In 2013 John Robson was standing for election to Tauranga City Council. In the candidate information supplied, he said: 'Each councillor will collect more than $200,000 in salary during the next three years, regardless of their performance. If I'm elected my salary will be placed in trust, then next election Tauranga voters can decide what I've earned.
The balance will be returned with interest”. Now we come to the tricky bit. How can we, the ratepayers, judge John Robson's performance – or for that matter the performance of any of the other councillors' performance?
Considering there have been 193 confidential briefings between 2013 and May 2016 it will be very difficult to assess the councillors' performances.
It would appear councillor Robson's $200,000 is safe.

D Medhurst, Otumoetai.

John Robson replies: During three years of this council there will be about 260 public committee meetings.
While I feel this council has, collectively, not delivered what is required by the city in terms of rates and debt, I would argue the quality of the debate has been better – more on topic, less personal – than the debate in previous councils. I believe the improved quality of debate is, in part, a result of the number and quality of briefings and workshops – or to put it another way, councillors are spending more time working on understanding issues and less making easy headlines for a certain local daily newspaper.
With regard to judging councillor performance, you have public meetings, associated minutes and audio recordings, public statements on various issues and media coverage.
This is no different to previous elections. Unfortunately, one thing you don't have is the voting record for each councillor – this I'd like to see changed by the next council.