Smith not keen on early council election | Canterbury News | Local News in Canterbury

Local government Minister Nick Smith says holding early elections for the troubled city council would be an absolute last resort.

About 3000 chanting ratepayers turned out in a heated public rally on Wednesday to vent their frustrations at what they saw as a dysfunctional city council, and controversial decisions such as a $68,000 pay rise awarded to chief executive Tony Marryatt.

Mr Marryatt turned down the rise in the face of fierce public criticism, and the Government introduced a Crown observer to try to get the divided council back on track.

The moves have done little to appease ratepayers, who took to the streets yesterday calling for Mr Marryatt to stand down, chanting "out, out, out" and demanding an early election to put together a new council.

Dr Smith said yesterday that early elections would effectively "neuter" the council for nine of the next 18 months.

"The local government act in which I could appoint a review authority... would take about three months. We would then go into local council elections - if it was recommended as the right way forward - that would put us back another three months. And of course we would still, under the law, have to have council elections again in 2013. That would effectively have the Christchurch City Council in caretaker mode for nine months of the next 18 months."

However, if the council did completely "melt down" the Government would reluctantly initiate an early election, Dr Smith said.

"That's a last resort and we're saying we want to give this Crown observer intervention the best chance."

Mayor Bob Parker said people needed to understand that the council was at the most extraordinary place in its history.

"No local government organisation in New Zealand has ever had to cope with the stuff that we're coping with at a personal and a professional level. This is understandable. It's okay, draw a breath, re-focus, get the job done, that's what we need."