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All in Central Government
Former Hastings District Council Mayor, National Party MP, and president of Local Government New Zealand Lawrence Yule has been appointed as a Crown Manager to both Wairoa District and Hawke’s Bay Regional Councils in order to oversee flood protection works for the town of Wairoa, with central government having invested $70 million in the vital infrastructure work.
Hot on the heels of having largely reannounced Labour’s Budget 2023 announcement for new trains for the lower North Island, it now appears the National-led Coalition Government’s Local Water Done Well reform package is slowly morphing into something that looks very similar to the previous Labour Government’s Affordable Water reforms.
Double-digit rate rises over recent years have highlighted the political and economic unsustainability of a local government funding system that is overly reliant on property rates. But what are the alternatives? Local Aotearoa explores and assesses some of the possibilities that could help diversify revenue streams from councils.
The threat of central government intervention is often cast as a spectre over the existence of local government, especially whenever contentious issues are at play for councils. But how realistic are fears of the Local Government Minister hitting the nuclear option and appointing commissioners? The reality might surprise you…
A process which began more than three years ago to much fanfare was extinguished in the blink of an eye on the evening of Friday 5 July as Local Government Minister Simeon Brown quietly put the Future for Local Government Review out of its misery via a Beehive press release. Now it looks like progressive iterations, rather than wholesale reformation, is on the cards for local government.
In the National-led Coalition’s third quarter action plan one item hasn’t received the attention it deserves - Cabinet deciding of the framework for National’s city and regional deals. So what might be on the cards for local government when negotiating these deals finally gets underway?
