left the basics to rot. However, under Whanau, delivery was parked while ideology took the wheel, hit the Pinot, and drove the city into a ditch. It’s fair to say that if WCC were a private car, it’d be fitted with a breathalyser interlock by now.

But the problem isn’t just the mayor. It’s a council stuck in the past, insourcing everything, resisting modern delivery models, and mistaking internal headcount for capability. It runs more like a bureaucracy museum than a service provider.

Speaking of not-fit-for-purpose bureaucracy: Wellington Water. Oh, my dear Nelly. How does a multi-council, co-governed, perpetually funded operating entity spend this much money and deliver so little? I’m not even going to finish this thought. I’ll just leave it here.

Wellington was the coolest little capital in the world, a decade ago, before Green politicians destroyed it. Remember when the Arizona Bar had sawdust and peanut shells on the floor?

And into this right wee mess walks Andrew Little, a middle-aged white man with no performative pronouns, but a proven ability to manage stroppy left-wingers and get things done.

Sure, he’s not going to turn the city into the San Francisco of the South Pacific, but he might actually fix something. A pipe. A budget. A broken governance model.

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