Over the weekend Stuff had an analysis of the demographics of our local body "representatives". It was a horrifying read. The average councillor is dead, white, and male, and there are more councillors named "John" than there are councillors born after 1980. Representative? Not very. Local government is basicly a gerontocracy. And that explains a great deal about why our councils deny climate change, skimp on social services, and persistently underfund infrastructure by Keeping Rates Low.
So what can we do about it? The first step is encouraging people who aren't dead white males to run, and there's some promising signs this year. But ultimately it comes down to us at the ballot box (or rather, the voting form). And for that, there's some simple rules to rebalance our representation:
- Vote for women
- Vote for young people
- Don't vote for anyone named "John"
