ZORAN RAKOVIC: Voluntary, or Else

How Wellington turned a $9 million exercise in compulsory preparation into a lesson in “voluntary” expenditure.

A remarkable misunderstanding has arisen between the Government and local councils over the meaning of the word voluntary.

Local Government Minister Simon Watts invited councils to participate in his Head Start reform programme. They had three months to prepare proposals. Those declining the invitation could instead have an arrangement prepared for them by the Government.

This is apparently what Wellington calls a choice.

It's rather like a burglar inviting you to open your safe voluntarily, explaining that otherwise he'll open it himself.

Naturally, councils employed consultants, held meetings, commissioned reports and spent ratepayers' money preparing their proposals. An estimated $9 million, in fact. Five major Canterbury councils alone managed to spend $428,000 preparing for this “voluntary” exercise.

Then the Government paused the programme.

When the mayors asked who would reimburse their expenditure, Watts explained that participation had been voluntary. One exasperated delegate reportedly protested, "You made us do it."

Nonsense. Nobody made anybody do anything. Councils were perfectly free to refuse… provided they accepted the consequences of refusing!

Watts explained that how much councils had spent was entirely their own responsibility. Which is a splendid principle: the Government tells you what it wants, gives you three months to produce it, threatens to do it for you if you don't, then abandons the exercise and explains that the expense was your initiative.

I expect the confusion arose because mayors, being predominantly simple provincial folk, continue to believe that words have meanings.

In Wellington, however, language has evolved. A consultation is an opportunity to agree (or else!) with a decision already made. A partnership is an arrangement in which one party gives instructions and the other pays. And voluntary means compulsory, provided the compulsion is sufficiently politely expressed.

The councils should consider themselves fortunate. Had the programme proceeded, they'd undoubtedly have been charged for implementing it. Instead, ratepayers have spent “only” an estimated $9 million preparing proposals for a programme the Government has now put on hold.

Nine million dollars spent, nothing delivered, nobody responsible. In Wellington, that's three objectives achieved!

Zoran Rakovic is standing as an Independent candidate for Selwyn and writes at To make the darkness conscious