Ideas@TheCentre
Comparative costs of councillors
Beating up on politicians for their perks, privileges and salaries is easy. They are often distrusted, and compared to the average worker they get paid well.
But local councillors tend to escape this sort of scrutiny.
Australia has three levels of government: federal, state and local. New Zealand has nominally only two: central and local. Local governments are made up of regional councils, district councils/city councils, and community boards.
In New South Wales, a ‘principal city’ councillor (for example, Sydney) is paid a maximum salary of A$31,000. This drops to A$23,950 in major cities such as Newcastle or Wollongong. Rural councils pay a maximum of A$9,500.
But NZ councillors wouldn’t get out of bed for that.
A kiwi city councillor in a major city earns anywhere from $75,000 (in Tauranga) to $85,000 (in Christchurch). Mayors earn between $137,000 and $170,000, and community board members in Christchurch earn around $11,000. Auckland city councillors get a base rate of $80,000 and local board members from $20,000 to $37,000. The mayor of Auckland earns $240,000.
Compare this to the maximum salary (A$221,000) paid to the Lord Mayor of Sydney, a city whose population is the same as all of New Zealand.
Now compare average incomes: $43,000 in New Zealand and $70,000 in New South Wales. Not only do NZ councillors earn more, but they earn a lot more than the average income and their Australian counterparts.
The lack of state governments in New Zealand may explain this difference. However, given that the central government in New Zealand does most of the things that state governments do in Australia, it raises more questions than it answers.
Do councillors in New Zealand perform a fundamentally different job to their colleagues in Australia? Have elected councillors confused governance with management? Are New Zealand councillors expected to put in a lot more hours than their colleagues across the ditch, or has the Remuneration Authority, over time, awarded a full-time salary for what should be a part-time job? If the role of elected councillors has silently changed over time, it may explain the proliferation in local government regulations and extra rates.
Auckland’s ‘super city’ reform aside, it has been more than 20 years since New Zealand’s last fundamental shakeup of local government. Perhaps it is time for another one.
Luke Malpass is a Policy Analyst with the Centre’s New Zealand Policy Unit.
