Heritage et AL

The Danger of Interesting Times Voter turnout for the Auckland 2025 local body elections indicated that interest in local governance is at an all-time low. The region received the lowest turnout in the country of only 29.3%. This disinterest seems to stem from the fact that local governance is a fairly dull task, which can be a double-edged sword. On one hand, high voter turnout is important for a functioning democracy. On the other, the reason local government is seen as boring could be that it functions well, so it can remain in the background. One only has to look back to the mostly forgotten and tumultuous colonial history of Auckland’s early local government in the 1850s and 60s to see why a ‘boring’ council is far preferable to an ‘interesting’ one. A permanent, municipal council for Auckland was established in 1871, but only after two decades of effort and four failed iterations. The first two attempts, the Auckland Borough Council (1851-1852) and the first Auckland City Council...