“Mayors and district councils would take over the duties of regional councils, in a coalition proposal pitched as the biggest shake-up of local government in three decades.” So reports RNZ on Tuesday 25 November 2025 and aint that the truth!!! T’will be a shake-up alright, but will it achieve any of the good things it is intended to?
11 combined territories is the number being bandied about and comprises the first red flag. That means a number of “territories” some of whom will have been doing a great job up until now will be swallowed up into the amorphous mass of mediocrity delivered by their neighbours that previously they had been free to sidestep.
Chris Bishop is quoted as saying “Local government is meant to serve communities, not confuse them, but right now the system is tangled in duplication, disagreements and decisions that defy common sense,”.
Do not forget that this, and the heinous profligacy also claimed by various coalition partners may fairly be attributed to only a section of the sector – and it is pretty unreasonable that communities across the land with any commitment to maintaining a level of “localism” now need to mobilise over the holiday period in order to express a view. Submissions in this first round of consultation close on 20 February.
In the meantime, we can reasonably expect (based on previous experience) that Regional Reorganisation Plans – in between picking up responsibility for previous regional council responsibilities are doomed to emerge looking more like camels than horses – and this government bloody well knows that. I fear it will go the same way as the health reforms where we got a whole nother (unchecked) layer of bureaucracy and not a lot of extra hips or cataracts happening. The great white coalition reset in that department seems to have gone strangely silent and still not much has changed in that particular space.
In the past we have seen entities fall over having been starved of resources – either fiscal or human, and this is no different. It is about the most cynical manipulation of a sector (local government) that I have witnessed in my whole long life. And this is only the first wave. Today, Nicola Willis gleefully informed the nation on RNZ’s Morning report that another announcement regarding control of local government expenditure is expected prior to Christmas.
Reflecting upon previous proclamations by various members of the coalition government, one can’t help thinking that in this “novel” arrangement, they are confident the ineptitude of the mayors and district councils will create the biggest shake-up. Eventually that will become the death knell for local communities having any meaningful involvement in the future design of local solutions for their unique challenges.
Is this all sounding a bit defeatist? Rest assured – should this approach generously coupled with another far-sighted and arbitrary hack at how local government funds itself (before Christmas as promised by Nicola Willis) and liberally seasoned with large dollops of scorn and derision for the sector meted out since the establishment of this coalition government; nobody will be happier than me. In the meantime, a two-month consultation period timed over the Christmas period is tantamount to central government giving the rest of us the middle finger.