‘A behind-the-scenes operator’: Nick Smith on Wellington’s Crown observer

When the Government announced a Crown observer was being appointed at Wellington City Council, former Cabinet minister and current Mayor of Nelson Nick Smith knew just the man for the job.
Smith wrote to Local Government Minister Simeon Brown and recommended Lindsay McKenzie, the former chief executive of Gisborne and Tasman district councils.
Smith told On the Tiles Local Edition, the Herald’s politics podcast, that McKenzie is a low-key type.
“This is a behind-the-scenes competent operator who’s able to work across the political spectrum and try and get people to constructively work together.”
Smith and McKenzie have crossed paths several times during their careers.
“The main way I know him was that he was the chief executive of the Tasman District Council that incorporated a significant portion of my Nelson electorate when I was the member of Parliament and just found him a very sensible, non-political, safe set of hands in the local government sector.”
Smith also brought McKenzie in to help him sort out problems at Nelson City Council after he became the mayor in 2022.
The council had significant governance issues, with several recent code of conduct complaints and huge tensions around the table, Smith said.
Meanwhile, the previous council chief executive had announced his retirement.
Smith employed McKenzie as Nelson City Council’s interim chief executive.
“I just found his advice in terms of both the staffing as well as the elected council really helpful in getting the Nelson City Council on to a more constructive footing.”
Smith also knew of McKenzie’s work in Invercargill as an external appointee when the very public issues with then-mayor Tim Shadbolt were playing out.
“And so on that basis, both in terms of wanting Wellington City Council to get out of their hole and also wanting the Government to find the right person for the job, I wrote to Simeon [Brown] and said you should consider Lindsay.”
The Government intervened at Wellington City Council after the council stopped the controversial sale of its stake in the airport which upended the Long-term Plan and triggered hundreds of millions of dollars worth of budget cuts.
Lindsay has respectfully declined an interview request from the Herald about his background and first impressions of the council.
This was because he needed to reserve his observations for the reports he was obligated to make to the Local Government Minister.
Smith said it did not surprise him.
“I think his approach will be one of not speaking with a megaphone through the media, but talking privately with the councillors and the council staff and coaching them about how they can get themselves out of their hole.”
Smith said there has always been debate and nervousness in Wellington about the degree to which the Government respects local democracy and local councils getting on with their business.
“On the other hand, Government can also be criticised for turning a blind eye when things clearly become dysfunctional and start having a flow-on effect in terms of the national scene.”
Smith said Wellington had been experiencing difficulty for some time.
He said he felt a bit sorry for Mayor Tory Whanau in that many of the issues she faced were the consequences of historical underinvestment in infrastructure.
Sir John Key’s Government, in which Smith served as a minister, amended the Local Government Act to include lesser levels of intervention at councils as opposed to only the “nuclear approach” of commissioners.
“I think that was a good reform because what it does is allows the Government to sort of give a warning shot as well as assistance.
“With the appointment of a Crown observer to a council like Wellington that’s quite shaky, maybe not at the point where you would appoint commissioners, but at the point that if you don’t, there’s a risk, you end up with that more extensive intervention in the affairs of a council.”
The danger in intervening is that the council’s problems become the Government’s fault, Smith said.
“So they would have thought about it pretty carefully. They’re walking that fine line between, are they being political? Are they playing with a straight bat?”
That’s one of the reasons Smith said he recommended McKenzie.
“He comes with a very strong local government background, he doesn’t have a political bone in his body and that in my view, one, I think he will do a good job for Wellington and help that council, but also a view that it would be difficult for anybody to put a political flavour on an appointment like Lindsay McKenzie to assisting the Wellington City Council.”
Listen to the full episode of the On the Tiles podcast to hear more from Nick Smith about whether he thinks Wellington City Council can turn around its woes.
On the Tiles is available on iHeartRadio, Apple Podcasts, Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts. New episodes are available on Fridays.
The podcast is hosted by Georgina Campbell, a Wellington-based reporter who has a particular interest in local government, transport, and seismic issues. She joined the Herald in 2019 after working as a broadcast journalist.