Recently I posted an English translation of Wellington City Council’s response to my Official Information Act request for more information on their proposed new motorcycle fee structure. I posted a link to that in the Wellington Riders Facebook group, because I figured it was relevant to their interests.
It was.
I have been asked to write up a guide on how to get the government to reconsider a policy that’s not likely to go down well with the people most affected by it. So I will.
First, some background on me, so you know I’m not just Some Guy on the Internet with an Opinion (I mean, that is also true, but…)
- I worked in New Zealand local government for over five years
- I have worked in New Zealand central government for about the same length of time
- During my time in both government sectors, I was a key participant in the government side of running public consultation processes
I’ve been part of consultations on Proposed District Plans, Annual Plans, Long Term Plans, Smokefree 2025, and many others. I’ve helped run consultations on controversial topics that drew vehement public backlash too, like managed retreat from Matatā properties threatened by landslips, and a proposal to build a retirement community within throwing distance of a Whakatāne urupa.
I’ve seen how to get the government to change course on its proposals. I’ve also seen the circumstances under which the government will never, ever back down. I’ll talk about those first.
When the government absolutely, positively will not back down
If the idea your local government is putting out for submission is the mayor’s pet project, 999 times in 1000 you can forget any chance of the organisation changing its mind no matter what you say. This is why despite years of protests from several of the local Māori in the Whakatāne District, the controversial plan to build a retirement village across the river from the city went through. The mayor wanted it to go through — this was his legacy project, one that he spent nearly 20 years fighting for, and nothing less than a smackdown from the NZ Supreme Court or Environment Court was going to change his mind.
If the government has a “safety” spin on its proposal, then yeah, forget it, it’s happening. NZTA did a series of token consultations on its proposed speed limit reductions on SH5 (Napier-Taupō road) and SH2 between Featherston and Masterton, but another OIA request of mine showed that NZTA never seriously considered not lowering the speed limits and didn’t take public sentiment into account in its decision-making process at all. “Consultations are not a vote” they put it to me, bluntly, and there could be no clearer demonstration of the arrogance of some of these government departments and the degree to which they have forgotten who they actually work for.
The third and final time a government organisation won’t change course on its plans is when they’re technically not even allowed to. NZTA’s now-defunct “Road to Zero” campaign included several legislative gotchas that required local governments to also lower speed limits on locally-owned roads not even managed by NZTA. These local government organisations put these proposals out for consultation, but legally speaking their hands were pretty much tied no matter what the ratepayers’ feedback was — NZTA had managed to tie everything up in a neat little bow, or noose, depending on your perspective.
When these things happen, your only real recourses are:
- Raise hell and try to get media attention
- Hope that the baleful glare of a front-page article on Stuff or NZ Herald makes the organisation backpedal
If (usually when) that doesn’t work, you only have one option left: wait for the next election, and vote the bastards out.
With that out of the way, here’s how to get the government to change its mind when there’s actually a chance of making that happen.
How to make your voice heard, and make it count
Sometimes, as in the scenarios outlined above, the outcome is pre-determined no matter what you say. But contrary to what you might expect, this is rarer than most people might think. Even though the government may have explicitly listed a “preferred option” among four or so alternatives, most of the time the organisation is genuinely interested in public feedback to see if they got it mostly right, mostly wrong, or (usually) somewhere in the middle.
Local government organisations are legally required to solicit submissions on the District Plan, Annual Plan, and Long Term Plan, and in my experience they take submissions on all three of these very seriously. They do in fact read every submission received, and Council staff sort them into broad categories for easy consumption by the elected members when crafting the final version of whatever Plan is under consideration.
So when the government opens public submissions on a topic you actually care about, the easiest way to make your voice heard is to use it. Fill out the submission form. Depending on what organisation made it, the form will either be very user-friendly or close to incomprehensible and all but unusable, but power on through the multiple-choice questions and checkboxes anyway. If you’re lucky, there will be a free-text field (or a way to attach a separate Word document) where you can go into fuller detail on what you think about their proposal and why. My advice here, as someone who has both made and received submissions, is to stay on topic, refrain from being abusive, and argue the facts of the case more so than your opinions.
If you know of an organisation or business that is likely to be affected by the proposal in the same way your are, make them aware of it if they aren’t already, and encourage them to make a submission as well. Whether it’s fair or not, Councils do seem to give greater weight to submissions from organisations and businesses than they do from “ordinary” people — I don’t think this is anything specifically nefarious on their part, it’s just human nature at work.
If you’re comfortable speaking to your submission before Council (not all people are), if you’re able to commit the time, and if you’re passionate enough about what you’re submitting on, then absolutely go do it. Words on a page or a screen are one thing, but hearing an actual person make a passionate and (hopefully) well-informed defence of their argument carries a lot more sway. The advice here is largely the same as it was for your written submission — be as well-researched and well-prepared as you can, stay on topic, don’t be a dick, and stick to the facts.
Following the above guidelines, it is absolutely possible to get the government to change its mind on something it’s proposed. As just one example, Wellington City Council made its first attempt at charging motorcyclists for parking as part of its Parking Policy consultation in 2020, but overwhelmingly negative public feedback convinced them to drop that idea. Now that they’ve made the same proposal again, it’s time to make our voices heard again.
And if they don’t listen, the same advice previously mentioned applies:
- Raise hell and try to get media attention
- Hope that the baleful glare of a front-page article on Stuff or NZ Herald makes the organisation backpedal
- If (usually when) that doesn’t work, wait for the next election and vote the bastards out.