Waimakariri Council Boss Pushes Back At Debt Criticism

Wednesday, 15 October 2025, 4:40 pm
Article: David Hill - Local Democracy Reporter

Waimakariri’s council boss says it's been frustrating to watch candidates fan the flames of confusion about the council’s debt. 

Dan Gordon won a third term as Waimakariri mayor, but he faced intense scrutiny over the North Canterbury council's debt levels during pre-election debates. 

The council has also had three years of record numbers of requests for information under the Local Government Official Information and Meetings Act. 

‘‘It’s normal to get a lot of requests in an election year, because we have aspiring candidates who want up to date information about the council,’’ council chief executive Jeff Millward said. 

‘‘But it appears to be a lot more than in previous years.’’ 

What has been particularly frustrating is candidates putting council information on social media with sections deliberately blacked out to mislead the public, he said. 

‘‘It’s been an interesting three years, but we’ve stuck to the plan (Long Term Plan), despite the economic environment and high inflation, and we’ve consistently had one of the lowest rate rises in the country.’’ 

The council’s debt to income ratio is around 138%, well below the 350% limit for growth councils set by the Local Government Funding Agency. 

Waimakariri’s debt sits at $210m, down from the $220m listed in the 2025/26 annual plan adopted in June. 

But there is an additional $98m of ‘internal borrowing’ as the council has sought to reduce the impact on ratepayers during the earthquake rebuild, then the Covid years, with high inflation and high interest rates. 

‘Internal borrowing’ is where the council uses reserve funding, which has been set aside for building replacement, to fund projects. 

The earthquake loan, for example, sits at around $70.5m, which includes $49.9m of external borrow and $20.6m of internal borrowing, which will need to be replaced. 

The council’s earthquake loan, to pay for the rebuild after the 2010 and 2011 quakes, came under particular scrutiny, as candidates questioned Mr Gordon’s statement at a candidate’s meeting that the council had borrowed around $100m for the earthquake rebuild. 

‘‘He’s right. When Dan was quoting $100m he was talking about the earthquake loan and betterment funding,’’ Mr Millward said. 

While the earthquake loan balance now sits at around $49.9m, the council has also loan funded what it calls ‘betterment’ from the recreation rate. 

‘‘You can’t simply rebuild what you had,’’ Mr Millward said. Buildings need to be restored or rebuilt to the existing building code, and must last 50 or 100 years. 

For example, the Rangiora Town Hall restoration cost $10.6m, with around half of the funds coming from the earthquake loan and half from the recreation rate. 

While the earthquake loan is rated equally across all ratepayers, the recreation rate is more of a targeted rate.

- LDR is local body journalism co-funded by RNZ and NZ On Air.

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