Wednesday this week was a heavy-lifting day at our monthly Council meeting, with some weighty papers to be discussed and decided on.

The first one up was just for information only, but the information was a bit startling to be fair. One of the first decisions I made as an elected member back in the late 2000’s was on the issue of fluoridation of our drinking water. Like many councils, CODC doesn’t fluoridate and last year the Government chose to take the decision-making off individual councils and create a nationwide policy. While the Government hasn’t said outright what the policy will be, it doesn’t take a degree in tealeaf reading to see that fluoridation is going to become mandatory; its just a matter of when.

The report we received told us that the Ministry had requested information on how many drinking water schemes we have servicing over 500 people (we have 5) which may be a hint as to how many are going to need to be fitted out for fluoridation. The report also suggested what the cost of this work may be, and I hope you are sitting down because its going to be around a quarter of a million for each scheme, or $1.25m in total.

My pick is that the Government won’t look to force this onto councils before the signalled three waters reforms happen in mid-2024.

Later in the day council was asked to decide whether or not to enter into a partnership agreement with Aukaha, which is the consultancy firm that support rūnaka that represent mana whenua in the Central Otago District. It is not well understood how much work is already undertaken between Aukaha and council, as many of the reports that come to council or decisions that are made at an operational level require iwi input by law. Aukaha provide that input. For example, the recently completed Destination Management Plan (which was also adopted at Wednesday’s meeting) was required, by law, to have iwi input. That input comes at a cost that has been paid on a job-by-job basis to now. The partnership agreement that council agreed by majority to enter in to lifts that engagement to the next level, allowing Aukaha to be sure of funding in order to resource up to be able to provide a better level of service to council moving forward.

The cost of the agreement for the next year is $35,000 which will come out of existing budgets and $35,000 new money. That equates to a 0.1% rate increase to fund this agreement.

There are a couple of points I want to make on this decision, which I recognise may be challenging to some people. Firstly, this is not at all about iwi getting involved in decision-making at council, it is about iwi being resourced to be able to offer more to the people who provide the reports for your councillors to make decisions on and being able to offer more to the Central Otago community through council in general.

Secondly, I have mentioned above that council is required by law to engage with iwi, but for me that is only a small part of the picture. The more time I spend with iwi at a governance level and beyond, the more I appreciate how much we have to gain from having a closer relationship with iwi and how much is to be gained from considering te o Māori (Māori world view) in decision making.

And finally, another significant factor in my voting in favour of this partnership was discussions with other Mayor’s from councils that have engaged in this way and hearing their unanimous view on the benefits it brings.

The other paper that generated a lot of discussion was in regards to the community consultation on whether or not council has a role in affordable housing and if it does, whether the community (specifically Vincent and Cromwell Wards) are willing to forego the financial benefits that would come from land development if said land was to be passed into the hands of the Central Otago Affordable Housing Trust to built housing under the Queenstown “Secure Homes” model. That consultation will be underway soon and I am looking forward to the conversation with the community and seeing what the outcome is.

All in all, a long day, made harder by attending through Zoom due to being a household contact, while Deputy Mayor Neil gave a masterclass in Chairmanship. I enjoyed a beer at the end of it all, that’s for sure.