Councillors get pay bump, but salaries still below other unitary councils

Kira Carrington, Local Democracy Reporter

Newly inaugurated Marlborough councillors have received a slightly larger pool of money for their pay packages, but their salaries still lag behind similar unitary authorities.

The remuneration pool, from which all councillors except the mayor are paid, is allocated by the government-run Remuneration Authority, but the councillors must divvy up the money between themselves.

The mayor’s pay is set by the Remuneration Authority.

Councillors voted on the divvy up at an extraordinary council meeting on Thursday.

At the start of the meeting, councillor Raylene Innes presented mayor Nadine Taylor with a whole bag of chocolate fish, making good on her “chocolate fish fine” after her ringtone interrupted Taylor’s mayoral address in their first meeting of the term last week.

Councillor-elect Malcolm Taylor joined the meeting via video link, despite being unable to vote as he had not yet been sworn in.

Council’s democratic services manager Mike Porter said the pay pool for 2026 was $680,944, up from $655,890 in 2025. The increase brought the councillor’s pay in line with their Nelson counterparts.

“We're actually the same now [as Nelson but] still lagging behind Tasman and Gisborne,” Porter said.

Tasman had a remuneration pool of about $717,000, which increased to about $803,000 after the election. A Tasman councillor’s base pay was about $50,000 before the election. Tasman had a population of about 60,000 compared to about 51,000 in Marlborough.

Councillor Gerald Hope questioned why Marlborough councillors’ pay was not closer to Tasman’s considering the districts had more in common than Marlborough did with Nelson.

“Is the formula right? Is it fair, and does it represent the workload of an area like our unitary in Marlborough?”

Hope said lower pay detracted younger people from standing for local government.

“If we want bright young people to succeed into local government, they have to be rewarded to attract them to offset their costs of homes and childcare.”

Councillor Barbara Faulls said she thought the Remuneration Authority should look at standardising councillor pay nationally.

“As councillors, surely we're all doing the same work,” Faulls said.

“I don't really see why there is such a difference between big population bases and smaller ones, and I definitely don't see why there is a difference between Tasman and Marlborough.”

Half of Marlborough’s 14-seat council was to receive pay higher than the base salary of $44,500 per year to reflect their various responsibilities.

Deputy mayor David Croad would take home the most at $61,344 per year, up 2.5% on last term. Porter said the extra pay reflected the extra hours per week the deputy mayor worked, sometimes up to 10 extra hours.

Councillors Barbara Faulls, Brian Dawson, and Gerald Hope, who were chairs of standing committees, received $54,700 each, up 1.1%.

Chairs of statutory and joint committees, like the joint Marlborough Regional Forestry Committee with Kaikōura District Council, would get slightly less at $49,000.

Deputy chairs of committees would receive $47,500, which was $3000 more than the base salary.

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

ENDS