Marcus Lush: 'Calibre of councillors is so woeful'
“We’ve got to get people better into councils rather than retired, conservative, grumpy old men.”
Marcus Lush has had a verbal crack at the “woeful” calibre of local government representatives saying New Zealand need better councillors than “retired, conservative, grumpy old men”.
Lush is a national broadcaster who was also an Invercargill city councillor during the previous local government term.
He stood for the Invercargill mayoralty at October’s election but finished third behind Nobby Clark and Toni Biddle.
Speaking on his Marcus Lush Nights programme on the Newstalk ZB station Lush said many councillors had been there for too long.
Lush’s comments surfaced following a call from Wellington City Council councillor Ray Chung.
Chung offered up his thoughts as to why he believed elections should remain at three-year terms rather than be extended to four years as some have suggested.
“I’ve got a fair bit to say about it, I don’t know if you’d be interested,” Lush said.
“I’d say the calibre of councillors is so woeful, a lot of them get in there and they are there for life. I think we need people to be more engaged with local body councils.
“If they have elections more often it might mean people get more involved with it, that would be my take.
“It seems like lots of people get into council and they never leave. People need to get much more engaged with it.
“We’ve got to get people better into councils rather than retired, conservative, grumpy old men.”
Lush asked the caller if he was one of them.
“I’m grumpy that’s for sure,” the Wellington councillor responded.
Lush asked him if he was over 65, which he said he was close to that age.
“It might be time you tapped out,” Lush said.
“I kind of think that all of these councillors have been there for so long. There needs to be more elections and people moving on quicker. That would be my take.”
Lush was elected to the Invercargill City Council as a councillor in 2021 when a by-election was held.
He picked up over 7000 of the 14,700 votes cast. The next closest candidate attracted 1534 votes.
However, at the last election, he stood only for the mayoralty opting not to also stand as a councillor.
Lush has been approached for further comment on his take about the state of councillors.
Some “grumpy old men” would be preferable than Marcus, he didn’t seem to say or do anything when he was on our council. More interested in what was on his phone from what I watched.
Couldn't agree more that some people are on councils for far too long. Could be easily fixed with a limit of three terms.
It seems many have a difficult time once they are disconnected from the public teat and quickly move to the next one rather than the reality of what most people experience as can be seen by the ex-parliamentarians who quickly use the public profile to move on to local authority positions to keep some income coming in. Others seem to think they own their positions.
The simple fact is that almost anyone who is on council has a much greater chance of being re elected than any new candidates putting their hands up.
The biggest issue by far is the total lack of engagement in the democratic process because people feel their voices dont get heard. 32% of the people able to vote actually voting should send the signal that the system is broken.